556 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



wounded. Lieut. Col, Thompson, and six other officers, with ninety-eight rank 

 and rile, were made prisoners. Of the enemy, two officers and eighteen men 

 were wounded ; and five men killed."* 



The British advanced by the southern road, and divided at the junc- 

 tion of the Four Corners — one party going west, the other marching di- 

 rectly upon the house. The party moving west intercepted or cut off 

 Isaac van Wart and a small company under his command, who were 

 attempting to succor their comrades. The dead, who fell in this en- 

 gagement, were buried on the east side of the road, upon the rising 

 bank of a small hollow north-east of the Van Wart residence. 



" On this occasion," (says Samuel Young, in a letter written to Com- 

 modore Valentine Morris, dated Mount Pleasant, 25th January, 1814,) 

 " my father's house with all his out-houses were burnt. After this dis- 

 aster our troops never made an effort to protect that part of the country. 

 The American lines were afterwards changed and extended from Bed- 

 ford to Croton bridge, and from thence following the course of that 

 river to the Hudson. All the intermediate country was abandoned and 

 unprotected, being about twenty miles in the rear of the ground which 

 Colonel Burr had maintained, when posted on the lines. Samuel Young 

 served under the command of Colonel Burr during the Revolutionary 

 war. 



A letter from Judge Young, of Westchester County, New York. c 



Mount Pleasant, Jan. 25, 1814. 

 Dear Sir : 



Your letter of the 30th ult., asking for some account of the campaign in which 

 I served under the command of Col. Burr, during the Revolutionary War, was 

 received some davs ago, and has been constantly in my mind. I will reply to it 

 with pleasure, but the compass of a letter will not admit of much detail. I re- 

 sided in the lines from the commencement of the Revolution until the winter of 

 1777, when my father's house was burnt by order of the British General. 

 The County of Westchester, very soon after the commencement of hostilities, 

 became, on account of its exposed situation, a scene of the deepest distress. 

 From the Croton to Kingsbridge, every species of rapine and lawlessness pre- 

 vailed. No man went to his bed but under the apprehension of having his house 

 plundered or burnt, or himself or family massacred before morning. Some, 

 under the character of Whigs, plundered the Tories; while others, of the latter 

 description, plundered the Whigs. Parties of marauders assuming either charac- 

 ter, or none, as suited their convenience, indiscriminately assailed both Whigs 

 and Tories. So little vigilance was used on our part, that the emissaries and 

 spies of the enemy passed and repassed without interruption. These calamities 



a Thacher's Military Journal, 185. 



l> I lavis's Mem. of Burr, vol, 1, lo.">. 



c We are indebted for this important letter to our friend and neighbor, T. s. Randall, LL.D., 

 of this village. Editor Historical Magazine. Copied from Historical Magazine, new series, 

 vol. ix, No. 6. June, 1871. page 284. 



