Glover's Stand at Pell's Point

On October 18, 1776, roughly 4,000 British and Hessian troops under General William Howe landed at Pell's Point, on the shore of what is now Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, aiming to cut off Washington's retreating army before it could reach White Plains. Colonel John Glover, a Marblehead fisherman turned officer, had only about 750 men from four Massachusetts regiments, and no orders to fight there at all. He strung them behind the stone walls lining the road inland, one regiment at a time, so each could fire, fall back, and let the next take over as the British pushed forward. The delay cost the British most of the day and let Washington's main force slip out of Manhattan and away from encirclement.