After being repulsed in his first attempt, General Lovell effected a landing on the western part of the peninsula, where he ascended a precipice of two hundred feet; and, with the loss of only fifty men killed and wounded, drove the party which defended it from the ground.  A battery was erected within seven hundred and fifty yards of the main work of the besieged, and a warm cannonade was kept up for several days on both sides.

Perceiving the difficulty of carrying the place with a militia impatient to return to their homes, General Lovell represented his situation to the government of Massachusetts, who applied to General Gates, then commanding at Providence, for a reinforcement of four hundred continental troops.  This request was readily granted, and Jackson’s regiment was ordered to Penobscot.  In the mean time an ineffectual cannonade was continued, and preparations were made to storm the works on the arrival of the expected reinforcements.

Such was the posture of affairs on the 13th of August, when Lovell received information that Sir George Collier had entered the river with a superior naval force.  He re-embarked his whole army the following night, and drew up his flotilla in a crescent across the river, as if determined to maintain its position.  This show of resistance was made in the hope of stopping Sir George Collier until the land forces on board the transports could be conveyed up the river, and disembarked on the western shore.  But the British general was too confident in his strength to permit this stratagem to succeed; and, as he approached, the Americans sought for safety in flight.  A general chase and unresisted destruction ensued.  The ships of war were blown up, and the transports fled in the utmost confusion up the river.  Being pursued by the British squadron, the troops landed in a wild uncultivated country; and were obliged to explore their way, without provisions, through a pathless wilderness, for more than a hundred miles.  Exhausted with famine and fatigue, they at length gained the settled parts of the country, after having lost several men who perished in the woods.

While Sir Henry Clinton continued encamped just above Haerlem, with his upper posts at Kingsbridge, and the American army preserved its station in the Highlands, a bold plan was formed for surprising a British post at Powles Hook, which was executed with great address by Major Lee.

This officer was employed on the west side of the river with directions to observe the situation of the British in Stony Point, but, principally, to watch the motions of their main army.  While his parties scoured the country, he obtained intelligence which suggested the idea of surprising and carrying off the garrison at Powles Hook, a point of land on the west side of the Hudson, immediately opposite the town of New York, penetrating deep into the river.  On the point nearest New York, some works had been constructed, which were garrisoned by four or five hundred men.