Red Lion Inn (Brooklyn)

The Red Lion Inn was a tavern in Colonial New York located on Long Island in what is today the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The inn named in honor of King Henry V for the tavern he rested in after the Battle of Agincourt, was at the junction of three country roads: the Narrows Road which led north from Denyse's Ferry; Martense Lane which passed through the Heights of Guan to Flatbush, and the Gowanus Road which led to Brooklyn Heights: this colonial era juncture is the modern day location of Fourth Ave and 35th Street.

In the early morning hours of August 27, 1776, the first shots of the Battle of Brooklyn were fired here when British troops under General James Grant encountered American pickets stationed at the Red Lion. According to some accounts the British troops were foraging in a watermelon patch. After an initial exchange of musket fire, the Americans retreated in a panic up the Gowanus Road toward the Vechte house. Major Edward Burd who had been in command was captured along with a lieutenant and 15 privates.

Colonel Samuel Holden Parsons a lawyer from Connecticut who had recently secured a commission in the Continental Army, and Colonel Samuel Atlee of Pennsylvania, a veteran of the French and Indian War were stationed further north on the Gowanus Road. The two colonels roused from their sleep from the sound of musket fire managed to intercept the troops fleeing from the British at the Red Lion and form them into a skirmish line. At daybreak the Americans would be reinforced with 400 of the troops being sent by General Sullivan stationed at the Flatbush Pass. The reinforcements brought the total American strength up to 2,100 troops under the command of Lord Stirling, the British troops under Grant also being reinforced would reach over 7,000 troops.

The fighting at the Old Stone House, in which 400 troops of the Maryland Brigade under Colonel William Smallwood, would engage over 2,000 British and Hessian troops while covering the American retreat across the Gowanus creek, would began later in the day. During the subsequent fighting, Colonel Atlee himself would be captured by the British.[1][2][3]

References

  1. ^ Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War by Edwin Burrows p.1
  2. ^ Battle Of Brooklyn 1776 By John J. Gallagher p.1
  3. ^ The campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn By Henry Phelps Johnston p. 176