In the early morning hours of November 20, 1776, Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis led a British and Hessian army of about 2,500 soldiers across the Hudson to New Dock into New Jersey for an attack against Fort Lee, then defended by about 2,700 soldiers. Washington met Greene to lead his troops in a retreat through present-day Fort Lee, Englewood and Teaneck across the Hackensack River at New Bridge. The hasty withdrawal of the American garrison across the Hackensack River at New Bridge preserved them from entrapment on the Bergen Neck, the narrow piece of land between the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers. They continued westward, crossing the Passaic River on the Acquakanonk Bridge, which was dismantled.