"The movement which culminated in the dedication of a monument at this place to the soldiers of the Revolution, had its inception in the desire to honor the memory of the sturdy patriots who by their courage and valor well sustained the cause of liberty and independence on these historic fields,--not only those who were buried in the old Dutch churchyard, but in a larger, broader sense to honor all those brave men who stood for the patriot cause on this, then Philipse Manor, which comprised the present townships of Greenburgh, Mount Pleasant, Ossining and the City of Yonkers, containing eighty square miles of territory, fronting over twenty miles on the Hudson and extending eastwardly to the Bronx. It was entitled one of the military districts of Westchester County, and in it a regiment of militia was organized, with headquarters in the vicinity of Tarrytown, which was then the place of greatest interest on the Manor, the old Dutch Church being here located, and consequently a large number of the soldiers of the Revolution here found their last resting place. "Hence it was pre-eminently fitting that a mounment to their memory should be here erected. The appellation of 'Neutral Ground,' as commonly applied to all this region, is a strange misnomer, for from the beginning to the end of the JOHN MACLEAN MACDONALD 93

Revolution partisan warfare so waged here that it may well be said that every field was embattled, every rock a fortress, and every highway and by-way was a line of assault or retreat. Nowhere else was the country so devasted, nowhere greater suffering, severer trials, but to the everlasting praise of the patriots of this manor be it said, they 'yielded not;' their endurance was like the granite of these hills. "An old redoubt thrown up during the Revolution, evidently to protect the legendary and historic bridge over the Pocantico, just on the verge which overlooks the old burying ground where so many of those heroes sleep, offered the ideal site for such a memorial.