July, 1778, Lord Cathcart held the command of ihe British force at Kings bridge.

"The late skirmish, (says Heath,) writing in 1781, near King's Bridge, was occasioned by the American army's moving down, in order to give the French officers a view of the British out-posts near the bridge. A number of Americans were killed and wounded by long shot from the yaugers of the enemy, who kept up a popping fire whenever they could reach our troops."''

The vestiges of the military camp pits can still be traced on the hills around the bridge, while within a few feet of it the remains of a British officer was recently disinterred, and, incredible as it may seem, in his full uniform ; the brass buttons as perfect as the day they were moulded, containing the number of his regiment.

King's Bridge was also the rendezvous of a corps of freebooters called " Cow Boi/s,^^ whose bands ravaged the surrounding hills and vallies. ''On the part of the British," remarks the author of The Spy, "the stimulus of loyalty was by no means suffered to sleep where so fruitful a field offered on which it might be expended- But their freebooters were enrolled, and their efforts more systematized. Long experience had taught their leaders the eflicacy of concentrated force; and unless tradition does great injustice to their exploits, the result did do little credit to their foresight. The corps -- we presume from their well known afTection to that useful animal -- had received the significant appellation of ' Cow Boys.' "<= The morality of these heroes of the Neutral Ground was of a singular kind : the rapine by wiiich they subsisted they accounted lawful and honorable. King's Bridge lies prettily situated in a beautiful vale near the confluence of the Hudson and Haarlem Rivers.