Some supposed Fort Washington would be the point of attack ; others that they would land either at Morrisania, Hunt's or Throgg's Point. It was therefore determined in Council to guard against both contingencies. Ten thousand men were to be kept on Manhattan Island, and Heath's division was increased to ten thousand men; a floating bridge was to be thrown across Harlem Creek, so that the two bodies could support each other as circumstances might require.

On September 18th the British army was between the city of New York and the American lines, which latter extended across the island on the north

<• A graphic description of the troubles which a family in Lower Westchester endured is given in the correspondence of a young military officer on the staff" of General Sullivan. He had a leave of absence to go to his ho.ne and remove his aged mother and sisters, with tiie fiocks and herds, to a jilace of safety in the interior of the county. -- N. Y. Hist. Soc. MSS.

'Heath's "Memoirs," 55 ; Force, ii. 108.

»1 Force, 1184.

»! Force, 1552 ; Heath, 5".

l» Idem, 50.

"Force, ii. 2.39-240.

WESTCHESTER.

side of Harlem Plains, Heath had a strong picket of four hundred men at Morrisania, with a chain of sentinels, within half gun-shot of each other, posted along the shore and near the passage between Morrisania and Randall's Island. The American sentries were ordered not to fire at the British unless the latter began; but the British did begin, and there was freciuent firing between the pickets. One day a British otHcer walking on the shore of Randall's Island was wounded by a shot from an American sentinel. An officer with a flag soon after came down to the creek, and calling for the American officer of the guard, informed him that if the American sentinels fired any more the commander on the island would cannonade Colonel Morris' house, in which the American picket officers were quartered.