to be some six or seven hundred strong. Emmerich
and his party, meanwhile, had retreated across Spyt
den Duyvel Creek, and were cut off from the
chasseurs, as the bridge was in the hands of the enemy.
The whole corps with the cavalry therefore advanced
to clear the bridge, and the Americans retreated slowly.
Wurmb having accomplished his first object, and
believing that the enemy was trying to draw him into
an ambuscade, halted his command and reported to
headquarters. In the afternoon the American army
advanced and encamped on Valentine's Hill, extending
over Courtland's Reach to Spyt den Duyvel. The
Hessian loss in the engagement was thirty men killed
and wounded.[1]
On the 6th of July, 1781, the French army, under Rochambeau, joined that of Washington before New York, and for more than a month a skirmishing warfare was kept up. Sir Henry Clinton expecting to be besieged in New York whenever the French fleet should arrive from the West Indies. At last, on the 18th of August, 1781, the enemy was reported to be crossing the North River. Still Clinton's eyes were not opened. In vain did Lieutenant-colonel von Wurmb of the chasseurs, who had permission to send out spies on his own account, warn the commander-in-chief that the allied army was on its way to Virginia. The lieutenant-colonel had two grounds for believing this. The first was that preparations had been made to provide the Americans and Frenchmen with food and forage on the road across New Jersey; the second, that the lieutenant-colonel had been informed that an
- ↑ MS. journal of the Jäger Corps; Ewald's “Belehrungen,” vol. i. p. 5-8.
