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Updated: May 27, 2025
British troops under Lord Cornwallis had landed above Fort Lee at the base of the Palisades, and were now coming down to attempt to cut off the Americans before they could extricate themselves from the marshes lying between the Hudson and the Hackensack rivers.
The fine estuary which penetrates the American coast, between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, is formed by the confluence of the Hudson, the Hackensack, the Passaic, the Raritan, and a multitude of smaller streams; all of which pour their tribute into the ocean, within the space named.
To avoid the danger of retreating up the narrow neck of land which has already been described, some boats had been brought in the course of the night to Dow's Ferry on the Hackensack, not far from Powles Hook. The officer who guarded them was directed to remain until the arrival of the troops engaged in the expedition, which, it was understood, would happen before day.
On the other hand, for reasons less explainable, Hackensack, Paterson, Newark, and even Passaic are names that had touched me with no such romantic thrill. Wrongfully, no doubt, I had associated them with absurdity, anarchy, and railroads.
The only place in East Jersey where settlement was at all easy was along the open meadows which were reached by water near the mouth of the Hudson, round Newark Bay, and along the Hackensack River. The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609, claimed the whole region between the Hudson and the Delaware.
About ten o'clock at night, being three miles from Hackensack, we got certain intelligence that we were within a mile of the picket-guards of the enemy. Colonel Burr then led the men into a wood, and ordered them to sleep till he should awake them, of which we had great need, having marched more than thirty miles since noon. Colonel Burr then went alone to discover the position of the enemy.
Burr, on the other hand, continued his military service until the war was ended, routing the enemy at Hackensack, enduring the horrors of Valley Forge, commanding a brigade at the battle of Monmouth, and heading the defense of the city of New Haven.
At, say, nine o'clock, he settles back behind the steering-wheel of his motor-car. Crossing the Hudson by the Forty-second Street Ferry, he climbs the Weehawken slope, and swings westward over one of the uninviting turnpikes that disfigure the marshy land between the Passaic and the Hackensack.
Th' pa-apers might keep records iv th' results: 'Misther So-an'-so, th' gr-reat captain iv finance, died yesterday, universally regretted. His estate amounts to nineteen millyon dollars. There ar-re two large bequests to charity. Wan is a thrust fund set aside f'r his maiden sister Annybelle, who will receive f'r life th' income on eight hundhred dollars in stock iv th' Hackensack Meadows Comp'ny.
"Yes, I can say the same," muttered Hugh, "because, as soon as I saw that he was using the regular army code of signals, I remembered about hearing how a certain family over near Hackensack had an uncle who used to be in the Signal Corps and was also later on an army surgeon, but who had suffered a sunstroke, and, well, was said to be a bit queer." "Yes," whispered K.K., "this is the same party.
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