There is an abundance of testimony showing that General Howe's original purpose was to take Tarrytown and New Rochelle, as the extremes of his proposed lines ; and, because the venerable historian did not appe»r to have been governed by it, preferring, rather, to pay deference to Ik phantom of his own creation, it must have been that he did not understand it. Whatever it may have been which inspired the historian, however, what he wrote, on the subject under notice, is not historical, although it bears the name of History.

* Vide page 231, note 7, ante.

twentieth of October, the entire military force, except the Regiments which were intended to garrison Fort Washington, was drawn into Westchester-couuty ; every height and pass and advantageous ground, between New Rochelle and the Hudson-river, was occupied by an American force suflBciently strong to hold it, temporarily f the Head-quarters of the Army were removed from Harlem Heights to Kingsbridge;" and, although there are no direct testimonies on the subject, it is very evident that, at least as early as the close of the twentieth of October, the proper dispositions for the movement of the main body of the Army -- the garrison of Fort Washington and a guard at the barracks, at Fort Independence, only excepted -- to the high grounds, to the northward and eastward of the White Plains, had, also, been entirely completed.

On the twentieth of October, Lieutenant-colonel Harcourt, with the greater portion of the Sixteenth Regiment of Light Dragoons -- the other portion of the Regiment having embarked on a transport which had not come into port -- and the whole of the Seventeenth Regiment of Light Dragoons, joined General Howe ; and, on the next day, {^October 21, 1776,] thus strengthened, the Right and Center of the Royal Army were moved to a position, about two miles to the northward of New Rochelle, on the road to the White Plains, Lieutenant-general Heister occupying the ground which had been thus abandoned, with one Brigade of British and two Brigades of Hessians, constituting the Left of the Army and, early in the morning of that day, the Queen's Rangers, a Corps of Loyalists commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Rogers, were detached and pushed forward, to take possession of Mamaroneck,* the last-named of which places was