then stormed - Flagg killed, Greene mortally wounded &c. - Knapp and Totten (?) then pushed for the Widow Griffen's nearly two miles off by the said road. When they raised the hill in the road a little west of, and near to the Widow Griffens house they halted and send forward a flag demanding an instant and unconditional surrender. The Ameri- -can officer in command finding himself surprised by a superior force hesitated an instant when the Flag re-iterated his summons for immediate surrender promising in that case quarters and good treatment, but that otherwise they must abide (take) the consequences. The American officer then ordered his men who had turned out to ground their arms. They were of the Rhode Island
- Hufeland Index Page 242 -
regiment, and mostly, if not all, blacks. Two of the blacks refused, said they would defend themselves, and instantly fired upon Knapp's horse who were advancing upon the house, wounding Totten in the toe. The black soldiers were now charged pursued through the fields and slaughtered without mercy. About thirty days before this attack, Totten had come up to Colonel Greene's with a flag when for some reason he was coolly and slightingly received, placed under a negro guard, and felt so much neglected and insulted that at parting he let fall this threat: 'Colonel Greene shall before long repent the treatment I have this day received.' The French army when they retired from White Plains (in 1781 probably) left some