Home / Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. / Passage

Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution

Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. 472 words

In the Battle of Long Island, it was said to have lost only three hundred and sixty-seven of all classes, (General Howe to Lord George Germaine, "Newtown, Long Island, 3 Sept., 1776;") only "about" ninety-two were Baid to have been killed or wounded at Harlem. (General Howe to Lord George Germaine, " Head-qua rters, " York Island, 21 September, 1776 ; ") the occupation of Powle's-hook, Long Island, and the City of New York required detachments, of course ; but there can be little doubt that the Army which General Howe moved fromThrogg's-neck numbered very little, if any, less than thirty thousand, Officers and men, fit for active service.

In confirmation of this estimate of the strength of General Howe'E command, in Westchester-county, we may be permitted to state that-, after the arrival of the Second Division of the Hessians and of those other reinforcements to which Lord George Germaine made reference already noticed, but with the losses which it had sustained in Westchester-county and at Fort Washington deducted, on the twenty-second o1 November, 1776, ' ' the force under General Howe's immediate command,' is said to have been thirty-one thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-five. Officers and men, fit for active service. (Reply to the Observations ol Lieut. Gen. Sir William Howe, on a pamphlet entitled Letters to a No bleman, 37.) * [Joseph Galloway's] Letters to a Nobleman, 34, 35.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

As we have said, the two Armies were occupied, during several weeks after the Royal Army had taken the City of New York, in throwing up defensive works-- the American Army, on the Heights of Harlem, to the northward and eastward of the present village of Manhattanville, back, to Kingsbridge, and in the more exposed portions of Westchester-county : the Royal Army, on the Heights of Harlem and on Vandewater's Heights, southward from the village of Manhattanville, and thence to McGowan's-pass, where the postroad to the northward and eastward descended from the high grounds, forming the northernmost portion of the present great City's Central Park, to the Harlem-plains, below J -- and some time was, also, necessarily employed by General Howe, in obtaining information concerning the face of the country, in the rear of the positions occupied by the American Army, "upon a supposition that the enemy" [the American Army~] "should remove from King's- " Bridge," which information, thus sought in advance of any movement of the Army, was become more necessary since he had found the Americans not so well-disposed to join and to serve the Royal Army, in the field, as he had been taught to expect ; 2 and because the country referred to, the County of Westchester, "was so covered with wood, swamps, "and creeks, that it was not open, in the least de- "gree, to be known, but from post to post or from