Washington's First Win Comes at Harlem Heights

On September 16, 1776, Continental troops stopped a British advance on the high ground of what is now Morningside Heights, in the first fight George Washington's army actually won. It started before dawn, when a patrol of Thomas Knowlton's Rangers skirmished with British light infantry and got chased back through the woods toward Washington's lines, with the British pursuing down into a valley called the Hollow Way. Washington sent Knowlton's men and three companies of Virginia riflemen under Major Andrew Leitch on a flanking move meant to trap the British column, while another force pinned it from the front. The British held the field around a fence line for hours before pulling back for lack of ammunition, but Knowlton and Leitch were both shot leading the flanking party and later died of their wounds.