USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 37
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EVENTS FROM JULY 9 TO OCTOBER 12, 1776
Manhattan Island, it was now imperatively necessary for Washing- ton to withdraw his whole command to the northern portion of the island, which he was fortunately able to do, following the Blooming- dale Road on the west side, and camping on the evening of the 15th on Harlem Heights. Here he established his headquarters in the Roger Morris mansion, which afterward became the Jumel mansion, and is still preserved ( One Hundred and Sixty-first Street near Saint Nicholas Avenue).
As has already been related, Colonel Roger Morris, the owner of this stately residence, married Mary Philipse, for whose hand Washington himself is said to have been a suitor. Mary was the youngest sur- viving daughter of Frederick Philipse, the third lord of the manor, and was born on the 3d of July, 1730, nearly two years be- fore Washington saw the light. The romantic story that Washing- ton actually sought her in mar- riage, and was refused, does not rest on any known foundations: vet there is strong presumptive evidence that he admired her very heartily, and that if opportunity had enabled him to pay diligent court to her he probably would have embraced it. Much as has been written on this subject, noth- ing that is anthentic, so far as we have been able to discover, has been added to Sparks's well- known reference to it. " While MARY PHILIPSE. in New York in 1756," says Sparks, " Washington was lodged and kindly entertained at the house of Mr. Beverly Robinson, between whom and himself an intimacy of friendship subsisted, which, indeed. continued without change till severed by their opposite fortunes twenty years afterward in the Revolution. It happened that Miss Mary Philipse, a sister of Mrs. Robinson, and a young lady of rare accomplishments, was an in- mate in the family. The charms of the lady made a deep impres- sion upon the heart of the Virginia colonel. He went to Boston, re- turned, and was again welcomed to the hospitality of Mr. Robinson. He lingered there till duty called him away; but he was careful to intrust his secret to a confidential friend, whose letters kept him in-
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formed of every important event. In a few months intelligence came that a rival was in the field, and that the consequences could not be answered for if he delayed to renew his visits to New York. Whether time, the bustle of camp, or the scenes of war had moderated his admiration, or whether he despaired of success, is not known. He never saw the lady again till she was married to that same rival, Captain Morris, his former associate in arms and one of Braddock's aids-de-camp." Mary Philipse's husband took a positive stand against the patriot cause in the Revolution, and as a consequence his property in America was confiscated. The lady lived to be ninety- five years old, dying in England in 1825. The Harlem Heights resi- dence was occupied for a time after the Revolution as a tavern, and was then purchased by Stephen Jumel. a wealthy Frenchman, whose widow became the wife of Aaron Burr.
On the 16th of September occurred the lively encounter of Har- lem Plains, in which the Americans acquitted themselves well and for the first time in the open field had the satisfaction of putting their adversaries to fight. After thai no steps of any general im- portance were taken on either side for several weeks. The Ameri- can army continued to occupy its strong position on Harlem Heights, preserving unimpaired, by way of Kingsbridge, its communication with the country above, and fully prepared to move thither in case of emergency. The royal army made no attempt against the Amer- ican infrenchments, but contented itself with taking possession of the city and throwing up new defenses for its more adequate pro- tertion, while gradually making ready to throw itself bodily into Washington's rear, and thus either entrap him or force him to give battle.
After the defeat on Long Island, the New York State convention, then sitting at Harlem, deeming that place insecure, adjourned to Fishkill. En route to the new seat of Revolutionary government ses- sions were held by the committee of safety at Kingsbridge ( Angust 30), at Mr. Odell's house in Philipseburgh Manor (August 31), and at Mr. Blagge's house at Croton River (August 31). In the weeks that followed the convention adopted a great number of measures inci- dental to the serions situation, of which many applied specially to Westchester County. We can not here attempt anything more than a mere allusion to some of the more interesting of these measures. Provision was made for removing all the horses, cattle, and other livestock from Manhattan Island and the exposed portions of West- chester County into the interior; the Westchester County farmers were directed to immediately thresh out all their grain, in order to furnish straw for the army; stores were taken from the State maga-
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EVENTS FROM JULY 9 TO OCTOBER 12, 1776
zines in Westchester County and sent to the army; purchases of clothing and other materials for the army were made, and it was ordered that all the bells should be taken from the churches, and all the brass knockers from the doors of houses, so as to accumulate material for the manufacture of cannon in case of need.
On the same day that the British effected their landing on Man- hattan Island, the 15th of September, they sent three of their best warships, the "Phoenix," " Roebuck," and "Tartar," up the North River as far as Bloomingdale. There they rode at anchor until the 9th of October, when they pushed farther up, easily passing a cheraur de frise that had been constructed with much pains just above Fort Washington. This checaur de frise consisted of a line of sunken craft stretching across the stream, and it was hoped that the obstructions would at least defain the enemy's vessels long enough to admit of their being so destructively played upon by the Fort Washington and Fort Lee batteries as to compel them to turn back. It is true the batteries did some exeention, killing and wounding men on each ship; but the obstructions in the river unfortunately began some distance from the shore, leaving an open space of tolerably deep water through which the expedition passed without difficulty and with little delay. The warships proceeded as far as Dobbs Ferry, and later moved up to Tarrytown, where they remained, wholly in- active, throughout the period of the eventful military operations in Westchester County. It does not appear that they accomplished anything except the seizure of a few river craft carrying supplies to the American army, although incidentally they closed the navigation of the lower river to the Americans and perhaps diverted to the Hudson shore of Westchester County some troops that otherwise would have been used to strengthen the continental army. It is the general opinion of historical writers that the real purpose of the British commander in sending them up the stream was to make a feint and canse the Americans to fix their attention npon the Ind- son while he was preparing to outflank Washington from the Sound. The incident certainly did produce a vast deal of uneasiness on the American side. We shall recur to this subject in detail later.
While Washington lay encamped on the Heights of Harlem, the whole southern border of Westchester County, stretching from Spay- ten Duyvil Creek to the Sound, was protected by a large force under the efficient command of General Heath, with headquarters at Kings- bridge. The defensive works af Kingsbridge and its vicinity, com- moneed in the spring, had by arduous labor been completed, and now comprised nine well fortified and garrisoned positions, having for their central and most powerful point what was called Fort In-
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
dependence, on Tetard's Hill, where the farm of General Richard Mont- gomery then was, and about where the house of William Ogden Giles now stands. It " occupied a most commanding position, overlooking the Albany road on one side and the Boston road on the other," and " had two bastions at the westerly angles." After the battle of Long Island, and previously to the occupation of Manhattan Island by the enemy. General Heath had adopted excellent precautions against a possible landing in Westchester County. Early in Septem- ber he established a chain of vedettes from Morrisania to Throgg's Neck, so as to provide for immediate information of any hostile move- ment that might require resistance in force. He also began to render the roads leading from the villages on the Harlem and the Sound impassable to the British artillery by felling trees athwart them and digging deep pits. His division was increased to ten thousand men of all arms ( including ineffectives), while about an equal number re- mained with Washington on Manhattan Island. This dis- position shows how impor- tant was deemed the busi- noss of guarding against the contingency of a sudden attempt to cut off the ro- treat of the army to the OLD BLUE BELL TAVERN. north. The suggestion of the likelihood of such an at- tempt was received, as we have noted, on the 27th of Angust, when two British ships and a brig took a station above Throgg's Neck. That was, however, only a preliminary movement, and, although men from the ships were landed on City Island and seized all the cattle they found there, they quickly retired upon the arrival of a regi- ment sent by General Heath to proiect that locality. On the 10th of September, five days before the British army moved upon Wash- ington's forces from Kip's Bay, Montressor's (now Randall's) Island was taken, and a detachment was placed there, with a large amount of stores. The island commanded the Morrisania shore, and Colonel Morris's manor house was within convenient range. Some four hun- dred of Heath's men were posted along the shore, and for a time there were frequent interchanges of compliments between their son- tinels and those of the British on the island. Much irritation was caused op both sides by occasional exchanges of shots between the
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EVENTS FROM JULY 9 TO OCTOBER 12, 1776
sentinels, contrary to the regulations of war, and as a result the British commander threatened to cannonade the Morris house. These practices were finally stopped, and it is related that the opposing pickets were afterward " so civil to each other that they used to ex- change tobacco by throwing the roll across the reck." On the 21th of September a daring attempt was made to recapture the island. During the preceding night an expedition of two hundred and forty men, loaded on three flatboats, with a fourth boat bearing a small cannon, dropped down the Harlem from Kingsbridge, depending upon the tide to float them up on the island about daybreak. They arrived at the cal- enlated time, with no of her misadventure than an unfortunate experi- ence with an American sentry, who, refusing to believe that they were friends, discharged his gun at them, thereby probably alarming the enemy. Yet the endeavor would undoubtedly have succeeded if it had not been for the cowardly behavior of the troops on two of the boats, who at the critical moment failed to land. The heroie party that did land according to programme was easily repulsed and made to retreat, sustaining a loss of fourteen killed and wounded. Among the killed was a very promising young officer, Major Henly, whose death was much lamented.
After this affair of September 24 on Randall's Island, the first on- counter of the war along the southern side of Westchester County, there was a period of nearly three weeks during which absolutely no collision worth mentioning occurred between the American and British forces, either on Manhattan Island or in Westchester County or its waters. General Heath was not inactive, however. With koen foresight, he made a careful inspection, on the 3d of October, of the Town of Westchester and the approach to it from the neighboring peninsula of Throgg's Nack for Frog's Neck, as it was usually called in those days). That peninsula, extending more than two miles into the Sound, was at high tide a complete island, separated from the mainland by Westchester Creek and a marsh, over which were built a plank bridge and a canseway. At the western extremity of the bridge stood a wooden tide-mill, erected i probably in the last decadeof the seventeenth century), at his own expense, by Colonel Caleb Heath- rote, first mayor of the borough Town of Westchester. At that point also a large quantity of cordwood had been piled up, which General Heath found to be " as advantageously situated to cover a post de- fending the pass as if constructed for the very purpose." It was a valuable strategie position-a few men posted there could hold an army at bay, and, moreover, as the bridge and causeway commu- nicated direct with the Village of Westchester, it was a very neces- sary precantion to have them guarded, quite irrespective of the pos-
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IHISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
sibility that Throgg's Neck might prove to be the chosen landing- place of the now daily expected invading host. Accordingly the gen- eral-we quote from " Heath's Memoirs "-" directed Colonel Hand, immediately on his return to camp, to fix upon one of the best subal tern officers and twenty-five picked men of his corps, and assign them to this pass, as their alarm post at all times; and in case the enemy made a landing on Frog's Neck to direct this officer immediately to take up the planks of the bridge; to have everything in readiness to set the mill on fire, but not to do it unless the fire of the riflemen should appear insufficient to check the advance of the enemy on the causeway; to assign another party to the head of the creek; to re- enforce both, in case the enemy landed; and that he should be sup- ported." Upon the arrangements thus made were to depend, a few days later, perhaps the very salvation of the American army. Of the fight which ocenrred there, Mr. Fordham Morris, in his " History of the Town of Westchester," appropriately says that it was the " Lexington of Westchester," and that it is to be " hoped that the wealth and patriotism of the Town of Westchester will some day canse an appropriate monument to be erected near the bridge in commemoration of the battle of Westchester Creek."1
Long before the period at which we have now arrived the whole of the Westchester County militia had been ordered into active service. Some were sent to Peekskill and the Highlands, and some were posted along the Hudson River; but most of them were attached to General Heath's command at Kingsbridge, and were detailed to guard the southern and eastern shore line. It was, in the aggregate, a curious armament that Westchester County contributed to the con- tinental battalions. The State convention, in ordering out these mili- tiamen, directed that if any of the men were without arms they should bring " a shovel, a pickaxe, or seythe, straightened and fixed on a pole." They were, moreover, to take with them all " disarmed and disaffected (Tory) male inhabitants between sixteen and fifty- five years of age," who were to make themselves useful as " fatigue men"; and persons of this description who resisted orders were to be sumarily court-martialed. The State convention evidently did not cherish a high opinion of the efficiency of the farmer soldiery.
1 The mill stood at the southwestern end of the stone bridge which now connects Throgg's Nock with the mainland. It was destroyed by fire early in December, 1874. To the last it was in a good state of preservation for its age, and was still in use for grinding grain. " The old mill," writes a venerable resident of the local- ity to the present historian, "was sided in with shingles, and a man living here in 1849
told me he assisted in ro-rovering it many years before, and found under the shingles then covering it another covering, pierced in many places with bullet holes." About a third of a mile from the bridge, on the premises of Mr. Brainerd T. Harrington, grape-shot were found as late as 1866. These evidently were some of the missiles fired over by the Amer- ican artillery.
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EVENTS FROM JULY 9 TO OCTOBER 12, 1776
In a letter to General Washington, dated the 10th of October, its committee of safety urged him to take measures of his own for guard- ing against landings by the enemy at all points, adding that " no reliance at all can be placed on the militia of Westchester County." But this was no exclusive reflection upon the soldierly qualities of the men of our county, the raw rural militia of all sections naturally receiving like criticism. In numerous communications written dur- ing those perilous days Washington wrote with agony of soul about the miserable subject of the militia. "The militia," he said in a letter to the president of the continental congress, " instead of calling forth their utmost efforts to a brave and manly opposition, in order to repair our losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to re- turn. Great numbers of them have gone off; in some instances almost by whole regiments, by half ones, and by companies at a time." And in a letter to his brother he gave the following vivid account of the situation : " The dependence which the congress have placed upon the militia has already greatly injured and, I fear, will totally ruin our cause. Being subject to no control themselves, they introduce disorder among the troops whom we have attempted to discipline, while the change in their living brings on sickness, and this causes an impatience to get home, which spreads universally and introduces abominable desertions. In short, it is not in the power of words to describe the task I have to perform."
Notwithstanding the terrible emergencies with which Washing- ton was confronted, his effective force after his escape to the Heights of Harlem (September 16) showed a diminishing tendency. On the 21st of September the whole army, including General Heath's com- mand, comprised (exclusive of officers) about 16,100 men fit for duty; on the 30th of September, abont 15,100; and on the 5th of October, about 14,500. These, besides embracing a large proportion of crude militiamen who were an element of weakness, were oncumbered by thousands of sick. On the other hand. General Howe had at his disposal for the invasion of Westchester County, after leaving behind him ample garrisons, as well as all his sick, an army many thousands larger-all professional soldiers. The contrasting conditions are thus powerfully summarized in the notorious .Joseph Galloway's " Letters to a Nobleman ": " The British army was commanded by able and
experienced officers; the rebel by men destitute of military skill or experience, and, for the most part, taken from mechanic arts or the plough. The first were possessed of the best appointments, and more than they could use; and the other of the worst, and less than they wanted. The one were attended by the ablest surgeons and physi- cians, healthy and high-spirited; the other were neglected in their
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
health, clothing, and pay, were sickly, and constantly murmuring and dissatisfied. And the one were veteran troops, carrying victory and conquest wheresoever they were led; the other were new raised aud undisciplined, a panic-struck and defeated enemy wherever af- tacked. Such is the true comparative difference between the force sent to suppress and that which supported the rebellion."
CHAPTER XVII
THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF WHITE PLAINS
ENERAL HOWE'S determination to move his army into Westchester County by way of the East River and Long Island Sound was perfectly guarded from Washington's knowledge. In all the official correspondence on the Amer. ican side up to the day of Howe's landing in our county (October 12), there appears not the slightest inkling of the real designs of the British commander. Indeed, during the days when Howe was making the final preparations for his grand coup, American attention was absorbed by the successful passage of the three British frigates (the " Phomix," " Roebuck," and " Tartar ") up the Hudson River past the batteries of the forts and around the cheraur de frise, which was deemed a most calamitous occurrence. From the time of the appearance of the British expedition in New York waters the greatest solicitnde had been felt for the safety of the whole Hudson Valley; and it seemed scarcely to admit of doubt that the carly mastery of the Undson as far as the Highlands, to be followed by progressive oreupation of that most vital region, was a necessary feature of the comprehensive scheme for paralyzing all American resistance which this powerful expedition was manifestly intended to compass. Pop- nlar apprehension on this point was stimulated by the action of the British commander in dispatching ships up the Hudson ahnost immediately after his arrival in New York Bay. During the pause after the bitter American defeat on Long Island, all the conditions seemed to indicate that whatover General Howe's preference might be in the selection of a quarter from which to renew his direct oper- ations against Washington's army, he would at least not neglect to secure a substantial foothold at the essential points along the lower Hudson. Hence the American measures for obstructing the naviga- tion of the river and for protecting the Highland passes. It is of course idle to speculate as to the probable results, in their relations at least to the ultimate fortunes of the war, that would have at- tended an effective land occupation at this early period of the western part of our county, or even of the very small section from Verplanck's
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
Point to Anthony's Nose. But it seems an irresistible conclusion that, with the latter strategie section in the hands of the British. and the river from King's Ferry to Spurten Duyvil Creek patrolled by a detachment from their fleet, the entire theater of war would have been changed and a prime object of the British government -- the possession of the Hudson River throughout its course and the consequent division of the colonies-would have been almost com- pletely realized at once. The escape of Washington to New Jersey would then have been ent off, and he would have been obliged to retreat into New England, with the single alternative of waging a defensive local war there or proceeding by a round-about northern route to the middle colonies, where also he would have been under the disability of local confinement, with his lines of eastern communication closed by the Hudson. General Howe's calculations were not, how - ever, so far-reaching; he was en- grossed with the immediate busi- ness of annihilating the patriot army. He probably felt that the diversion of so large a force as would be necessary to hold the Westchester bank of the Hudson would be an unprofitable division GENERAL HOWE. of his strength at the time, and he did not care to risk the losses likely to result in passing anmerous warships and transports around the cheraus de frise under the guns of Fort Washington and Lee.
The final decision of Howe to move on General Washington from the Sound without preliminarily closing the Hudson against him as far north as the Highlands was indeed a reversal of what was ex- peeted by the best American opinion. Not that it was seriously sup- posed lowe's main attack would proceed from the river side of Westchester County. It was not doubted that when he got ready to aet he would choose some point on the Sound for his outtanking movement, since that coast was wholly unprotected by American foris or improvised impediments to navigation, and from its low formation afforded perfectly satisfactory conditions for landing, which nowhere existed on the precipitous shores of the Hudson. But there was an apprehension on the American side which amounted to con- viction that before making his next movement in force he wonk secure the navigation of the Hudson; and upon that quarter Ameri-
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van attention was fixed with an anxiety which became painful after the easy passage of the cherour de frise by the three hostile ships on the 9th of October.
In a series of noteworthy official letters of that period, whose orig- inals have been placed at the disposal of the editor of the present History, the whole situation from the American point of view is made strikingly clear. After the removal of the migratory State convention from White Plains to Fishkill, that body appointed " a committee of correspondence for the purpose of obtaining intelli- gence from the army"; and the committee, of which William Duer was the active spirit, made arrangement with Lieutenant-Colonel Tench Tilghman, one of Washington's aides, for a daily letter front army headquarters. The resulting letters extend from the 224 of September to the 21st of October. The originals furnished us, thirty-seven in number, are from the documentary remains of Colonel Tilghman now owned by his descendant, Hon. Oswald Tilghman, of Maryland; and for the most part are the communications of Duer, on behalf of the committee, in reply to Tilghman's notes of information, although a few letters to Tilghman from other members of the committee, to- gether with copies of some of Tilghman's notes to the committee, are comprehended in the collection. The circumstance that most of the letters are from Duer, one of the most intelligent and valnable mem- bers of the State convention, and represent in an unstinted way the feelings and opinions entertained in State government quarters about the posture of affairs on the basis of daily news from Washington's army, adds naturally to the interest of the whole correspondence.1
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