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
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sick soldiers in North Castle Church and a surgeon of one of the French regiment's went down daily to see them, returning at night to his quarters in York Town some where north of the Croton and near Pines Bridge. On his return from one of these visits he was waylaid by James Totten, James Tillott and two others at a place not more than a mile from Pines Bridge in a straight line to the south. They took him to a retired spot in a wood, robbed him of his money, gold watch and clothes, and then sat down under a tree and played a game of "all fours" to determine who should kill him. The poor Frenchman could not talk English but appeared to comprehend what was going on, and resigned himself.
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to his destiny. When the game was over he advanced all of his own accord to a tree and clasping the tree in his arms motioned to them to come forward and tie him which they did, and straight away the appointed man put him to death. One of them - (Totten?) soon after appeared below at Morrisania, dressed in the Frenchman's clothes, and openly boasted of the deed, but received a sharp reproof from Colonel DeLancey.