They now once more pushed forward and when they approached Orsers sent one party of about forty or fifty around through a lane who got in our rear and lay in ambush to cut off our retreat. This party by a circuitous march occupied the ground north of Orsers while the other party (of about fifteen or twenty) advanced upon us to the attack under cover of the orchard which extended down the banks of the North River south of the house. Captain Williams had been averse to our halting here, urging us to cross the Croton and join a guard of about twenty five or thirty man posted at Courtland's
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House before stopping, and he was at the very time on the lookout, but Kipp who commanded the Refugees took his measures so well that the enemy's approach was not discovered until they (fired upon the barn) this lower party of fifteen or twenty, dis- -charged their carbines and rifles. The horses alarmed and wounded kicked, plunged, and broke from their fastenings in great confusion, and running north for home, were (many of them) captured by the party which advanced and cut off our retreat when they heard the firing. We lost here about eighteen or twenty horses of our own, and likewise the fifteen we had taken at West Farms, and the two prisoners. Rivington's account is correct in the main, though, I think the Refugees made more than seven prisoners. [Fifteen of us were taken prisoners. - We were three months prisoners, that is, till the 28th. of April [X].] When the alarm was first