Promised Rewards for the bravest Men. Division of the Spoils among the Troops. Medal awarded to Major Stewart troops by whom it was reduced, in such manner and proportions as the commander-in-chief shall prescribe."1 STEWART COHORTIS MEDAL AWARDED TO MAJOR STEWART.2 1 See Journals of Congress, v., 226, 227. The following rewards were promised: To the first man who entered the enemy's works, five hundred dollars; to the second, four hundred; to the third, three hundred; to the fourth, two hundred; to the fifth, one hundred: being fifteen hundred dollars in the aggregate. The ordnance and other stores were estimated at one hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and forty dollars in value, which amount was divided among the troops in proportion of officers and privates.-Sparks's Washington, vi., 540. 2 This represents the medal the size of the original. The device is America personified by an Indian queen, who is presenting a palm branch to Major Stewart. A quiver is at her back; her left hand is resting on the American shield, and at her feet is an alligator crouchant. The legend is, "JOANNI STEWART COHORTIS PREFECTO, COMITIA AMERICANA;" "The American Congress to Major John Stewart." On the reverse is a fortress on an eminence. In the foreground an officer is cheering on his men, who are following him over abatis with charged bayonets, the enemy flying. Troops in single file are ascending to the fort on one side; others are advancing from the shore; ships are in sight. The inscription is, "STONY POINT OPPUGNATUM XV. JUL. MDCCLXXIX.;" Stony Point attacked 15th of July, 1779." I believe there is no biography of Major Stewart extant. Professor Wyatt, in his Memoirs of American Generals, Commodores, &c., says he was killed by a fall from his horse, near Charleston, South Carolina. Lieutenant James Gibbon, who commanded one of the "forlorn hopes," was finally promoted to major. He died at Richmond, Virginia, on the first of July, 1834, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. His remains were interred with military honors. HE localities more immediately associated with the brief career of Andrè during his hapless connection with Arnold, now commands our attention, for toward Haverstraw I next journeyed. It was three o'clock in the aft ernoon when 'I crossed the ferry at Verplanck's Point in a small row-boat This was the old King's Ferry of the Revolution, where the good Wash ington so often crossed, and where battalion after battalion of troops, royal, French, and American, at various times spanned the Hudson with their long lines of flat-boats, for it was the main crossing-place of armies moving between the Eastern and Middle States. It was here, too, that a portion of the forces of Burgoyne crossed the Hudson when on their march from Massachusetts to Virginia. The landing-place on the Stony Point side, in former times, was in the cove at the opening of the marsh, on the north of the promon tory; now the western terminus of the ferry is a little above, at the cottage of Mr Tenyck, the jolly old ferry. man, who has plied the oar there, almost without inter THE FERRYMAN. mission, ever since 1784. He was sitting upon his doorstone when his son moored the boat at its rock-fastening; and, as we ascended the bank, the old man held up a bottle of whisky, and proffered a draught as a pledge of welcome to the "millionth man" that had crossed his ferry. Preferring milk to whisky, I sat down under the rich-leaved branches of a maple, and regaled myself with that healthful beverage. While the veteran and two of his neighbors were enjoying the aqua vitæ, I sketched the old King's Ferry sign-board, with its device, which was nailed to a sapling near, and then, accompanied by the old man and his companions, started for a ramble over the rough site of the fort on Stony Point. Upon its ancient mounds I sat and listened for an hour to the adventurous tales of the octogenarian, until the long shadows of the mountains warned me that the day was fast waning, when I hastened to make the drawings upon pages 744 and 746. At sunset, accompanied by one of the men as bearer of my light baggage, I started on foot for the neighborhood of Haverstraw. The road passes through a truly romantic region, made so by nature, history, and tradition. I stopped often to view the beautiful river prospect on the southeast. while the outlines of the distant shores were imperceptibly fading as the twilight came on. At dusk we passed an acre of ground, lying by the roadside on the right, which was given "God's Acre." Benson's Tavern. Interview with a Builder of Stony Point Fort. View from Smith's House many years ago for a neighborhood burial-place. Its numerous white slabs proclaimed an already populous city of the dead, and ere long another generous hand should donate an acre near for the same purpose. "I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls The burial-ground God's Acre! It is just; It was quite dark when we reached the tavern of Mr. Benson, near Sampsonville, about three miles below Stony Point. Haverstraw was two miles distant, and, wearied with the rambles of the day, I halted at Benson's until morning. After an early breakfast I proceeded to the foot of Torn Mountain, a little northwest of Haverstraw, to visit a man named Allison, who was eighty-eight years old. I had been informed of his vigor of body and mind, and was much disappointed on finding him in bed, feeble and sinking from the effects of a fall. Our conversation was brief, but his short communications were interesting. He was a young man of eighteen when the fort at Stony Point was built, and assisted in carrying material for its construction from the main. In company with many others in the neighborhood not allowed to join in Wayne's expedition, he hung upon the rear of the little army on that eventful night; and when the shout of victory arose from the fort, his voice was among the loudest in the echo that was sent back by the yeomanry gathered upon the neighboring hills. He gave me a minute account of the movements of the Americans before crossing the morass, and told me of a black walnut-tree still standing by the roadside between Haverstraw and Stony Point, under which the negro, Pompey, took charge, as pilot, of Wayne's assaulting force. I had intended, on leaving Mr. Allison, to go down near the river bank, where Arnold and Andrè met; but the hour was approaching at which I had promised myself to return to Verplanck's Point, so I postponed my visit to this interesting spot until a subsequent date. On my return toward Stony Point, I tarried at and sketched Smith's House, delineated on page 720. It is in the present possession of William C. Houseman, whose good taste has adorned the grounds around it with fine shrubbery. It is located upon the brow of an eminence, known, for obvious reasons, as Treason Hill, and commands an extensive view of the Hudson and the country beyond.' From the window in the second story, where, tradition avers, Andrè looked with anxious eyes for the appearance of the Vulture, I made the drawing printed on the opposite page. Between the foreground and the river is seen the broad alluvial flat in the rear of Haverstraw, and on the brink of the water is the village. The headland on the left is Teller's Point, and the highest ground on the extreme right is Torn Mountain, extending down to the verge of Haverstraw Bay, where it is called The Marquis de Chastellux, in his Travels in North America (i., 98, 99), says, "My thoughts were occupied with Arnold and his treason when my road brought me to Smith's farm-house, where he had his interview with Andrè, and formed his horrid plot . . . . Smith, who was more than suspected, but not convicted of being a party in the plot, is still in prison,* where the law protects him against justice. But his home seems to have experienced the only chastisement of which it was susceptible; it is punished by solitude; and is, in fact, so deserted, that there is not a single person to take care of it, although it is the mansion of a large farm." * Joshua Hett Smith, implicated in Arnold's treason, was a brother of the Tory chief justice, William Smith, and a man of considerable influence. The part which he had acted with Arnold made him strongly suspected of known participation in his guilt. He was arrested at Fishkill, in Dutchess county, and was taken to the Robinson House a few hours previous to the arrival of Andrè. There Smith was tried by a military court and acquitted. He was soon afterward arrested by the civil authority of the state, and committed to the jail at Goshen, Orange county, whence he escaped, and made his way through the country, in the disguise of a woman, to New York. He went to England with the British army at the close of the war, and in 1808 published a book in London, entitled An Authentic Narrative of the Causes which led to the Death of Major Andrè; a work of very little reliable authority, and filled with abuse of Washington and other American officers. Smith died in New York in 1818. Ancient black Walnut-tree. Tarrytown. Cow-boys and Skinners. Neutral Ground. Place where Andrè was Captured. The vessel in the river denotes the place where the Vulture lay at the Hook Mountain. anchor. Half a mile above the Smith House, on the right of the road to Stony Point, is the huge black walnut-tree mentioned by Mr. Allison. I procured a branch from it, large and straight enough for a maul-stick, and then plodded on in the warm sun, to the ferry. The old waterman, though nearly eighty years of age, rowed his boat across with a vigorous hand, and at one o'clock 1 left Verplanck's for Tarrytown, a village on the eastern bank of the Hudson, twenty-seven miles above New York, and memorable as the place where Major Andrè was captured. VIEW FROM SMITH'S HOUSE. The village of Tarrytown lies scattered over the river front of the Greenburgh Hills, and presents a handsome appearance from the water. It is upon the site of an Indian village called Alipconck, which, in the Delaware language, signifies the Place of Elms. The Dutch, who settled there about 1680, called the place Tarwe Town, or "wheat town," probably from the abundant culture of that grain in the vicinity.' The salubrity of its climate, and the commanding river view in front, has always made it a desirable place of residence. During the Revolution it was the theater of many stormy scenes, consisting chiefly of skirmishes between the lawless bands of marauders known by the distinctive appellation of Cow-boys and Skinners. These infested the Neutral Ground' in West Chester, and made it a political and social hell for the dwellers. Many left it, and allowed their lands to become a waste, rather than remain in the midst of perpetual torments. The place where Andrè was captured is upon the turnpike on the northeast verge of the village, three quarters of a mile from the river, and near the academy of Mr. Newman. A few yards south of the academy, a small stream crosses the road and runs through a deep ravine riverward. The marshy and thickly-wooded glen into which it poured was known as Wiley's Swamp. A little south of this stream, on the west side of the road, is a dwarf cedar, near which (indicated, in the picture, by the spot where the figure sits) are the remains of a tree, said to be that of the stately white-wood under whose shadow the captors of Andrè caused him to strip, and then made the momentous discovery of the papers in his 1 Bolton. Irving, in his Legend of Sleepy Hollow, says, "This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days." The party called Cow-boys were mostly Refugees belonging to the British side, and engaged in plundering the people near the lines of their cattle and driving them to New York. Their vocation suggested their name. The Skinners generally professed attachment to the American cause, and lived chiefly within the patriot lines; but they were of easy virtue, and were really more detested by the Americans than their avowed enemies, the Cow-boys. They were treacherous, rapacious, and often brutal. One day they would be engaged in broils and skirmishes with the Cow-boys; the next day they would be in league with them in plundering their own friends as well as enemies. Oftentimes a sham skirmish would take place between them near the British lines; the Skinners were always victorious, and then they would go boldly into the interior with their booty, pretending it had been captured from the enemy while attempting to smuggle it across the lines. The proceeds of sales were divided between the parties. See Sparks's Life of Arnold, 218-21 inclusive. 3 The Neutral Ground, thirty miles in extent along the Hudson, and embracing nearly all West Chester county, was a populous and highly cultivated region, lying between the American and British lines. Being within neither, it was called the Neutral Ground. The inhabitants suffered dreadfully during the war, for they were sure to be plundered and abused by one party or the other. If they took the oath of fidelity to the American cause, the Cow-boys were sure to plunder them; if they did not, the Skinners would call them Tories, seize their property, and have it confiscated by the state. BBB Vigilance of Captain Boyd. Journey of Andrè and Smith to Crompond. Andre's Uneasiness stocking. By a spring in the grove, just over the fence on the left, the young men were card-playing when their victim approached. We will not anticipate the history in the de VIEW OF THE PLACE WHERE ANDRE WAS CAPTURED. scription, but here resume the narrative of events connected with Andrè's capture and trial, from the time we left him and Smith to pursue their journey from Verplanck's Point toward the Neutral Ground. It was after dark September 22 when Andrè and 1780. Smith left Verplanck's Point. They took the road toward White Plains, and met with no interruption until hailed by a sentinel near Crompond, a little village eight miles from Verplanck's Point. He belonged to a party under Captain Boyd. That vigilant officer made many and searching inquiries of the travelers, and would not be satisfied that all was right until he procured a light and examined the pass from Arnold, which they assured him they possessed. During the investigation Andrè was uneasy, but the pass being in explicit terms, and known to be genuine, Captain Boyd was readily persuaded that all was correct. The captain apologized for the strictness of his scrutiny, and manifested much concern for their safety on account of the prevalence of Cow-boys in the neighborhood. He advised them to remain till morning; but Smith assured him that their business was urgent, and it was necessary for them to proceed immediately toward White Plains. The captain magnified the dangers to which they were exposed, and Smith, taking counsel of his fears, was disposed to tarry. Andrè was differently inclined, and it was a long time before he could be persuaded to turn back and take lodging at the cottage of Andreas Miller. The travelers slept in the same bed, and, according to Smith's account, it was a weary and restless night for Andrè. He was up at dawn, and at an early hour they were again in the saddle. As they approached Pine's Bridge, and Andrè was assured that they were beyond patrolling parties, his taciturnity and gloom were exchanged for garrulity and cheerfulness, and he conversed in an almost playful manner upon poetry, the arts, literature, and common topics. Near Pine's Bridge' they parted company, after partaking of a frugal breakfast with Mrs. Sarah Underhill, whose grandson, I believe, still owns the house. Smith proceeded to Fishkill by the way of the "This tree towered like a giant," says Irving, in his Sketch Book, "above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air." The trunk was twenty-six feet in circumference, and forty-one feet in length. It was struck by lightning on the same day that intelligence of Arnold's death arrived at Tarrytown, a coincidence which many thought remarkable. Here, at the parsonage, the Yorktown Committee of Public Safety met; and members of the Provincial Congress assembled there to grant commissions to officers. Colonel Robertson, who commanded a regiment of Loyalists, was ordered to destroy that post; and, piloted thither by a Tory named Caleb Morgan, he burned the parsonage in the autumn of 1776. 2 3 This bridge, situated in the southeast corner of Yorktown, spanned the Croton River. At this place the great dam connected with the Croton aqueduct is situated, and the present bridge crosses the lake above it, a little eastward of the Revolutionary structure. Here the Americans generally kept a strong guard, as it was the chief point of communication between the lines. |