It was an utterly phenomenal achievement. General Heath was hardly exaggerating when he wrote, “Perhaps there never was so much work done in so short a space of time.” At daybreak, the British commanders looking up at the Heights could scarcely believe their eyes. The hoped-for, all-important surprise was total. General Howe was said to have exclaimed, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.” The British engineering officer, Archibald Robertson, calculated that to have carried everything into place as the rebels had—“a most
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