cut down by grape and canister, the Maryland onset drove the British back behind the stone Cortelyou house. Once they forced the gunners from their guns, but at last, overwhelmed by numbers, the survivors fell back, leaving 256 killed out of 400. It was the sight of this brilliant charge and the spirited but frightfully unequal contest that caused Washington to wring his hands in anguish and say: "Good God! what brave fellows I must lose this day!"
While these Marylanders gallantly sacrificed their lives to hold Cornwallis in check, a large portion of Stirling's command crossed the Gowanus Creek and brought the tattered colors of Smallwood's regiment and over twenty prisoners within the lines. The battle was over at noon. The bodies of the gallant Maryland heroes—the flower of the army—were afterward buried on a small knoll or island. Third Avenue runs across it, between Seventh and Eighth Streets, but its site is far below the present street level.
In estimating the service of these Marylanders, it is to be recalled that they were young, never before under fire, and were led without their own colonel, who was detached the day before for a court-martial in New
