Wednesday, February 20, 2013

February 22: News From Fishkill NY

   In a story datelined Fishkill, New York, February 22, 1781, Providence, Rhode Island newspaper The American Journal and General Advertiser of March 3, 1781 reported that a Loyalist force of about 250 foot and 90 horse left British-occupied New York City and attacked North Castle, New York in Westchester County on February 14. 
   According to the report, the Tory raiders burned eight houses, “plundered the inhabitants of every thing they could carry off, and what they could not carry off they wantonly destroyed.”
   The report added, regarding February 15, “The next day a party of horse came out, and continued their destructive work; they carried off ten prisoners, two of them Negroes.”
   For Tory raids from New York against Connecticut, please consult passages in Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2008).  For Tory raids into New Jersey, please consult Adian C. Leiby, The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground,1775-1783 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1980). 

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