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Sept. 23. James Mandeville. On Friday morning January 24th 1783, we started from Peekskill hamlet or village (a village of five or eight houses at that time) being about or upwards of fifty in number, that is, thirty three from near Peekskill, and the rest about twenty from the east part (i.e. Somers and Salem) of Courtland’s Manor. ––– It was an enterprise planned by Colonel Samuel Drake and Mr. Peter Van Tassel to carry off Colonel DeLancey, because he had been a public disturber and his men plunderers, and to guard against treachery the point of attack was to be kept secret from us till we reached West Farms, that is, we did not know where, precisely, we were going to strike. We went down the North River road to Dobbs Ferry, then turning east got upon the Tuckeyhoe road, and crossing Hunt’s Bridge entered West Farms by way of East Chester about midnight

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(Ten or twelve of us were left near the bridge with the horses, of which guard I was one.) Notwithstanding every precaution and although we pushed forward and rapidly, there seemed to be a general alarm the moment we appeared – bells ringing and bugles blowing. We crossed the bridge and surrounded the house but the Colonel was not to be found, having gone out as the inmates told us to a cock fight, but we afterwards learnt he concealed himself in an out-house on the first alarm of our approach and so escaped. We took at the Colonel’s house two prisoners fifteen horses and a variety of plunder, – and then retreated by the North River road with as much expedition as our jaded horses could use. We feared a pursuit and before we reached Yonkers a party overtook us. It being night, however, and their number at first probably small we kept them at bay until we reached the new Livingston villa

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near Dobb’s Ferry when daylight appeared and they seemed preparing for a charge. Here we halted and prepared to resist but they contented themselves with discharging their carbines and rifles at us and we returned the fire. The enemy now halted and we passed through Tarrytown and Sing Sing without molestation being no longer pursued. The party from Salem and Stephentown wishing to take the nearest road home were anxious to leave us when we reached (approached) the Croton and we agreed to go to Orser’s house on the banks of the North River, refresh ourselves and our horses and divide our plunder. It was now about 9 o’clock a.m. Our horses were put in the barn, stable, and barnyard and fed, and we proceeded to sell our spoils at auction. – While these events were going on the enemy were probably reinforced at Dobbs Ferry and renewed the

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pursuit, but not overtaking us had pulled up between Tarry town and Sing Sing and wheeled about to return, when they were overtaken by a man named Curry who had passed us when we halted near Orsers and who informed them where we were. 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, discharged 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

[X] (see Original top of page 17.)

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given we were engaged in selling our spoils. Considering ourselves secure we had posted no sentinels. We ran on the instant for our horses but most of them had escaped, mine among the rest, and not being able to make any resistance I surrendered. I was then a boy of sixteen only and wore my brother’s uniform and arms, &c., he being a captain of the West Chester troop of horse, and at the time sick. Williams escaped by the fleetness of his horse. Odell seized the first horse he would find, mounted and tried to escape but was overtaken by Kipp and Totten and pursued on the ice for half a mile or three quarters or more. Kip and Totten were ahead of their men, being probably being probably better mounted. They both struck cut at Odell, and Totten striking with a dull sword at last hit his cocked hat first and then the bridge of his nose, part of the hat being between, uncut, and intercepting the edge

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of the sword. The bony part of the nose being broken Odell carried the mark of this wound with him through life. He escaped by pulling up his horse suddenly and striking at the same time moment at one of his pursuers a blow which stunned him. He then made for Taller’s Point and escaped before they could recover and overtake. The officer (a Lieutenant) who commanded the squad at Van Cortland’s made no effort to assist us, for which he was afterwards tried by a Court Martial. He might have saved us. He was broken. Kipp’s party when he attacked us at Orsar’s was sixty or seventy in number. One of Kipp’s men, the notorious Shube Merritt stripped me of my boots and uniform. We, the prisoners were taken first to Morrisania, then, on Saturday night to the Island (Randall’s) opposite Randall’s, and put in the log Provoost there where we were confined in said

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jail, and then on Sunday morning to New York where one or two us who were badly wounded were sent to the hospital, and the rest, Paulding excepted, to the Provost, that is, to the old jail. Paulding in consequence of the celebrity he had acquired as one of the captors of André, was not confined, but was entertained by the British officers, messing and living with the Captains and Lieutenants. We were detained prisoners till the 27th or 28th of April, that is, three months. Odell rode during most of the war a very fine grey horse presented to him by Governor Van Courtland, which he lost in the surprise at Orsers but afterwards recovered, the animal returning to the farm where he was raised. George M.Chain was the only man killed, and was with me on the banks of the Hudson river where the Refugees came up to us. They gave me quarter, but refused

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him of it tho he begged hard. They shot him and cut his body in pieces. The reason assigned for this barbarity was that he had burnt the dwellings and barns belonging to some of the Refugees and had attempted to set fire to Colonel Delancey’s.”