ever may have been thought and said of his failure to cross the Bronx and to attack the heavily laden column commanded by General Lee, the maxims of military science, at that time, forbade a movement towards the White Plains, then, leaving his left flank and his rear exposed to the three Divisions commanded, respectively, by Generals Lee, Spencer, and Lincoln. 3 There was a possibility that the separation of those three Divisions from the main body of the Army might have enabled him to attack the Americans, en detail, and to overcome them more completely . than if they had been in one body ; but he had excellent evidence of the vigilance and the enterprise. of those who were nearest to him ; and his ruling principle, to avoid an unnecessary exposure of his men evidently led him to the safe conclusion that, in such a series of undertakings on the divided forces of the Americans, if more than one attack on them were to be made, the last one of the series should be that on that portion of the American Army which, then, occupied the entrenched Camp, at the White Plains, a conclusion in which he would have been entirely sustained by every intelligent soldier, of that period, in Europe or in America.

Notwithstanding the silence of General Howe, concerning his purpose in moving his command to Scarsdale, instead of to the White Plains, there is reason for supposing that it was done for the purpose of cutting off the column commanded by General Lee, before it could join the main body; that preparations for the movement, on the following morning, were made on the afternoon and evening of the day of the arrival of the Royal Army, at Scarsdale; and that it was prevented by the withdrawal of the column which it was intended to attack, from its designated route, into a road which was further westward, so that, when the time came for the attack, General Lee, by a forced march, during the night, was several miles nearer to the main body of the Army, and entirely beyond the reach of General Howe. 4 «» .