When people remember the beginning of the American Revolution, they usually think of the “shot heard ‘round the world,” fired in 1775 in Concord, Massachusetts, or the bloody battle at Bunker Hill. But America’s path to independence really began in August of 1776 with the Battle of Brooklyn, the first military engagement following the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

The fighting raged in and through areas that Brooklynites travel every day. Significant battlefields included Gravesend Bay, and today’s Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park, Fort Greene Park and Fulton Ferry Landing.

The Old Stone House was the culminating site of what was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War.

On the morning of August 27th, 1776, the British were advancing toward the main American camp on Brooklyn Heights. Realizing the dire American position, the American General, William Alexander, Lord Stirling, led a regiment of 400 Maryland soldiers against 2,000 British forces commanded by General Charles Cornwallis at the Old Stone House. The Marylanders fell, regrouped, and attacked again, but eventually their losses became too great to continue and Stirling finally surrendered. Cornwallis later said that General Lord Stirling “fought like a wolf.”

On August 30, 1776, Maryland Major Mordecai Gist wrote, “The principal loss sustained in our battalion fell on Captains Veazey, Adams, Lucas, Ford, and Bowie’s companies. The killed, wounded, and missing amount to two hundred and fifty-nine.”  Where those killed are buried is uncertain to this day.

The outcome of the Battle of Brooklyn was a victory for the British, who killed or captured 1,000 Americans and proceeded to occupy Brooklyn and Manhattan for seven years.

However, the British failed to capture Washington and his army, which withdrew across the East River to fight again and, eventually, win the war.

In 1783, the British finally surrendered, sailing from New York in defeat, and America embarked on its destiny as an independent nation.