Hospital Rock

Hospital Rock was the most historically significant place on the battleground. Late in the afternoon, after Brant’s men broke the Americans’ defensive square, Lt. Col. Benjamin Tusten, a physician from Goshen, and seventeen wounded militiamen under his care were trapped and killed in the shadow of this rock by Brant’s Iroquois Native Americans and Tories. After the battle, Brant recrossed the Delaware River and proceeded to Oquaga, while the militiamen who escaped Tusten’s fate made their way back to their homes. Colonel Hathorn wrote that the enemy forced the northeast part of their lines and, as his people retreated precipitously down the hill toward the river and became too scattered to rally, every man made a choice of his own way. Joseph Brant reported that his men pursued the Americans until they stopped upon a rocky hill, where they fought for nearly four hours before being driven out, and that they took forty-odd scalps and one prisoner, a captain; he supposed the enemy, about one hundred fifty militia, lost nearly half their men and most of their officers.

Highland, New York · United States