Battle of Harlem Heights

On September 16, 1776, an early morning skirmish between a patrol of Knowlton's Rangers and British light infantry pickets developed into a running fight as the British pursued the Americans through woods toward Washington's position on Harlem Heights. Washington ordered a flanking maneuver that failed to cut off the British force, but under this attack and pressure from troops arriving from the Harlem Heights position, the outnumbered British began to withdraw after some units, including the 3-pdrs, fired away their ammunition. The fighting lasted about an hour and a half in the field and surrounding woods, in what is now the Morningside Heights area and east into the future Harlem neighborhoods of northwestern Manhattan. Henry Johnston's 1897 study assessed British losses at 14 killed and 157 wounded, and American losses at about 30 killed and 100 wounded, including Colonel Knowlton among the dead.