Weeks after the Declaration of Independence, an armada of 400 British ships appeared off Staten Island carrying the largest expeditionary force Britain had ever assembled. This deep dive examines the Battle of Long Island, also called the Battle of Brooklyn, the first major battle after independence and the moment the Continental Army came close to being destroyed.

The episode covers General William Howe’s letters addressed to George Washington Esquire, Washington’s belief that the Brooklyn landing was a feint, and Henry Clinton’s silent night march of 10,000 troops through the lightly guarded Jamaica Pass. It follows the fighting on Battle Hill, the costly rearguard charges of the Maryland troops, new research questioning the legend of a mass grave, Howe’s caution after Bunker Hill, and the fog-covered evacuation across the East River by John Glover’s Marblehead mariners.

• Why holding New York Harbor mattered to both sides and how Washington split his army
• The Gowanus Heights, the four passes, and the five militia officers guarding the Jamaica Pass
• How Battle Hill accounted for more than 40 percent of British deaths that day
• Historian William J. Perry’s findings challenging the story of 256 Marylanders in a mass grave
• The near-disastrous Mifflin miscommunication and the escape of 9,000 troops with Washington last to leave