Home / Scharf, J. Thomas, ed. History of Westchester County, New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I. Philadelphia: L.E. Preston & Co., 1886. / Passage

History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I

Scharf, J. Thomas, ed. History of Westchester County, New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I. Philadelphia: L.E. Preston & Co., 1886. 319 words

Gordon, when describing the movement from Harlem Heights, said, "The movement was attended with much difficulty, for want of Wag- " gons and Artillery horses. When a part was forwarded, the other was "fetched on. This was the general way of removing the Cainp-equip- " page and other aiipendages of the .\rmy. The few Teams which were "at hand, were in no wise equal to the service ; and their deficiency "could be made up only by the bodily labor of the men." (History of the American lievolvlion, ii., 339, 340.)

It would be useful, were some one to ascertain aud to inform the world of historical literature, just why there was such a remarkable scarcity of Teams, in such an old-settled agricultural community a« occupied the lower Towns of Westchester county, in the Autumn of 1770, especially of those Teams which were required by the American Army, by whom that portton of the County had been occupied, during several weeks preceding the date of the retreat from Harlem Heights. There would be some curious revelations of the inefficiency of the Quarter master-general's Department ; but there would, also, be some very much more curioils revelations of thefts of horses, by the Otticers of the Army, not for their present purposes, but for their use, in the future, after their retirement from the service. Vide General OrJers, October 31, 1770.

The farmers of Westchester-county were robbed, indiscriminately, not only by the camp followers and the privates of the Army, but by the Othcers, including Field-ofh<-erK ; and, in that work of iilunder, the records are singularly ample in their evidence that the plunderers were almost exclusively men and Officers of the Massachusetts and Connecticut Lines.t At a later period than that which is now under consideration, even a Major-general of the Continental Army was confederated with similar thieves ; and gave orders on the Paymasters of the Army for