The British occupation of the fort on Verplanck's Point lasted from the 1st of June until the 21st of October, a period of nearly live months. Clinton's return in force to the northwestern section of Westchester County after Wayne's recapture of Stony Point was made by way of the " Xew Bridge " at the mouth of the Croton River; and it was by the same route that Clinton fell back to Kingsbridge after being foiled by Heath. By the 20th of July Clinton had retired as far down as Dobbs Ferry. The British garrisons left at Verplanck's and Stony Points had a total of about 1,500. From the 20th of July to the 21st of October, when the posts were evacuated, these garrisons were wholly inactive. Heath, in his Memoirs, reports almost daily desertions from them to the American army. On the 11th of October, he says, fourteen British seamen were taken prisonTeller's (Croton) Point by Captain Hallet's company of New Yorkers atmilitia. From the time of the landing of the British expedition below Verplanck's Point on the 31st of May until the ultimate withdrawal of Clinton to Xew York City in the latter part of July, our county suffered much from ravages. The principal event of this period was the burning of Bedford by Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who had participated in the massacre of the Stockbridge Indians in 1778. This was the same Tarleton who became famous by his sanguinary doings in the South in 1780 and 1781. A body of about ninety American cavalry, under Colonel Elisha Sheldon, was quartered at Poundridge in and around the house of Major Ebenezer Lockwood, one of the most noted patriots of Westchester County,1 and in the same locality was a militia force of 120 men, commanded by Major Leavenworth. Tarleton, then encamped at the Mile Square near Yonkers, was ordered to make a sudden night march to Poundridge for the double purpose of surprising and 1 Ebenezer Lockwood was the foremost mon Pleas of Westchester County.