26
Young's tavern, which was doubtless the route Arnold laid out for him, or had he
been but an hour and a half earlier, all would have been well with him, for the
road was then free. At this point I would digress a moment, to consider the state
of that part of Westchester County—its greater part—then known as the Neutral
Ground, from not being permanently occupied by either army. Strictly speaking,
the Neutral Ground was all below the Croton river, but the frequent British
forays beyond that line rendered its actual extent indefinite. Dr. James Thacher,1
surgeon of the Sixteenth Massachusetts, whose Military Journal is so full of
valuable details of the period, was present with his regiment during November,
1780, when a large detachment of Washington's army, under Stark, crossed the
Hudson and moved down through the county as far as West Farms, only eight
miles from King's Bridge, and endeavored to draw the British into a general
engagement.2 He thus graphically describes the region and inhabitants :
'' The miserable inhabitants are not much favored with the privileges which their
neutrality ought to secure to them. They are continually exposed to the ravages and
insults of infamous banditti, composed of royal refugees and Tories. The country is rich
and fertile, but now has the marks of a country in ruins. The few farmers who remain
find it impossible to harvest the produce. The meadows and pastures are covered with
grass of a summer's growth, and thousands of bushels of apples and other fruit are rotting
in the orchards. Some on either side have taken up arms, and become the most cruel and
deadly foes. There are within the British lines, banditti of lawless villains who devote
themselves to the most cruel pillage and robbery among the defenceless inhabitants
between the lines; many of whom they carry off to New York after plundering their
houses and farms. These shameful marauders have received the names of Cowboys and
Skinners. By their atrocious deeds they have become a scourge and terror to the people.''
Rev. Timothy Dwight, of New Haven, who was Chaplain to General
Silliman's Connecticut Brigade^—-the First—in 1778-9, and afterwards President
of Yale College, has left a still more distressing description of the same region :
'' These unhappy people were exposed to the depredations of both armies. Often
they were actually plundered, and always were liable to this calamity. They feared
everybody whom they saw, and loved nobody. Fear was apparently the only passion by
which they were animated. The power of volition seemed to have deserted them. They
yielded, with a kind of apathy, what you asked and what they supposed it impossible for
them. to retain. Their houses were in a great measure scenes of desolation, and their
furniture was extensively plundered or broken to pieces. The walls, floors and windows
were injured both by violence and decay, and were not repaired, because they had not
the means and because they were exposed to the repetition of the same injuries. Their
cattle were gone, their enclosures were burnt where they were capable of becoming fuel,
and thrown down where they were not. Their fields were covered with a rank growth of
1 James Thacher was born in Barnstable, Mass., February 4, 1754, and died in Plymouth, May 24, 1844.
He entered the army in 1775, and served throughout the war, successively as surgeon of the First Virginia and
the Sixteenth Massachusetts. He was prominent professionally and socially throughout his life after the
end of the war, and exerted a marked influence for good on the community in which he dwelt.
i Under pretext of a foraging expedition, this force was intended by the Commander in Chief to co-operate with
the main army in an attack against the Enemy's post on (New) York Island. By some cause, known only
to the Chief, this enterprise was unfortunately defeated.— Thacher.
