There were only two halts -- one at Croton Bridge and the other beside the Sleepy Hollow Church near Tarrytown. Valentine's Hill (Yonkers), four miles above Kingsbridge, was reached by sunrise of the 3d. and there Washington stopped to await the result of the movements below. At the same time the French army was on t lie way from < Connecticut. This well-planned and in all its parts perfectly well-executed demonstration failed totally. Its collapse affords striking testimony of the sound sense of Washington in discouraging proposed expeditions against New York throughout the Revolution. Such expeditions were projected repeatedly by his subordinates, but Washington disapproved them almost without consideration. He himself, on one or two occasions previously to the attempt of July 3, 1781, made ready to descend upon Kingsbridge, but these offers were only temporary menaces for strategic purposes. Washington's career teaches that when there was any conceivable advantage to be derived from tight ing or from aggressively operating, he was as enterprising and

50G

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

persistent along those lines as any great general of history. It was agonizing to him to waste away campaign after campaign on the defensive. From the summer of IT'S to the summer of 1781 he never fought a battle, conducted a siege, or made any aggressive movement in force which involved active warfare. Yet during all that period lie had his army drawn up or disposed in New Jersey, the Highlands, or Westchester County, within easy striking distance of New York; and, moreover, the recapture of New York was the grand goal of the lie volution. He did not attempt it because it would have been a simply mad thing to do with the forces at his disposal. When, finally, with the assistance of the French, he was ready to move on New York as a formal matter, he arranged a perfect combination to take Kingsbridge by swift surprise.