USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 25
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Before Simcoe, who was half way up a tree reconnoitering, could stop the movement, he saw a flanking party of Americans approaching, while the Indians who lined the fence on Emmerick's left began a smart fire upon the chasseurs. He therefore pushed up the brook towards Husted's Heights, where Colonels Gist and Stewart were in position, Tarleton meanwhile advancing up the road to Emmerick's assistance. The stone fence bordering the road prevented Tarleton's dragoons from passing and he was obliged to make a circuit to the right in order to re- gain the road. Simcoe, learning of Tarleton's difficulty, left his rangers with Major Ross and taking his company of grenadiers pushed down the hill from Husted's into Van Cortlandt's woods and reached the left of the Indians without being seen by them, as they were so busily en- gaged in firing upon Emmerick and Tarleton. With a yell, the Indians discovered their new assailants and fired upon them, wounding Simcoe and four of his grenadiers. Being outflanked and outnumbered the Indians were driven into the open fields south of the lane, where Tar- leton and Emmerick got them with their cavalry. The Indians fought gallantly, pulling some of the dragoons from their horses; but the con- test was too unequal and they were forced to flee. The horsemen pur- sued them over the field, through the woods, over Tippett's Brook to. the heights to the westward of the Albany Road, where the survivors hid themselves behind rocks and in other places of safety and thus es- caped. About forty of the Indians were killed and badly wounded, among the former being the old chief Nimham and his son. The chief called to his people to fly, saying : "I am an old man and can die here." He wounded Simcoe and was killed by Simcoe's orderly. Tarleton led the pursuit, and while striking a fleeing Indian, lost his balance and fell from his horse. Fortunately for him, but unfortunately for the patriots of the Carolinas, the Indian had no bayonet and his gun was discharged, so that Tarleton escaped. During the pursuit, Simcoe and his rangers seized the heights at Husted's and captured an American captain and several of his men; but the main body under Stewart es-
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caped. The bodies of the dead Indians were buried in the clearing in Van Cortlandt's woods where they fell; and the place has since been known as "Indian Field".
Early in October Lieutenant Gill of Moylan's dragoons was patrolling in Eastchester, when he discovered a body of cavalry in his rear; he either had to surrender or cut his way through. He chose the latter alternative and forced his way through, when he found a body of in- fantry behind the horse; these he also charged; but his horse was wounded in the melée and fell, throwing his rider a prisoner into the hands of the enemy. The American party consisted of twenty-four; two were killed and one taken prisoner; the rest escaped. Later in the same month Simcoe, while on a raid near South Amboy, New Jersey, was taken prisoner. "By the capture of Simcoe," says Heath, "the in- habitants were freed of a very enterprising and troublesome officer." He was later exchanged and at once resumed the making of trouble. His career was continued in the South and he was with Cornwallis at the time of the surrender of Yorktown; but he and his rangers, whom the patriots particularly desired to capture, escaped through a tech- nicality in the terms of capitulation, of which Lord Cornwallis naturally took advantage.
Skirmishes in Bronx Village-In November Colonel De Armond pro- ceeded by way of Tarrytown to the vicinity of Morrisania and sur- prised the house of Alderman William Leggett at Jeffeard's Neck, called also Leggett's or Oak Point, where he captured Major Baremore and five others. The expedition was carried out with secrecy, precaution, and despatch, and the capture of Baremore relieved the inhabitants from the frequent excursions of a troublesome raider. The house in which he was captured had been formerly the Graham mansion; but upon the occupation of this section by the British the family had been dispossessed to make room for the British officers. The last occupant of the house was a British colonel named Fowler, who, upon being de- tached from duty in this vicinity, invited his neighborhood friends and acquaintances to a farewell dinner. The party had just sat down at the tables, when the house was reported to be on fire. The colonel thereupon ordered the tables, chairs and viands to be removed to the lawn, where the dinner was continued under the trees, while the house burned down without any efforts being made to save it from destruc- tion. That same night the colonel led a marauding expedition towards Eastchester, where a skirmish occurred with the Americans, and he was mortally wounded. In the middle of November Lieutenant Oakley took five prisoners near Morrisania and came near capturing Colonel De Lancey, the active leader of the Westchester Light Horse, who oc- cupied the Archer house, lying under the guns of Fort Number Eight.
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Early in December De Armond made another raid toward Morrisania and captured Captain Cruger of Baremore's corps and two other pris- oners. Cruger was exchanged later and became lieutenant-colonel of De Lancey's First Battalion of Loyalists, and as such, with a corps of New York loyalists, successfully held the redoubt at Ninety-six, South Carolina, for twenty-seven days against the attack of Greene and Kos- ciusko. The winter of 1778-79 was a very cold one and the people passed from Long Island to New York on the ice. On February 7, 1779, a party of three hundred horse and a regiment of infantry passed from Long Island to Westchester town. Notwithstanding, predatory operations continued.
Early in 1779 a body of volunteers from the militia regiments at Greenwich, Connecticut, to the number of eighty, under command of Captains Keeler and Lockwood, marched to the house of Colonel Hat- field at Morrisania, near the site of High Bridge, and attacked it about one o'clock in the morning. They first surprised the pickets, killing three and driving the rest into the house, where the whole of the at- tacked party took to the upper floor and fired from the windows and down the stairs upon those who entered the house. The possibility of capturing the enemy under such circumstances being remote, the house was fired by placing some burning straw in one of the closets in the lower room. This compelled the defenders to jump from the windows to escape the flames and the whole party, consisting of Colonel Hatfield, one captain, one lieutenant, one quartermaster, and eleven pri- vates, was taken prisoner. On the return a number of soldiers, tired out by their night's work and believing there was no danger, straggled behind their companions and were overtaken by a body of horse sent in pursuit, so that several of them were killed or taken prisoners. The same winter of 1778-79 Colonel Aaron Burr made an attack upon the block-house at West Farms in an attempt to destroy it. Provided with hand grenades, combustibles, and short ladders, about forty volunteers approached cautiously at two o'clock in the morning and cast their missiles into the fort through the portholes. Soon the block-house was on fire and the little garrison surrendered without firing a shot; a few escaped. The block-house commanded the crossing of the Bronx River at De Lancey's Mills. Its site was afterwards occupied by Mapes' Tem- perance Hotel at the northeast corner of East 179th Street and the Bos- ton Road. In the autumn of 1779 the British began an active campaign in the South and troops were withdrawn from New York and its vicin- ity. In order to contend with the American partisans-Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Lee and the others-similar corps were needed by the British, and so the light horse of Simcoe, Tarleton, and Emmerick, so long the scourges of the Neutral Ground, were withdrawn from the territory of
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the borough and sent to Georgia and the Carolinas, where we find them doing active service against Morgan, Greene, and other patriot leaders. In consequence of these withdrawals, about the middle of September, all the redoubts at Spuyten Duyvil and Fordham Heights, including Number Four or Fort Independence, were dismantled and as thoroughly demolished as could be and their stores and garrisons removed to Man- hattan Island, where the fortifications were still further increased in strength. The only exception was Fort Number Eight, which was maintained till the end of the war as a base for the operations of De Lancey's corps and to guard the pontoon bridge over the Harlem River, as well as to serve as an alarm post to the garrisons at the northern end of Manhattan Island. The floating bridge over Spuyten Duyvil Creek was also removed. These posts were not occupied again by either party during the war, except during the grand reconnaissance of August, 1781, when Lincoln and De Chastellux took possession of Fort Independence without restoring or rearming it.
In the spring of 1780 Captain Cushing of the Massachusetts Line guided by Michael Dyckman, the famous Westchester guide, surprised De Lancey's battalion near Fort Number Eight and took over forty of them prisoners. On his retreat, Cushing was followed by a large force of jägers and others. This was another occasion when the com- manding officer of the Westchester Light Horse was lucky enough to be absent from his command. In a letter of Washington's, dated July 31, 1780, we learn that it was his intention to move rapidly in force upon Kingsbridge with the object of compelling Sir Henry Clinton to abandon his projected attack upon the newly arrived French at Rhode Island. or of striking him in this quarter if his troops had been decreased by eight thousand, the number he was reported to have sent for the attack on Rochambeau. The army was moved across from the west side of the Hudson to Peekskill and the march toward New York taken up; but Clinton, whose departure from Throgg's Neck had been delayed by the non-arrival of sufficient transports for his troops, received in- telligence of Washington's movement and so gave up the Rhode Island expedition and returned to New York. This, in turn, obliged Washing- ton to abandon his plan, and the troops were again returned to their cantonments on the west shore of the Hudson. On the twenty-first of September the British force from Harlem to Kingsbridge was reported at fifteen hundred. During December of 1780 rumors reached the Americans that De Lancey was planning a raid into North Castle, above White Plains, and the lines were disposed so as to meet him. The expedition was made on the twenty-ninth and and De Lancey's party of one hundred infantry and fifty horse was turned back and most of their plunder retaken.
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During January of 1781 troops were ordered down for an expedition under Lieutenant-Colonel William Hull, for an attempt against De Lancey's post at Morrisania. Hull's force consisted of about three hundred men. He surrounded the loyalists, forced a passage to their camp, destroyed the pontoon bridge, took fifty prisoners, burned the huts and forage, and took a large number of cattle which he drove up to the American lines. He was closely pursued, but his covering party under Lieutenant-Colonel Hazen attacked the pursuers and killed and captured thirty-five more. Hull's loss was twenty-six men in killed, wounded, and missing. The enemy retaliated on February 17 by raid- ing Bedford, where they burned five houses, plundered and stripped the inhabitants, and returned with eight prisoners, three of whom were lieutenants in the army. On the twentieth six of our guides, recon- noitering towards Kingsbridge, fell in with a similar party of De Lancey's and took five of them prisoners, all wounded. Fort Number Eight continued to be a favorite point of attack, for, on March 5th, three more prisoners were taken near it. Perhaps the hope of taking De Lancey himself, whose quarters had been removed from the manor-house of Morrisania to the protection of Number Eight on account of the fre- quency of attacks at the former place, may have served to guide the Americans in his neighborhood. In March and April the traitor Arnold was engaged in gathering a large number of flatboats in Spuyten Duyvil Creek for some projected expedition on the part of the British; on April 8th, these were taken down the East River.
In the summer of 1781 Washington advanced in force to the neighbor- hood of Kingsbridge with the intention of cutting off the various light corps of the British and loyalists who had been harassing the Americans. General Lincoln and the Marquis de Chastellux threw their troops into Fort Independence and the British on Manhattan Island fired on them. Several of the American troops were killed and wounded by the long shots of the jägers, who kept up a popping fire whenever they could reach the Americans. The advance was unsuccessful for the object it had in view; but the British were obliged to withdraw from the main- land. De Lauzun, who commanded the left wing of the French army at Eastchester, with Sheldon's dragoons and the Connecticut militia, was to scour the country toward Throgg's Neck, Westchester, and De Lancey's Mills with the hope of destroying or capturing the loyalist bands in that vicinity. He heard the firing toward Kingsbridge and pushed rapidly to the assistance of Lincoln and De Chastellux. After this attempt the combined armies fell back and took positions well down in the Neutral Ground. On August 6th General Washington and the Count de Rochambeau with their staffs and a strong detachment of cavalry and infantry as a covering party, made a grand reconnaissance
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and inspection of the fortifications on Manhattan. The whole combined army was advanced for the purpose, and the two commanders rode from Kingsbridge to Morrisania, to the heights of what is now Franz Sigel Park, making careful inspection through their glasses of the ene- my's positions, while their engineers made notes of the redoubts and of the topography. The British opened on the distinguished group and sent shot and shell hurtling among them, which rather upset the equanimity of the guide, Andrew Corsa, who took refuge behind rocks and trees. When he saw, however, that the commanders continued the inspection as coolly and calmly as if no such cannonade was in progress, his courage returned. The conclusion arrived at by the gen- erals was that the enemy was too strongly entrenched for successful attack; while to encompass the British posts on Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey and reduce them would take a very much larger force that was at their command. The armies were, therefore, with- drawn to a position in rear of the former one, with the right at Dobbs Ferry and the French left at White Plains, while an advanced post was held at Philipse under Colonel Scammel, another at Valentine's Hill, and a third at Eastchester. It was whispered that the Count de Grasse with a French fleet was to arrive off the capes of the Chesapeake; and the news from Lafayette, in regard to the movements of Cornwallis in Yorktown, indicated where the blow should fall. On August 19th the march for Yorktown began and in order to deceive the enemy and to make him believe that the army was still present in force, extensive camp-fires were kept burning for several nights on Vault Hill in the present Van Cortlandt Park.
In spite of the presence of the American army in force, De Lancey's command ventured as far from Kingsbridge as Yonkers on August 4th. On August 26th they made another raid and three of them were taken prisoners while driving off some thirty sheep, which were re- covered. Washington, upon his departure for the South, left Heath in command and advised him to continue the petit guerre with Sheldon's dragoons, the New York militia, and other light troops, and to hold the marauders in check. On September 19th it was reported that De Lancey's corps at Morrisania "is afflicted with a mortal sickness, and are much reduced in numbers." On December 23rd, Captain Williams, of the New York levies, stationed on the lines, made an excursion to Morrisania with twenty-five volunteers, and was so successful as to return with one captain, one lieutenant, and seven privates of De Lancey's command, and without losing a man. Captain Pritchard moved down with a detachment of continental troops to cover the retreat of the horse, but the enemy did not come out. On January 11, 1782, Cap-
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tain Honeywell of the First Westchester Militia, with a number of volunteer horse, made an excursion to Morrisania and brought off as prisoners Captain Totten and three privates of De Lancey's command. A party of the enemy's horse pursued the retiring Americans, but were checked by Major Trescott with his covering body of continental troops, and no injury was sustained. The special object of the raid was to capture De Lancey, but he was again absent from his quarters. On February 26th, Abraham Dyckman, the Westchester guide, with thirteen volunteer horsemen, made another raid upon the Westchester Light Horse at Morrisania and took five prisoners and five horses. The pursuing party came too near, so the brave volunteers charged them, took one man with his horse, prisoner, and put the rest to flight. The enemy collected again and followed the Americans for some time, but did not have the temerity to come again within striking distance. On March 4th, Captain Honeywell, with a party of volunteer horse, sup- ported by some light infantry under Major Woodbridge, made a raid to. Morrisania, probably from information obtained from two prisoners of De Lancey's force taken the preceding day. The horse proceeded down between Number Eight and the cantonments of the Westchester Light Horse, and having turned the latter between daybreak and sun- rise, entered pell-mell. The enemy was completely taken by surprise and fled in every direction ; some were cut down, others were so badly wounded that they could not be removed as prisoners. Several escaped and ran to positions where the horse could not follow them and began to fire upon the attacking party; this occasioned the firing of alarm guns by the fort. The horse then withdrew, having nearly accomplished their object, the capture of De Lancey, and carrying with them as prisoners, one subaltern, twenty privates, and the same number of horses. The retirement was by way of the Eastchester Road, upon which Major Woodbridge had prepared an ambuscade. The enemy quickly gathered a party of horse and light infantry and started in pursuit, but fell into the ambuscade, which fired one or two volleys into them, when they broke and retired, but soon reformed and returned to the charge. The skirmishing continued for a considerable distance through Eastchester. The Americans lost two privates killed and three slightly wounded; the guide, Lieutenant Dyckman, was also wounded mortally. The State of New York has honored his memory, as well as that of Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene and Major Nathan Flagg of the Rhode Island regiment by. the erection of a handsome granite monument at Yorktown, the former Crompond, about seven miles east of Peekskill. On March 14th, Lieutenant Harris obtained intelligence of a party of De Lancey's men being at a house near the
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Mile Square; and with a party of six surprised the enemy, consisting of twelve mien, and killed one and took four prisoners. On May 19th, the First Massachusetts Brigade was ordered down to Kingsbridge to take possession of the German huts and encamp there. On June 27th there were several British war vessels anchored off the mouth of Spuyten Duyvil Creek. It is to be noticed in most of the raids that the attacking party was usually composed of militia and that the supporting or covering party was composed of regulars. This was probably in pur- suance of a plan to inure the militia to danger and to give them confidence so that they could be rendered less unreliable. Their plunder- ing proclivities were also given full play when they got inside the British cantonments.
The enemy on September 16, 1782, made a grand forage near Valen- tine's Hill under the personal supervision of the commander-in-chief, Sir Guy Carleton. He was attended by the young prince William Henry, afterwards William the Fourth, and a large detachment of troops, stated to have between five and six thousand, as a covering party. The enemy forestalled the Americans, who were sadly in want of forage themselves, owing to the dryness of the season. On October 20th, the British demolished their work at Number Eight. A few days later, the Ameri- can army withdrew to the cantonments in the Highlands. Both sides were awaiting the news of the signing of the definite treaty of peace, and active operations ceased in the early part of 1783. The district so frequently raided by the light troops of both sides, thus deprived of all military control, or semblance of it, was given over to irresponsible bands of thieves and plunderers, who took from the few remaining inhabitants what little they had left. Until the civil authority of the State was once more established the territory of the borough was the scene of murder, robbery and burnings, which were without any cloak of military authority, except in so far as they were revengeful attacks upon the few hated loyalists who remained, or who had not fled to New York upon the withdrawal of the British outposts. Even as it was these marauders did not waste much time, if there was anything to be stolen, in asking or inquiring into the political opinions of their victims.
Following Yorktown-The surrender of Cornwallis on October 19, 1781, marked the beginning of negotiations for peace. These were greatly protracted, through the diplomatic wiles of the French minister, Vergennes, but on September 5, 1783, John Adams wrote that "on Wednesday the 3d day of this month, the American ministers met the British minister at his lodgings at the Hotel de York and signed, sealed, and delivered the definite treaty of peace between the United
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States of America and the King of Great Britain." On October 18th Congress announced the event to the public, and on November 2nd it was promulgated to the army by General Washington from his head- quarters at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey. On the 29th of the same month the British troops, after an occupation of more than seven years, were to withdraw from New York, the last stronghold of monarchy in the young republic.
When preparations for the evacuation began the men and women who had shown open sympathy with the enemies of the American cause found themselves in no enviable situation. They had the option of remaining in the country and suffering much inconvenience at the hands of returned patriots, or of emigrating to Canada. The majority availed themselves of free transportation and the aid of the British king to begin a new life in Nova Scotia. At the same time many exiles from New York took advantage of the cessation of hostilities to visit the city. One of them writes under date of August 30, 1783: "This month completes seven years my family and self have lived in a state of exile from our wonted habitation in New York. I was lately over at New York, and though I did not meet with any considerable personal insult, I had the mortification to see some overgrown Tories whose looks I did not altogether approve of. As to the British they were toler- ably civil and polite, and though there are sentries .placed at almost every hundred yards distance they molest no one who behaves himself with propriety. The poor Hessians will soon be all embarked and gone ; in general they have been very inclinable to desert. The firewood to the amount of several thousand cords laid in by the British army since last spring at the expense of 50s. and 3p. a cord, is now selling at 25s. and 28s. per cord. I met with some of my old acquaintances, who were some of them formerly very fat, stout men, that are now reduced to mere skeletons at the prospect of leaving this place with the army. There is no end to auctions and vendues ; everything is selling off and I believe a great deal more than venders can make a good title for. Few or no negro slaves are given up. My chief errand to town was to look up one of mine and I saw the rogue but found that he had formed such connections with a certain great personage that I could no longer look upon him as my own. He told me he was going to 'Novy Koshee'."
Another communication, dated New York, September 9, 1783, says : "No news here but that of evacuation. This is hourly talked of and occasions a variety of Physiognomie, laughable appearances-some look smiling, others melancholy, a third class mad .... Tories are vexed with Tories; they curse the powers to whom they owe allegiance and thus render themselves rebellious; they profess wonderful concern about
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