332 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



guard officers deputed to lead him forth, "I am ready at any moment, 

 gentlemen, to wait on you." Though his face was of deadly paleness, 

 its features were tranquil and calm; his beauty shone with an unnatural 

 distinctness that awed the hearts of the vulgar, and his manners and air 

 were as easy as though he was going to a ball-room rather than the 

 grave. 



The spot fixed for the closing scene was in an open field belonging to 

 the owner of the house where he was detained, and on an eminence that 

 commands an extended view. It was within a mile, and in open sight 

 of Washington's quarters. Here the lofty gibbet was erected, and the 

 shallow grave of three or four feet depth was digged. The office of hang- 

 man, always an odious employment, was perhaps on this occasion more 

 than usually so. None of our soldiers undertook it. One Strickland, a 

 tory of Ramapo Valley, was in our hands at the time. His threatened 

 fate may have been hard; his years were not many; and by the price of 

 freedom he procured to take on himself the necessary but revolting char- 

 acter. Under an elaborate disguise, he probably hoped to go through 

 the scene if not unnoticed, at least unknown. 



Besides the officers that were always in the chamber, six sentinels 

 kept watch by night and by day, over every aperture of the building; 

 if hope of escape ever rose in Andre's breast it could not have developed 

 into even the vaguest expectation. To the idea of suicide as a means of 

 avoiding his doom, he never descended. The noon of this day was ap- 

 pointed for the execution, and at half an hour before, the cortege set 

 forth. Andre walked arm in arm between two subalterns; each, it is 

 said, with a drawn sword in the opposite hand. A captain's command 

 of thirty or forty men, marched immediately about these, while an outer 

 guard of five hundred infantry, environed the whole and formed a hol- 

 low square around the gibbet, within which no one save the officers on 

 duty, and the Provost- Marshal's men, were suffered to enter. An im- 

 mense multitude was, however, assembled on all sides to witness the spec- 

 tacle ; and every house along the way was thronged with eager gazers, that 

 only of Washington's excepted. Here the shutters were drawn and no 

 man was visible but the two sentries who paced to an fro before the 

 door. Neither the chief himself, nor his staff, were present with the 

 troops; a circumstance which was declared by our people, and assent- 

 ed to by Andre, as evincing a laudable decorum. But almost every 

 field-officer in our army, led by Greene, headed the procession on horse- 

 back, and a number followed the prisoner on foot; while the outer 

 guard, stretching in single file on either side, in front and rear, prevented 

 the concourse from crowding in. In addition to all those who came in 



