It was now about 9 o'clock A. m. Our horses were put in the barn, stable, and barnyard, and fed, and we proceeded to sell pur spoils at auction. While these events were going on, the enemy probably reinforced at Dobbs Ferry, renewed pursuit, but not overtaking us had pulled up between Tarrytown and Sing Sing, when they were overtaken by a man named Curry who had passed us when we halted near Orser's, and who informed them where we were.

They now once more pushed forward, and when the}' approached Orser's sent a party of about forty or fifty around through a lane, so getting in our rear, and lay in ambush to cut off our retreat. This party, by a circuitous march, occupied the ground north of Orser's, while the other party, of fifteen or twenty, advanced upon us to the attack under cover of the orchard, which extended down the banks of the river south of the house. Capt. Williams had been averse to our halting there, urging us to cross the Croton and so join a guard of twenty-five or thirty men posted at Cortlandt's House, before stopping, and he was at the very time on the lookout ; but Kipp, who commanded the Refugees, took his measures so well that the enemy's approach was not discovered till they discharged their carbines. The horses, alarmed and wounded, kicked and plunged, and broke from their fastenings in great confusion, and running north for home were, many of them, captured by the party which had advanced to the northward to cut off our retreat. We lost here about twenty horses of our own, and likewise ihe fifteen we had taken at West Farms, and the two prisoners. When the alarm was first given we were engaged in selling our spoils.