Notwithstanding all its defects, therefore, we trust the volume which contains the results of our prolonged and earnest labor, and which is, now, laid before the reader, will be accepted as our humble offering to the memory of those farmers and farmers' wives and farmers' children, residents of the County of Westchester, during the era of persecution and outrage and lawless violence, 1774-83, and during the era of War and its barbarous accompaniments, 1776-83, who were subjected to and who endured the outrages and barbarities of which we have made mention ; and if, at the same time, it shall serve as a contribution to the general history of the County, the measure of our satisfaction will have been completed.

In the prosecution of our authorial labors, we have generally depended on the resources of our own work-library; but we have been favored with loans of half a dozen volumes which were not on our shelves, by Colonel J. Thomas Scharf, LL.D., of Baltimore, and Smith Williamson, Esq., of this City ; and the files of local Newspapers, in the Library of the New York Historical Society, have, also, been usefully resorted to -- for the use of all these, our sincere thanks are due, and, hereby, tendered. Messrs. William and Robert Kelby, of the New York Historical Society, have kindly made examinations and copies of papers for us, when we were unable to do so for ourself : our valued friends, Hon. J. O. Dykman and Hon. Lewis C. Piatt, of the White Plains, and William Heathcote De Lancey, Esq., of the City of New York, have given their valuable assistance in determining and describing localities, in Westchester and Pelham and in the vicinity of the White Plains, which were the scenes of military operations described in our narrative: to the Rev.