USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 22
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During the course of the week that followed his occupation of Throgg's Neck, Howe, the British commander, directed the establishment of a base there and the reception of numerous reinforcements. Finally word came of the arrival of seventy-two ships with the German mer- cenaries under Knyphausen. On the morning of the eighteenth, Howe embarked his army in over two hundred boats, protected by the smaller war vessels, and passed from the northern side of Throgg's Neck across Westchester Bay, and landed at the end of Pell's Point, opposite City Island. The American post at Westchester saw the movements in its front and immediately notified Heath, who came up with numerous re- inforcements, which, upon the receipt of an express from the alarm post at the ford stating that the enemy was attempting to cross there, were diverted to its support. No advance was made by the enemy at either
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point, and Washington, who was personally on the ground, believed that the enemy's movement was a feint and that his real point of attack would be at Morrisania; he therefore ordered Heath and his troops to that position to watch the enemy. Howe's landing was successfully made at Pell's Point ; and nothing prevented the capture or destruction of the widely scattered American army but the outpost at the entrance of the Neck which transmitted notification of the enemy manœuvre in time.
Battle of Pell's Point-The outpost at the entrance of the Neck had been strengthened by the brigade of General James Clinton, who, how- ever, was not personally on the ground. It consisted of the regiments of Colonels Glover, Shepard, Read, and Baldwin, in all about seven hundred and fifty men with three field-pieces, all under the command of Colonel Glover, whose regiment was composed of Marbleheaders, sturdy fishermen and sailors of Massachusetts. Their amphibious qualities had been utilized by Washington in the withdrawal of the army from Brook- lyn after the defeat of Long Island, Glover being in charge of the em- barkation of the troops into the boats named by his fishermen-soldiers, whose muffled oars made no sound to betray the retreat to the enemy on that foggy August morning ; and later, when Trenton was the object of that sad but glorious Christmas march, it was these same Marble- headers who took the army across the Delaware through the drifting masses of ice. This brigade was encamped in the neighborhood of the Boston Post Road, somewhere in the town of Eastchester. The British movement was concealed from the outpost near the shore by the dark- ness of the early morning; and the landing had actually been made be- fore it was discovered by Colonel Glover himself, who at once sent an express to Major-General Lee at Valentine's Hill, over three miles distant. It does not appear that Lee gave any orders or sent any troops to Glover's support, but spent the day inactively, so that the glory of the day belongs to Glover and the brave men under his command. Upon discovering the landing Glover at once ordered the brigade under arms and advanced them toward the point, leaving his own regiment with the field-pieces as a reserve under the command of Captain Curtis; so that the number of men actually engaged in the fight which followed did not exceed four hundred. Glover advanced a guard of forty men in command of a captain by way of the road toward City Island; while he placed the regiment of Colonel Read behind a stone wall on the north side of the road, the regiment of Colonel Shepard farther to the rear on the south side of the road, behind a fine double stone wall, and the regiment of Colonel Baldwin still farther to the rear behind the regiment of Colonel Read on the north side of the road. These positions probably extended on to the Prospect Hill, or "Split Rock" road. Having com-
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pleted his arrangements for the ambuscade he rode forward to his ad- vanced guard.
Rodman's Neck is almost an island, the tide ebbing and flowing over the salt meadows which separate it from the mainland. The City Island road passes over the meadows on a causeway, both ends of which were heavily wooded ; the meadows, about one hundred and fifty yards across, are clear. To the south, at the west end of the causeway, are two great boulders marking the first position of the patriots, and where the fight began. From the causeway to the British landing place near the Bowne house is about a mile and a half. As Glover's advanced guard of forty men approached the causeway, a similar advanced guard of the enemy debouched unexpectedly from the woods across the meadows. Glover ordered his men to advance toward the approaching foe, and when about fifty yards apart, the British poured in a heavy but ineffective fire. The return fire of the Americans "fell four of them," as Glover quaintly puts it. A spirited fire was maintained for a few minutes, during which two Americans were killed and several wounded; but the enemy, heavily reinforced, compelled the guard to retreat. The British, supposing the victory to be theirs, pursued the fleeing Americans; when suddenly, within thirty yards of them, arose a long line of men from behind a stone wall, who poured in a murderous volley, compelling the British in their turn to flee without returning the fire. Five volleys were fired by Read's regiment upon the mass of chasseurs, grenadiers, and light infantry crowded upon the narrow road. For an hour and a half after this affair, so it is stated, no further attack was made. Then a heavy body of the enemy, supported by seven pieces of artillery, and comprising about four thousand men, once more advanced along the road, shouting and firing their guns harmlessly at their invisible foes. Suddenly, from Read's regiment again came an unexpected and death-dealing volley, which brought the British to a halt and a realization of the strength of their adversaries. Seven volleys are said to have been fired by the Americans, while the British and their German mercenaries poured in "showers of musquetry and cannon-balls." Read's work was done and he withdrew to beyond the flank of Shepard's regiment on the opposite side of the road.
The British on this occasion also, learning little from their previous experiences and believing the Americans to have been repulsed, ad- vanced in solid masses in pursuit; when from the double stone wall on their left flank, Shepard's regiment arose and poured in volley after volley upon the now panic-stricken men. The British officers had indeed great difficulty in rallying their men, and a formation was again made for the advance. This time the Americans realized that they had done pretty well all they could in the encounter and recognizing that
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the disparity in numbers was too great to allow them to hope for victory in a front to front fight withdrew behind the third line of Baldwin's regiment. The enemy had by this time learned something of the strategy of their foes and as a result advanced cautiously in pursuit. Baldwin's fire was well delivered, but the British had the advantage of position and were able to use their artillery to the discomfiture of the Americans. Stubbornly and slowly the Americans fell back over the "Split Rock" road and Wolf's Lane until they reached the Boston Post Road, where they crossed Hutchinson's River, removed the planks from the bridge and took a position on the heights overlooking the stream, where Captain Curtis was in reserve with the artillery. The British cautiously followed the retiring Americans, with whom there was a constant interchange of shots, until they reached the river, when they stopped the pursuit. An artillery fire was kept up on both sides until late in the day, but little or no damage was done to either side. Glover remarks: "After fighting all day, without victuals or drink, lay as a picquet all night, the heavens over us and the earth under us, which was all we had, having left all our baggage at the old encampment we left in the morn- ing." The next day, Saturday the eighteenth, the brigade withdrew to the Mile Square, three miles distant, to the westward of the Bronx River.
This engagement has been called the battle of Pell's Point, and it is the most important, both from its effects and from the number of men engaged, that took place within the territory of what is now the Borough of The Bronx, though part of the line of retreat is in the present village of Pelham Manor, and the final position of the Americans is in the present city of Mount Vernon. The beginning and the main part of the battle were within the present Pelham Bay Park. The American loss amounted to six men killed, and Colonel Shepard and twelve men wounded. At this time no report of the losses of the German mercenaries was made, except to their respective sovereigns ; but from the statements of deserters who came into the American lines from different regiments and at different places during the following week, and from both official and non-official sources, the British loss can readily be placed at between eight hundred and one thousand killed, wounded and missing. General Gage reported the entire loss in killed and wounded at Bunker Hill as one thousand and fifty-four ; so that this battle, which many historians ignore, was almost equally disastrous to the British and their German allies.
There are also other results that have to be noted in regard to it. It saved the American army, for the British commander had received a check that was sufficient to convince him that his advance into the country was not going to be the picnic he had promised himself. He de- layed his movements until the twentieth of the month, when he advanced to the heights above New Rochelle, where, two days later, he was joined
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by the second division of the Germans, consisting of eight thousand men ander General Kayphansen, who had landed in New York on the Schreenth and been transported in boats to Davenport's Neck in New Rochelle. Washington, in general orders, dated Headquarters. Harlem Heights. October 21 1776. complimented Colonel Glover and his com- i: He added:
A: De samme Se be bopes that every part of the Army will do their duty with equal daty ani maal when called apen: and that neither dangers, dculties, nor hardships will Escourage soldiers engaged in the cause of Liberty, and contending
Washington on October DOth learned through the investigations of an engineer Ecer. Colonel Rafus Putnam, of the presence of the British a: New Rochelle and of the danger to the stores at White Plains. He personally visited the latter place on the twenty-first of the month. in- spected the gromad, selected the new position of the troops, and returned to the neighborhood of Kingsbridge, where the movements preparatory no retreat were already in progress. The retreat began the same day by w2= of Valentine's Hill and the roads to the westward of the Bronx River. the main route being over what is now called the "pipe-line." via Tuckahoe. The progress of this masterly withdrawal of the whole army = the face of a superior enemy, without the loss to the retiring army in erber men or stores, showed the military genius of Washington to be of no crimary kind. The battle of White Plains occurred on the twenty- eighth and on the fourth of November General Howe withdrew from the front of the Americans, bis Westchester campaign a complete failure.
Battle of White Plains-White Plains. the locality which appears to Have been selected by the opposing forces as the field on which the great questions then pending between Great Britian and the United States of America were to be decided by the arbitrament of war. is situated on the upper extremity of a lime plain, about twenty-six miles from the city of New York. The village at the time of the battle was bomgosed of a number of comfortable dwellings scattered along the sides of tand or three roads which converged at that place, with two taverns, a Presbyterian meeting-house. a Wesleyan Methodist chapel. and the court house of the county, within which probably all the county booses were also sheltered. About three quarters of a mile westward E == the principal roadway of the unpretentious little village flowed the small stream, then, as now, called the "Bronx River." forming the western boundary of the plain referred to. and separating it from the manor of Philipseburgh. To the northwest and the northeast of the village vere abrupt elevations, united by less elevated ground with a gradual descent to the village, the whole forming the northern boun- dary of White Plains; and beyond these flanking elevations and that
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intervening high ground to the northward of the village, and not more than a mile distant from the northern extremity of it, in the town of Northcastle, was the high and rocky ground, later well known in his- tory as that to which the American army swung back, after the action on Chatterton's Hill.
The site of the encampment which the American army occupied was on the high grounds, northwestward and northeastward from the village and the lower grounds between them, with covering positions on either flank. A temporary line of works had been previously constructed along the northern line of the road which extended from the meeting-house of the Presbyterian church, past the house of Jacob Purdy, to the Bronx River-that road which connected White Plains with Dobbs Ferry; but the entrenchments which were thrown up for the defense of the army, occupied a line from the Bronx River over the summit of the hill which is to the northward of the Harlem Railroad Station, eastward to the postroad, which was the principal street of the village. Occupying the postroad was a strong earthwork, some small remains of which, bearing an old howitzer, en barbette, long endured; and eastward from that central earthwork, up the gradual slope to what was then known as Horton's Pond, later known as St. Mary's Lake. The right flank of the line was covered by the brigades commanded respectively by Generals McDougal and Lord Stirling, and its left was covered by the brigades commanded respectively by Generals George Clinton, John Morrin Scott, and Samuel H. Parsons, the two former having been posted near the Purchase, and the latter at the head of King Street, near what was Rye Pond, but now the eastern arm of the great Kensico reservoir. In the summer of 1907, White Plains Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of which, at the time, Mrs. Julia Powell was the regent, had the howitzer on the Post Road referred to, which for many years had lain partly hidden in the line of earthworks marking a position on the battlefield, on the west side of Broadway, excavated and mounted on a granite base. On October 28th of that year, the one hundred and thirty-first anniversary of the battle of White Plains, a bronze tablet was affixed to a large block and appropriate civic exercises marked the event. The inscription reads :
This mortar and this remnant of the Revolutionary entrenchments of October, 1776, mark the final stand by General Washington at the end of his long retreat. The abandonment by Gen. Howe of his purpose to capture the American Army, and the revival of the hopes for national independence.
On October 27th the small force which had been left in Fort Indepen-
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dence, when General Heath's division was moved near Kingsbridge to the White Plains, was ordered to remove the cannon and stores from that post to Fort Washington ; to burn several barracks which had been erected there with so much difficulty and at so great an expense; and "with all possible dispatch" to move by way of the Albany Post Road as far as Dobbs Ferry, to the White Plains; and on the following day, without having removed the cannon, three hundred stand of small arms, five tons of bar iron, and "a great quantity of spears, shot, shells, etc., too numerous to mention," which were within or near the fort, and all of which were recklessly abandoned, that small command, numbering not more than four hundred effective men, joined the main body of the division, on the left of the line, at White Plains. The enemy, who had occupied the entire lower portion of Westchester County, after the American forces had been concentrated at the Plains, occupied the posi- tion on the evening of the day on which Colonel Lasher had abandoned it.
Following the success of the British in gaining possession of Chat- terton Hill at White Plains they made no immediate attempt to pursue the retreating Americans; but formed and dressed their line, and made a settlement there. The strength of the Americans engaged on the plain was not far from twenty-five hundred effective officers and pri- vates; that of the regiments who composed the force on the top of the hill, who defended the position, and who were really the heroes of the day, exclusive of the company of artillery, who rendered no effective service, was not far from seventeen hundred effective officers and pri- vates. The strength of all the force which was directed against that feeble body of men cannot be definitely ascertained, since the Hessian artillerists, on the eastern bank of the river, whose fire was certainly to some extent effective, were clearly as much a portion of that antag- onistic force, as those who crossed the river and assaulted the position, or as those who charged on the right flank of the struggling Americans and assisted in driving them from the hill. Besides these Hessian ar- tillerists there were four regiments of British troops, commanded by General Leslie; the Hessian regiment, probably from Colonel Donop's command, who occupied the place of danger and honor, as the forlorn hope; the three regiments of Hessians, commanded by Colonel Rall; and the four or five regiments of Hessians, commanded by Colonel Donop, each or all of whom could not have contained fewer than six hundred officers and privates, making an aggregate of about seven thousand, five hundred effective men. The loss sustained by the Amer- icans was not as great as was at first supposed-the return to the camp of the greater number of the fugitive New Englanders reduced the sup- posed losses from "between four or five hundred in killed, wounded, and missing," which was the first estimate, to twenty-two killed, twenty-
LORD HOWE
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four wounded, and one missing, in the detachment commanded by Gen- eral Spencer; and, exclusive of the losses sustained by the regiments commanded, respectively, by Colonels Haslet and Brooks, of which no returns have been found, the loss of those who were on the top of the hill and who fought the battle, was two captains, four sergeants, one corporal, and eighteen privates, killed; one colonel, three lieutenants, one ensign, four sergeants, and forty-three privates, wounded; and six- teen privates missing. Among those who were killed were Captains Bracco and Scott, of Colonel Smallwood's regiment; and among those who were wounded were Colonel Smallwood and Lieutenants Goldsmith and Waters, of the same regiment. General Howe reported to his gov- ernment at home, evidently including all those who were captured in Westchester County, that one captain, two lieutenants, one quarter-mas- ter, and thirty-five privates were taken, "October 12th-White Plains;" but we have no means for ascertaining who of these were taken pris- oners on October 28th. The loss sustained by the Second Brigade of British troops, commanded by General Leslie, included Lieutenant- Colonel Carr, Captains Deering and Grove, Lieutenant Jocelyn, Ensign Eagle, one sergeant, and twenty-one rank and file, killed; Lieutenant- Colonel Walcott, Captain Fitzgerald, Captain-Lieutenant Massey, Lieu- tenants Taylor, Banks, and Roberts, twelve sergeants, and one hundred and two rank and file, wounded; and two rank and file missing. The three regiments composing the brigade, commanded by Colonel Rall, sustained a loss of eight rank and file, killed; Lieutenant Muhlhausen, one sergeant, and forty-four rank and file, wounded; and one horse killed. The regiment of chasseurs and the four regiments of grenadiers -one of them probably the half-drowned forlorn hope-composing the brigade commanded by Colonel Donop, sustained a loss of four rank and file, killed ; Captain De Westerhagen, Lieutenant De Rau, and four- teen rank and file, wounded; and two rank and file, missing.
It would appear as convincing that the delaying of the enemy on the plain was the salvation of the American army, within the lines; since it afforded time for strengthening the works behind which the latter was then posted, and for preparing it for falling back soon afterwards and occupying another position, which would be more easily defended and not so accessible to the king's troops. But it is scarcely true that fol- lowing the morning of the preceding day the Americans had "drawn back their encampment" and "strengthened their lines by additional works" to such an extent in either instance that "the designed attack upon them" on the morning after the engagement need have been "de- ferred," for no other reason than these, notwithstanding General Howe is reported to have informed his home government that such had been the case-the reported withdrawal of the American encampment was
Bronx-13
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probably nothing more than the removal of the stores back to the high grounds of New Castle, which was commenced in that day; and, not- withstanding the interval had been undoubtedly occupied by the Amer- icans in industriously strengthening their position, they could scarcely have made defensible and formidable what, only a few hours previous, had been hardly respectable. Indeed in no time, under the most fav- orable circumstances, were the defences of the American lines, imme- diately above the plains, in any respect formidable; and the centre, where the Post Road passed through them, was decidedly the weakest portion. They had been hastily constructed without the superinten- dence of experienced engineers. The stony soil prevented the ditch from being made of any troublesome depth or the parapet of a trouble- some height ; the latter was not fraised; only where it was least needed --- probably because the construction of it elsewhere had been interfered with-was there the slightest appearance of an abbatis. There was lit- tle foundation therefore for General Howe's transparent excuses; and it would have been more creditable to his candor had he told the true reason for his failure to assault the lines on the morning after the battle and while the troops, who had been designated to make the assault with their line unbroken, were resting on their arms within a mile and in open sight from the works which they were expecting to assault, and ready to move against them, at a moment's notice. The fact was simply this, as we have already seen, "the army could no longer expediently at- tempt anything against the enemy's (mean the American) main body ;" and it was necessary that it should be reinforced, before the Americans should be attacked.
After having been strengthened by the addition of six fresh and effec- tive regiments to his already powerful command, Howe, the British general, decided to attack the American lines on October 31st; and for that purpose all necessary preparations were duly made; but the pre- ceding night and the morning of that day were very rainy; and the proposed movement was necessarily postponed. On the same day the Americans remained within their works, quietly preparing for the aban- donment of them and carefully watching every movement of the enemy. Conceiving that one of Howe's objects would be to turn the flank of the lines, to seize the bridge over the Croton River, and thereby to cut off the communication of the army with the upper country, General Washington detached General Rezin Beall with three fine regiments of Marylanders to occupy that very important pass; and General Lord Stir- ling was ordered, with the brigade which he commanded, "to keep pace with the enemy's left flank and to push up also to Croton-river, should he plainly perceive that the enemy's route lays that way." At the same time the army was being rapidly diminished by the desertions of the
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militia, to say nothing of stragglers. Those who remained at their post were evidently diligently employed in preparing to move to a new posi- tion-an operation in which the great scarcity of teams added very greatly to the personal labor of the men-and during the following night, that of Thursday, October 31st, the entire line of the army, tak- ing the extreme left of the line for the pivot, swung back from the lines which it had constructed with so much labor on the high grounds above the plains, until its rear rested on the more advantageous high grounds of North Castle, within a mile from the position which it had abandoned, and authoritatively described as "grounds which were strong and ad- vantageous, and such as they (the British) could not have gained with- out much loss of blood, in case an attempt had been made."
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