Evacuation Site – Fulton Landing
Revolutionary War Heritage Trail
Near this location, the American army retreated across the East River to Manhattan after its disastrous defeat in the Battle of Brooklyn on August 27, 1776.
Badly outnumbered and cornered by British troops under the command of General William Howe, the Americans were on the brink of annihilation when Washington pulled off a daring nighttime withdrawal. At sundown on August 29, 1776, he quietly moved the remnants of his army, some 9000 men, down from Brooklyn Heights to the Brooklyn ferry landing. Throughout the night, covered by a thick fog, a regiment of fishermen from Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, carried the men across to New York in rowboats, barges, sloops, and canoes.
When the sun came up on August 30, 1776, Howe discovered to his astonishment that Washington had escaped to fight another day. Instead of ending in the hills and fields of Brooklyn, the Revolutionary War would continue for another seven years.
Marker can be reached from the intersection of Main Street and Plymouth Street, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
