History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 46

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286

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"Gen. Lincoln must cross the North River and come on with the re- mainder of the militia to Morristown. Leave a suthicient guard at the llighlands.

" Yon will also have as many boats collected together, or in such a manner as yon may always avail yourself of them, if it should be found expedient for your troops, or any part of theut, to cross the North River at Dobbs Ferry, or any other of the landings.

"I am, &c. " (Signed) GEO. WASHINGTON. " Gen İleatlı."

" Preparations for the before-mentioned movement were immediately put in train. The militia and volunteers were coming in.

" 8th .- Gen. Parsons went down to King-street.

"9th .- The remainder of Col. Sparhawk's and Col. Whitney's regi- ments passed over the river to join Gen. Washington.

"10th .- Colouel Frost's regiment marched to North-t stle and Gen. Scott's militia to White Plains.

" 11th .- A number of British officers, taken at Princeton, passed Peek's Kill, on their way to Connecticut. The same day it was learnt that, on the 8th, Gen. Maxwell, with the Jersey militia and some Continental troops, routed the enemy at Elizabeth-Town, where he took 50 llight- landers, a schooner loaded with baggage and fell in with a party of 30 Waldeckers, whom he also took prisoners.

"12th .- Gen. Moulton, from Massachusetts, and Col. Gilman, from New-Hampshire, came to camp. A number of British prisoners, taken in the Jersies, passed Peeks Kill on their way to Connecticut.

"13tli .- Our General moved to the Southward, and reached North- Castle Just before the sun-set, where he found part of four regiments had arrived, and Gen. Scott's militia of New York had moved down to Wright's Mills.

"14th .- Our General moved to King-street, to Mr. Clap's-abont 3,000 militia had arrived, and Gen. Lincoln's division marched to Tarrytown on this day. The Commander-in-Chief, in another letter, had intimated that Gen. Lincoln, instead of moving on to join him, should stay on the enst side of the lludson and join in the expedition.

"15th .- The Connecticut volunteers marched from King-street to New Rochelle, and Gen, Seott's brigade to Stephen Ward's. Plenty of provisions were arriving. A deserter came in from the enemy, and gave an account of their situation and numbers.

"17th .- At night the three divisions hegan to move towards Kings- bridge ; Gen. Lincoln's, from Tarrytown, on the Albany road ; Generals Wooster and Parsons, from New Rochelle and East Chester, and Gen. Scott's in the centre, from below White Plains."

(Jau. 1777, " Heath's Memoirs," page 113.)

"29th .- There was the appearance of a severe snow-storm coming on, when all the General Officers on the ground, viz., besides our General,

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Lincoln, Wooster, Scott and Ten Broeck, were nuanimonsly of opinion lbat the troops ought to move back before the storm came on, to places where they could be covered from the inclemency of the weather, as there was no artillery to batter the fort, and from first to last they were nnani- monsly opposed to any idea of an assault or storm of the fort with the militia, and the principal object being now to secure and bring off, or destroy the forage, which could be as well done where the troops conld have covering, as to harass them in the open fields by multiplying guards or their being constantly exposed in the scattored houses, to be surprised and cut off. For these several reasons, the troops were ordered, as soon us it grew dark, tomove back, Gen. Lincoln's division to Dobbs Ferry and Tarrytown, Gen. Wooster's to New-Rochelle and Gen. Scott's to White Plains; the gaards to remain at their posts and alert until the troops were all moved off, and then to form rear guards on the several roals, following the troops to whom they respectively belonged; all of which was performed in good order, in a very heavy fall of snow."

In March, 1777, Sir William Howe, in New York City, conceived the design of sending an expedition up the river to Peekskill to capture the cattle and military stores collected there, and, if possible, the small force of two hundred and fifty, nnder General MeDougall, that had been left there to guard them. He attempted by stratagem to deceive General Mc- Dougall, as if his objective point was in another quarter. That officer, however, took the precaution to send away a part of his stores to Forts Clinton and Montgomery for safety, and had commenced the transportation, but before he could complete it ten sail of British vessels appeared off Tarrytown in Tappan Zee, and two went farther up the river. The next day they all anchored in the Peekskill Bay, and landed about one thousand men, with several picees of cannon. General MeDougall having only a small force, destroyed the remaining stores and withdrew. The British then occupied the village. A party of them, abont two hundred strong, took possession of a height south of Van Cortlandt's. In the mean time Lieutenant-Colonel Willett, having reinforced Me- Dougall with about eighty men, obtained permission to attack the enemy on the height. After the first collision the British fled in great precipitation, leav- ing three dead on the field, and the whole body, panie-stricken, betook themselves to their vessels and sailed down the river. Before they embarked, however, they gave it ont as their intention to stop at Tarrytown on their way, and to destroy the American magazine of forage at Wright's Mills. On the enemy's departure, disappointed of their object, General MeDougall resumed his former quar- ters.

In October, 1777, Sir Henry Clinton organized an- other expedition up the river, partly to destroy stores and partly to make a diversion in favor of General Burgoyne, who, with his force, was then in danger from the Americans at Saratoga. Sir Henry Clinton accordingly went up the Hudson with about five thousand men in flat-boats and transports and landed at Tarrytown. Colonel Luddington at that time was posted at Tarrytown with about five hundred militia. Clinton sent a flag and a peremptory summons de- manding their surrender. A parley ensued, during which Luddington perceived the enemy was making

a movement to surround his little force, and he pru- dently ordered a retreat.

It was in November of this same year, 1777, that such inhuman cruelties were perpetrated by the British soldiery and the Tories upon the patriotie people on Philips Manor and in the neighborhood of Tarrytown, under the instigation of that vain and barbarous tyrant, Governor William Tryon, of New York, that Brigadier-General Samuel H. Parsons, of the Continental army, felt constrained to write him in indignant remonstranee. Tryon is described by Lossing as "haughty, innately cruel, fond of show, obsequious when wishing favors and tyrannical when independent." Exasperated by the obstinate patriot- ism of the Tarrytown people, he instigated an ex- pedition to burn and plunder, and even gave orders that Tarrytown should be destroyed. It was of the Dutch people along the Hudson that the British General Howe said, in 1777, after his movement up the river, "I can do nothing with this Dutch popu- lation ; I can neither buy them with mouey, nor con- quer them with force." No more eloquent eulogium could have been pronounced upon them than that which their stubborn virtue thus wrung from a dis- appointed hostile commander. Brigadier-General Parsons, with special reference.to the atrocities men- tioned, wrote to Governor Tryon under date of "21 Nov., 1777," the following letter, which the writer copied from the " New York Colonial History, Lon- don Documents," vol. viii, p. 735, in the State Library at Albany :

"SIR :

" Adding to lhe natural horrors of war the most wa ston destruction of private property are arts of cruelty unknown lo civilized nations and unacenslomed in war, untill the servants of the King of Great Britain have convinced the impartial world, no acts of inhmaanily, no stretch of despotism, are too great for them to exercise towards those they are pleased to term Rebels.

" Hlad any apparent advantage bien derived from burning the houses on Philips Manor last Monday night, there would have been some ap- pearance of reason lo justify the measure, but when no benefit can result from destroying those buildings, and striping the women and children of necessary apparel to cover them from the severity of a cold night, and leading of the captivaled heads of those families in triumph lo your lines in a most ignominions manner, I cannol ussign a justifiable cause for This act of cruelty, nor conceive a reason for your further order to destroy Tarry Town."

On July 15, 1779, occurred the storming of Stony Point by the Americans under General Wayne. In the account of it given in The New York Packet and the American Advertiser, of Fishkill, on July 22, 1779, the writer states,-

"Our men have destroyed the fort and brought off all the artillery and stores.

"The evening of the 20th inst. twenty-sit of the enemy's chips fell down the river, and their troops, foot muud horse, are returned as far as Tarry Town."

On the premises now owned by Mr. C. W. Smith, at whose gate Church Street comes to an abrupt termination, down toward the river-bank, just south- east of where the Hudson River Railroad begins to cross the cove toward the north, is a spot of historic

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interest. Here was the site of the old Indian village of Alipkonk, or the Place of Elms, away back before 1630, and here, one hundred and fifty years later, in 1780, was the lunette, or military redoubt, from which the patriotie Water Guard, according to Bolton, can- nonaded the British sloop-of-war "Vulture," which having been up the river in connection with Major Andre's interview with Arnold above Haverstraw, on her return trip to New York, got out of the channel and ran aground on the Tarrytown Hats.

In the cemetery just south of the imposing Dela- van monument is a similar lunette, or earth-work in shape of a half- moon, where the Americans during the Revolution planted a battery of cannon to Benèr. amold sweep the road from below, whenever the British might come up from Dobbs Ferry. Owing to this faet, the part of the cemetery here referred to is designated as "Battle Hill."

But the Revolutionary event of greatest moment, that must forever associate Tarrytown with the Providential rescue of the nation from its deadliest peril, was the capture, within its present corporate limits, and within the township of Greenburgh, of Major John Andre, adjutant-general of the British army, returning from a secret conelave to consummate the villany of General Benedict Arnold, the American traitor, and to secure the betrayal of West Point.1

1 Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Conn., Jannary 14, 1741. Ile early manifested a taste for military life and adventure. Having already been very well educated, he spent some time in the large drug-store of the Drs. Lathrop, in Norwich, relatives of his mother, but after coming of age, in 1762, he removed to New Haven, " where," says the Ion. Isaac N. Arnold, of Illinois, in his " Life of Benedict Arnold, Ilis Patriotism and Treason," Chicago, 1880, p. 26, " aided by his former employers, he established himself as a druggist and bookseller. His business rapidly increased. lle engaged in general trade and exchange, and his energy and enterprise enabled him rapidly to acquire consider- able property. He embarked in the West India trade, and purchased and shipped to those Islands, horses, mules, beef cattle and other pro- visions. He sometimes sailed his own ships. He had quite a large butsi- ness connection with Quebec, which he visited frequently, buying horses in Canada, and shipping them from there to the West Indies." Ile remained in business in New Haven for over ten years.

An antograph business letter of his, written during that time, has, by a singular accident, fallen into the hands of the writer. The original is the property of Miss May F. 11. Delafield, of New York City. As the letter has never been published, she has kindly allowed a copy to be taken an I printed as a curiosity in this work. It rends thus,-

"SIR,-The Cayene Bill Exchange For 3252 Livres 5 Son 8 Deniers, which 1 sold Jeremiah Panistou, Esq., in St. Castatia Nov. 26, 1765,

The story has often been told, but it has never lost its interest, whether viewed in its influence upon the cause of national independence or in its tragic conse- quences to one of the chief actors in the nefarious plot. The capture was the uncovering of a secret conspiracy against the young nation's life, that had long been maturing between General Arnok, a traitor at heart ever since his humiliation under the rop- rimand for bad conduct, administered by his con- mander-in-chief, and Major Andre, who added to the character of a spy the worse character of a con- federate in what he knew to be an infamous crime.2

[dated June 25th, 1765] & which Mr. Hadshon has sent you protested, should be glad you'd remit to Mr. Alexander Lane, Merch', in London, with Directions for him to Advise with Mr. William Stead, in regard to the Sale thereof, and when sold, to reusit the proceeds to Mr. Hadshon, at Amsterdam, & I do hereby prontise to Allow the Action for Damage, &c., to be Carried on as well as if the Bill was not sold, and yon Allow- ing the proceeds of the Bill to be Indorsed on the [Judgment Obtained agt. me.}

" New Haven, 18th April, 1768.

" BENEDE, ARNOLD. " To JARED INGERSOL, ESQ. "

In the original letter the parts here enclosed in brackets were inter- lined.

Arnold finally betook himself to England, whither his treason fol- lowed him, like an avenging Nemesis, and brought upon him many linmiliations. In 1798, when England was arming in expectation of a war with France, Arnold's military spirit impelled him to write to the Duke of York, the commander of the British forces, and to ask for a position in the service. But in vain. They did not want a man who had once betrayed his country. The victim of bitter disappointment, cares and embarrassments, his nervous system gave way under the pres- sure, sleep fled from him, and, on June 14, 1801, he died at his residence in London,aged sixty years.

While stationed in Philadelphia in command of the American army, Ar- nold maintained "a style ofliving of muprecedented extravagance." Ile occupied the house of Richard Penn, formerly the headquarters of Gen- eral Ilowe, and afterwards the residence of Gen. Washington while President, where he lived in great state, maintaining a coach and four, and servants in livery, and giving magnificent entertainments. Having succeeded in ingratiating himself into the good-will of the Shippen fam- ily, he won the affection of Margaret (or "Peggy ") Shippen, the young and accomplished daughter of Edward Shippen, afterwards Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, who became his second wife. Peggy Shippen was at this time one of the most beautiful women in society, and when the British occupied Philadelphia she was a standing toast with the English officers. She became acquainted with Andre in Philadelphia, and when Arnold's treason became known was ordered to leave the State within fourteen days, and not return during the continuance of the war. "Mount l'leasant," Arnold's magnificent estate, now a part of l'hiladel- phia's beautiful park, was seized by the State of Pennsylvania, and confiscated on October 2, 1780. She died in London, on the 24th of Angust, 1804.

2 Notwithstanding all the sympathy which the tragic fate of Andre awakened, not unnaturally, into expression, there are, to say the least, two sides to the question ns to what his moral character was. Ilis biographer. Winthrop Sargent, says that there were "some severe strie. tures on Iris character published after his death," and that in them "it was positively alleged that Andre took away with him (or, in other words, stole) some books, the Encyclopedie, which Franklin had given, or meant to give, to the Library Company of Philadelphia." Without as- suming to say for certain what the facts were in this particular case, there is not the least room to doubt that when Andre and his comrades, who had occupied Dr. Franklin's house while the British hell Philadel- phia, finally left it, they committed some most disgraceful spoliations upon the pictures and other articles of valne they found there. Dr. Franklin's danghter, Mrs. Bache, after her return to it, complained of this outrage, but said, however, it was no worse than she "had ex- pected from the hands of such a rapacions crew." She mentioned Andre by name as one of the thieves. " A Captain Andre, " she said, " also took with him the picture of you which hung in the dining-room."

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There can be little doubt in regard to the justice of the estimate of Andre's conduct and character, as given by HI. L. Barnum, in the book entitled, "The Spy Utunttasked; or Memoirs of Enoch Crosby, alias Harvey Birch, the Hero of Mr. Cooper's Tale of the Neutral Ground ; " being an Authentic Account of the Secret Service which he rendered his Country during the Revolutionary War. (Taken from his own lips in short-hand.) Comprising many interesting Facts and Anecdotes never before published. . New York : J. & J. Harper, 82 Cliff Street, 1828." In the Appen- dix, pages 203-205, the author says:

" Andre has also been greatly extolled for his magnanimity in com- minicating to General Washington his real name and character, by the express which conveyed to the commander-in-chiof the papers found upon him. But what else remained for him to do? llis life was clearly forfeited, and in the character of John Anderson he must have suffered, ' unpitied und unwept,' the summary and ignominions death of a spy, or been detected ns Major Andre, with a falsehood ou his lips. Ilis only cliance of escape was to declare his real character and place himself

MRS. BENEDICT ARNOLD.

under the protection of the circumstances under which he alleges that he came within the American posts ; or, perhaps, to interest the feelings or the fears of the American commander-in-elrief in his behalf. His letter contains one passage which serves as a plain development of his motives in writing it. It was to sure his own life by exciting fear for that of others. The passage alluded to is the following : '1 tako the liberty to mention the condition of some gentlemen at Charleston, who, being either on parole or under protection, were engaged in a conspiracy against us : though their situation is not similar, they are objects who may be sent in ex- change for me, or persons whom the treatment I receive might affect.'

"It is truly astonishing that the ungenerous character of this para. graph has never been properly animadverted upon. Who these 'gentle- men at Charleston' were is afterwards more explicitly declared in Nrnohl's letter to General Washington, of the Ist October : '1 have far- ther to olwerve that forty of the principal inhabitants of South Carolina have justly forfeited their lives, which have hitherto been spared by the clemency of his excellency, Sir Henry Clinton, who cannot in jus- tice extent his merry to them any longer if Major Andre suffers, which, in all probability, will open a scene of blood at which humanity will re- volt.'

" Thus it appears that Andre's hlnt was greedily runght nt by Arnold ; and Sir llenry Clinton himself, in his communications, very plainly hints nt the samo thing.

" Yet nothing could have been more base and dishonorable than the

attempt to save his forfeited lifo by drawing down ruin upon a number of innocent nien, who, after bravely resisting the enemy, had surren- dlered on terins that had been most dishonorably evaded. The assertion also contained in Andre's letter, that the prisoners alluded to had engaged in a conspiracy was absolutely destitute of truth, as it was well known tliat every individual of these prisoners liad, from the first, courted and detied investigation, and there existed no canse for thelr confinement at St. Augustine, to which place they had been removed but the prevalence of an opinion that their influence kept others from accepting of the King's protection, the illiberal suggestions of some of the Loyalists who could not bear the reproachful looks of those whom they had deserted, and, above all, the convenience of retaining such respectable hostages to cover such men as Aruold and Andre. .

"The introductory paragraph also to Andre's letter cannot be dis- missed without a remark. It is in these words : 'What I have as yet said concerning myself was in the justifiable attempt to be extricated ; I am too little accustomed to duplicity to have succeeded.' (That is to say, I have hitlerto been doing what no man who sufficiently values the obligation of truth would do, or at least exjane himself to the danger of being obliged to do, even for 'the justifiable attempt to be extri- cated.' I have hitherto dealt ont nothing but falsehoods; aud for want of practice my firmness fails me. )

" In the first place, this paragraph is uncandid, for if his disgnise conld any longer have availed him, he would have retained it ; in the next place, there is no small cause to believe that this was not the first time in which Major Andre had played off the practical falsehood of assuming a disguise and acting the spy.

"It is believed by many that in the character of a spy he had been greatly instrumental in involving in captivity the very men whom he now wished to involve in the horrors of retaliation.

" Let political expediency disguise it as it may, still the character of a soldier cannot be blended with that of a spy withont soiling the pure ermine of the former ; and however hissovereign may applaud and reward the officer who tempts his enemy to treachery, there is something so foul in the constitution of the crime that we cannot look upon him who re- duces anotirer to the commission of it but as the instigator or propagator of crime The breath of treachery gives a taint to the reputation of the man who holds converse with it.

" Indeed, there appears to have been a combined attack upon morals made by all the porticeps criminis in this black transaction. One can hardly read with patience the letters of Clinton, Robertson and Arnold, boldly insisting that Andre was not punishable as a spy, because he came within the garrison nuder the sanction of a flag, or under the protection of the commander ; although, in fact, with that commander he was concerting measures to get possession of the post where that officer commanded; that he was hintsell innocent, because he had prostituted the usual protection of innocent and honorable purposes to the perjatration of the basest treachery. And to complete the ridicule of the scene, the chief justice of the state is bronglit upon the carpet to support this holy doctrine."

It was not the first tinte that Major Andre had beett engaged in undertakings connected with the war, which it is impossible for even charity to regard as ingenuous or honorable. In his letter to Wash- ington after his capture at Tarrytown, dated " Salem, 24 September, 1780, Sunday," he said, " I att too little accustonted to duplicity to have succeeded," and he adds that his thus writing is not out of apprehension for his own safety, " but," said he, "it is to rescue my- self front the imputation of having assumed a mean character for treacherous purposes or self-interest, a conduct incompatible with the principles that actuate me, as well as with my conduet in life. It is to vilt- dicate my fame that I speak, and not to solicit se- curity."

In the same way the idea of his having been a spy he entphatically repudiated in his conversation with Major Tallmadge while the latter was condnet- ing him under guard from Haverstraw to Tappan on Thursday, September 28, 1780. In Major Tallmadge's narrative, quoted by Jared Sparks, in the " Life and

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Freason of Benedict Arnold," chapter xiv., p. 257, he says, --

believed, that he was a successful spy in the disguise of a cattlo driver, in the fall of Charleston (in May, 1780), one of the greatest disasters of the war, compelling as it did the surrender of General Lincoln with his army of nearly 7000 troops. The fact of Andre's presence disguised ns axpy, in the South as well as the North, is upon the evidence of one of mato friends. .

" After wo disembarked at King's Forry, neur Haverstraw, we touk ip our line of march with a fine body of horse, for Tappan. Before we reached tho Clove, Major Andre became very inquisitive to know my | Clinton's own ollicers who so stated in 1822, and of one of Audre's inti- pimnon as to the result of his capture. In other words, he wished une to . . Andre accepted all this information from Ar- noll secretly, willingly, on our own soil, and for the direct purpose of destroying the country. . . Well did the King of England say, 'the publie uever can be compensated for the vast advantages which must have followed from the success of his plan.' give him candidly my opinion as to the light in which he wonkl be ciewed by General Washington and a military tribunal, if one should be bonlered. This was the most unpleasant question that had been pro- wounded to me, and I endeavored to ovade it, unwilling to give him u rue answer. When I conht no longer evade his importunity or put off "Of Arnold's €30,000 of blood money, with pay and rank, which Clinton had promised him, I think I may say with Vattel, the great ex- positor on the laws of war, that such bribes for seduction are not in ac- cord with the laws of a moral conscience. The best law says that ' seducing a subject to betray his country ; . . practising on the fidel- ity of a governor, enticing him, persnading him to deliver up a place, is full reply, I remarked to him as follows : 'I had a much-loved class- nate in Yale College by the name of Nathan Hale, who entered the umy in the year 1775. Immediately after the battle of long Island General Washington wanted information respecting the strength, posi- ion and probable movements of the enemy. Captain Hate tendered his services, went over to Brooklyn, and was taken just as he was passing the outposts of the enemy on his return,' Said I with emphasis, 'Do yon remember the sequel of this story ?' 'Yes,' said Andre, 'he was hanged as a spy. But you surely do not consider his ense and mine ilike ?' 1 replied, 'Yes ; precisely similar, and similar will be your fato.' He endeavored to answer my remarks, but it was manifest he was more troubled in spirit than I had ever seen him before."

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 46

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1286

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286