6 Vide pages 253, 258, ante. 6 Vide pages 252, 263, ante.
over the Bronx-river, near De Lancey's Mill, [now the village of West Farms^\ in the Town of Westchester ; and the Waldeckers whom General Knyphausen had left at New Rochelle, on the preceding Monday, was moved to another bridge, also over the Bronx-river, three miles above the other, [then and now known as Williams' s-bridge:~\ and every other necessary preparation for an orderly and undisturbed retreat had, in the meanwhile, been taken. 7
During the evening of Tuesday, the fifth of November, inspired by the teachings of General Israel Putnam, 8 and in harmony with the advanced New England ideas, of that period, with which the inhabitants of Westchester-county had already become wellacquainted, 9 as well as with those of an immediately subsequent period, 10 a body of Massachusetts troops, led by Major Austin, of Colonel Brewer's Regiment, left the Camp, and went down into the Village of- the While Plains, which the enemy has abandoned, during the earlier portions of the day. The purposes of that party were such as New Englanders of that period were apt to regard as peculiarly " patriotic " -- they evidently went down to see what the merciless Hessian and British soldiery had left, when the Royal Army had retreated ; to select, for their own or their families' uses, and to carry away, into New England, whatever, of that remainder, should best suit their own tastes ; to dispossess the women and children who were mostly the occupants of the houses ; and to burn what they did not care to steal, sparing almost nothing of either public or private properties, just to " strike terrour into the Tories and influence in our "favour," as these New England thieves "patrioti- " cally " expressed it.