His name is spelled in various ways in different accounts. Probably because he could not write. The company was raised shortly before for six months service. Only a few of these names appear on the roster of Colonel Thomas' regiment, published by the State of New York, but many of them including the officers had served at various times in other regiments raised in West-chester and the adjacent counties. 1 This happened in Josiah Fowler's tavern on Purchase Street near the cross-roads. Interview with John Carpenter, son of the quartermaster of Thomas' regiment, October 23, 1844.

MOSIER'S FIGHT WITH REFUGEES 69

time explained to them that their only chance of safety lay in keeping close together, strictly obeying orders and above all impressed on them not to fire their guns until told to. Here, herded together, with loaded guns and lowered bayonets, they awaited the British charge. The attacking column consisted of about forty-five mounted Refugees, nearly every one of them a native of Westchester County and personally known to many of their opponents. They were a motley collection of Tories, held together by hope of plunder, rather than any affection for the British, who neither acknowledged them as part of their regular army, nor paid or provisioned them. Their existence depended entirely upon marauding and the plunder they took furnished them with food, clothing and horses. They had ridden up from their camp in what is now known as Mott Haven and were part of a body of irregulars who were justly feared, because they knew every lane and by-way and were in constant communication with local Tory friends who kept them in-formed of every movement of the Americans. The officers accompanying this detachment were Colonel James HolmesI of Bedford, who at the beginning of the Revolution, com-manded an American regiment and Captain Samuel Kipp who came from North Castle.