NOTES.
Note 1. (Page [41].)
“The old county historian.” Rev. Robert Bolton, born 1814, died 1877. His “History of the County of Westchester,” especially the revised edition published in 1881, is a rich mine of “material.” Among other works that have served the author of this narrative in a study of the period and place are Allison’s “History of Yonkers,” Cole’s “History of Yonkers,” Edsall’s “History of Kingsbridge,” Dawson’s “Westchester County during the Revolution,” Jones’s “New York during the Revolution,” Watson’s “Annals of New York in the Olden Time,” General Heath’s “Memoirs,” Thatcher’s “Memoirs,” Simcoe’s “Military Journal,” Dunlap’s “History of New York,” and Mrs. Ellet’s “Domestic History of the Revolution.” For an excellent description of the border warfare on the “neutral ground,” the reader should go to Irving’s delightful “Chronicle of Wolfert’s Roost.” Cooper’s novel, “The Spy,” deals accurately with that subject, which is touched upon also in that good old standby, Lossing’s “Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution.” Philipse 284 Manor-house has been carefully written of by Judge Atkins in a Yonkers newspaper, and less accurately by Mrs. Lamb in her “History of New York City,” and Marian Harland in “Some Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories.” Of general histories, Irving’s “Life of Washington” treats most fully of things around New York during the British occupation, and these things are interestingly dealt with in local histories, such as the “History of Queens County,” Stiles’s “History of Brooklyn,” Barber and Howe’s “New Jersey Historical Collections,” etc., as well as in such special works as Onderdonk’s “Revolutionary Incidents.”
Note 2. (Page [47].)
Of Colonel Gist’s escape, Bolton gives the following account: “The house was occupied by the handsome and accomplished widow of the Rev. Luke Babcock, and Miss Sarah Williams, a sister of Mrs. Frederick Philipse. To the former lady Colonel Gist was devotedly attached; consequently, when an opportunity afforded, he gladly moved his command into that vicinity. On the night preceding the attack, he had stationed his camp at the foot of Boar Hill, for the better purpose of paying a special visit to this lady. It is said that whilst engaged in urging his suit the enemy were quietly surrounding his quarters; he had barely received his final dismissal from Mrs. Babcock when he was startled by the firing of musketry.... It appears that all the roads and bridges had been well guarded by the enemy, except the one now 285 called Warner’s Bridge, and that Captain John Odell upon the first alarm led off his troops through the woods on the west side of the Saw Mill [River]. Here Colonel Gist joined them. In the meantime Mrs. Babcock, having stationed herself in one of the dormer windows of the parsonage, aided their escape whenever they appeared, by the waving of a white handkerchief.”
The British attack was under Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, whose journal shows that his force so far outnumbered Gist’s that the latter’s only sensible course was in flight. About the year 1840, trees cut down near the site of Gist’s camp were found to contain balls buried six inches in the wood.
Note 3. (Page [76].)
The three generals arrived on the Cerberus, May 25th. All the histories say that they arrived “with reinforcements.” It is true, troops were constantly arriving at Boston about that time, but none came immediately with the three generals. The Connecticut Gazette (published in New London) printed, early in June, this piece of news, brought by a gentleman who had been in Boston, May 28th: “Generals Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe arrived at Boston last Friday in a man-of-war. No troops came with them. They brought over 25 horses.” It is a wonder that Frothingham, in his admirably complete history of the siege of Boston, missed even this little circumstance. Probably everybody has read the incident thus related by Irving: “As the ships entered the harbor and 286 the rebel camp was pointed out, Burgoyne could not restrain a burst of surprise and scorn. ‘What!’ cried he; ‘ten thousand peasants keep five thousand King’s troops shut up! Well, let us get in and we’ll soon find elbow room!’” I don’t think Irving relates anywhere the sequel, which is that when, after his surrender, Burgoyne marched with his conquered army into Cambridge, an old woman shouted from a window to the crowd of spectators, “Give him elbow room!” This story ought to be true, if it is not.
Note 4. (Page [89].)
It was in a letter under date of October 4, 1778, that Washington wrote: “What officer can bear the weight of prices that every necessary article is now got to? A rat in the shape of a horse is not to be bought for less than £200; a saddle under thirty or forty.”