blackout engine

Before relating the particulars of this plan, it may be expedient to state, that the city of New York is situated on the point of an island which advances into the centre of a capacious bay. A narrow arm of the sea, vulgarly called the East River, separates it on the left from Long or Nassau Island; and the Hudson, commonly called the North River, separates it from the state of New Jersey. The British army was in possession of the city, and was strengthened by a fleet; but the opposite bank of the Hudson, which is about two miles wide, was under the power of Congress, and the revolutionary army was stationed at no great distance in New Jersey, in a winter encampment of wooden huts.