Four Regiments Against Four Thousand

John Glover stood at the top of a low ridge near Pell's Point on October 18, 1776, and watched 4,000 British soldiers coming off their boats. He had 750 men in four regiments. The question was not whether to fight but how long to make it last.

Glover was a Marblehead fisherman who had made his career reading water and weather and other men. He had read the situation at Brooklyn correctly in August — his regiment had rowed Washington's army off Long Island in the dark and the fog, a piece of seamanship that saved the Revolution. He read the situation at Pell's Point correctly too.

He posted his regiments behind stone walls at intervals on the ridge, running parallel to the British line of advance. He ordered each regiment to hold until the British were within effective range, fire a volley, then fall back to the next position while the next regiment took over. The idea was not to stop the British — four regiments could not stop 4,000 men — but to slow them, confuse them about American numbers, and buy time.

It worked for most of the day. The British advanced cautiously, unable to determine how many Americans they were facing. Each time they seemed to break through, another stone wall produced another volley from another regiment. Glover sustained the action through the afternoon, then withdrew his men in good order as darkness fell.

The casualties were relatively light on both sides, which is partly what made the action so effective: Glover had delayed the British without destroying his force in the process. He had done exactly what a rear guard is supposed to do — impose costs on the enemy's advance without paying too high a price himself.

Washington had ten more days to reach White Plains and prepare his position. The earthworks that the Continental engineers built during those ten days were the earthworks that made the Battle of White Plains a contested engagement rather than a rout. Pell's Point made White Plains possible.

No one puts Pell's Point in the popular histories. No statues of Glover commemorate the stone walls on the Bronx ridges where his fishermen stood their ground against professional soldiers outnumbering them five to one. The battle that is almost never mentioned was the one that made the battle everyone knows about possible.