We have retreated to Harlem Heights where we will make a stand though I know not what for, our numbers are greatly diminished due to casualties and men taking leave with the expiration of their conscription. Many are sick and require transport, and the able are emaciated with ragged clothes that barely cling to their limbs. Our morale is much too low for an open engagement, especially if it is anything like what transpired in Brookland. Our most prudent action at this moment would be to burn the city to the ground so as not to provide our enemies with readymade home and harbor, then flee. Unfortunately, the politicians in congress still carry the belief, of which they would be acquitted if they had but one glance at our condition, that we should defend our constructed fortifications that guard the mouth of the strategic Hudson River, which cuts the northern colonies from the rest. The British are biding their time to cross the river, but when they do it will be with steady force, and our current position is futile as we are still on an island in the midst of waters controlled by their navy. No doubt, we have many rivers to ford and will have to retreat further inland out of the range of gunboats, west to New Jersey, to Pennsylvania, and into the mountains and across the Mississippi if we have to, for we know not how far this unexplored continent stretches west, and it is far too massive for the British to control in its entirety. As long as our legs will carry us we can retreat out of reach, and return when we have regained our strength.
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