Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution
7 Because a portion of General Lincoln's Division, with all of that or General Spencer, had been detached from the main body of the Army, and sent forward, with orders to occupy all the high grounds, between Valentine's-hill and the White Plains, and to strengthen them with entrenchments ; and because the Regiment commanded by Colonel Brooks formed a portion of one of the Divisions who were thus detailed to occupy and to strengthen those high grounds ; and because we have not found the slightest allusion to the Regiment commanded by Colonel Brooks, in any of the descriptions of the movements of troops, at any time previous to the attack on Chatterton's-hill, by the Koyal troops ; and because we cannot find any Order, from Head-quarters, for any other occupation of Chatterton's-hill, until the morning of the twenty-eighth or October, when Colonel Haslet, with his well-tried command, was ordered by General Washington "to take possession of the hill beyond our lines "and the command of the Militia Regiment there posted," (Colonel Haslet to General Rodney, " November 12, 1776,") when a Regiment of Militia, whose subsequent conduct clearly identified it as that commanded by Colonel Brooks, was found in possession of the ground-- all these reasons lead us to the conclusion stated in the text.
We are not insensible that words employed by Colonel Harrison, in his letter to the President of the Congress, dated " White- Plains, 29 "October, 1776," have been construed to mean that troops had been sent down, on the morning of the tweuty-eighth of October, " with a view of" "throwing up some lines," on Chatterton's-hill ; and that the biographer of Colonel Rufus Putnam, (Memoir of Colonel Rufus Putnam, in Hil-- dreth's Biographical and Histoi ical Memoirs of the Early Settlei-s of Ohio,.