By Raanan Geberer
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN – If one has visited Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park recently, one certainly has seen a new historic sign commemorating the daring nighttime evacuation of George Washington’s Continental Army from Brooklyn after the Battle of Brooklyn.

This is part of the Revolutionary War Heritage Trail, a project of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation that was begun in 2002. It is one of several Heritage Trails – others are dedicated to the Underground Railroad, Women’s Heritage and Theodore Roosevelt.

According to a spokesman for State Parks in Albany, signs are in the process of being put up all over the state. In Brooklyn, the signs are being put up with the support of Brooklyn College, the City University of New York, and a local nonprofit organization, Brooklyn Heritage Inc.

Among the other sites in Brooklyn earmarked for signs or already bearing them, he added, are Fort Greene Park, site of the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial Monument; the Old Stone House in Park Slope, site of a fierce battle between British and American troops; and the Fort Hamilton Overlook in Bay Ridge, where American lookouts first saw British warships coming to invade New York.

In addition to historic pictures and maps, each sign has an extensive description about the nature of the historic site.

For example, the sign at the Fulton Ferry location says, in part, “Badly outnumbered and cornered by British troops under the command of Gen. William Howe, the Americans were on the brink of annihilation when Washington pulled off a daring nighttime withdrawal. At sundown on August 29, 1776, he quietly moved the remnants of his army, some 9.000 men, down from Brooklyn Heights to the Fulton Ferry Landing. Throughout the night, covered by a thick fog, a regiment of fishermen  carried the men across to New York in rowboats, barges, sloops and canoes.�

Craig Smith, historian for the state parks department, said that the Battle of Brooklyn and other Revolutionary War battles in New York City and State, such as the Battle of White Plains, are becoming better known than they were in the past.

“Many 20th century textbooks didn’t give a lot of space to [the Battle of Brooklyn],� he said. “These battles didn’t fit the myth, started after the Civil War to bring the North and South together, that the Revolutionary War started in Boston, had a lot of fighting in the middle colonies [such as Delaware] and then ended in the South.

“As far as New York State is concerned, the books in most cases talked about the Battle of Saratoga [an American victory in 1777 that helped turned the tide of the war], and that’s it.�

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