The Battle for Young’s House

Yesterday I recounted the British army’s march in February 1780 from their lines at King’s Bridge, New York, up to Joseph Young’s farmhouse in White Plains.

The Continental Army had moved into that stone house and used it as a base to impede food shipments into British-occupied New York. That winter, the outpost was under the command of Lt. Col. Joseph Thompson of Brimfield.

According to Gen. William Heath’s report on the fighting, Thompson had five companies under him, led by Capt. Abraham Watson of Cambridge, Capt. Moses Roberts of Marlborough, Capt. Orringh Stoddard of Stockbridge, Capt.-Lt. Michael Farley of Ipswich, and Capt. James Cooper of Taunton. During the night, those companies were spread out two miles and more on each side of the house.

At about nine o’clock on the morning of 3 February a mounted scout named Campbell told Thompson that he’d spotted Crown horsemen about two miles away. The lieutenant colonel decided to maintain his position and sent orders for the companies to consolidate with him.

The British force came closer. In the morning’s first exchange of fire, the Loyalist mounted troops overran and captured a sergeant and eight men serving as a forward guard. Then the horsemen came in sight of the stone house. As Watson, Roberts, and Stoddard’s companies drew up in the garden, British guard units appeared, about two hundred strong.

Heath reported:

Our Troops preserved their order and did not fire untill Some time after the Enemy began; when they received orders to fire the Enemy immediately Scattered, availing themselves of Trees and the Ground, of which, it must be acknowleged, they very judiciously took the advantage, Springing from one tree & place to another, and constantly gaining Ground—

On the British side, Ens. George Eld described a “a spirited & brisk conflict of firing, during which time our detachment formed more collectedly than at the first advance was possible to effect, from the depth of the snow.” Then “the Light Infantry Horn sounded the charge.”

Lt. Col. Chapple Norton’s British companies advanced from multiple directions. Heath wrote: “their fire being directed both against the front and flank of our Troops—and, a number being kill’d & wounded they broke, Some retreating up the road, others into the House, from the doors & windows of which they fired on the Enemy.” The remaining two Continental companies arrived and fired from a distance two or three times, but to little effect.

As Americans fled into the woods, horsemen charged after them. Heath later wrote of “Mayhew, a pedler, well known in Massachusetts,” who veered off the road into the snow, “almost up to his hips.” Two riders charged down his path. He called out to ask if they would ”give him quarter”—let him surrender.

“Yes, you dog, we will quarter you,” the pursuers reportedly answered. Mayhew turned and shot at the first rider. The man shouted, “The rascal has broke my leg!" Both the horsemen turned around. Mayhew waited a few moments, waded out to the road, and got back to the Continental lines.

Back at Young’s house, the Crown forces swarmed over the grounds. Lt. Col. Thompson surrendered. Fourteen of his men were dead, including Capt. Roberts, and seventeen were wounded, some badly. More of the British column, including the Hessian companies, arrived to help corraling nearly a hundred prisoners.

Ens. Eld wrote in his diary: “The house was fired & many of the enemy who had retreated for security to the cellars were crushed in the burning ruins.” However, American and other British sources on the scene don’t mention men being caught in the flames. Instead, Norton ordered the buildings burned to prevent them from being used again.

Casualty reports vary, but it appears the British suffered five dead in all and eighteen wounded. They had successfully pushed the nearest Continental outpost back to “the Quaker church on King’s Street,” according to Maj. Carl Leopold Baurmeister of the Hessians. Lt. Col. Norton’s gamble to proceed with the mission had paid off.

Leaving Young’s house and outbuilding in flames, the redcoats began the twenty-mile trek back through the winter landscape to their lines. This time they could use the roads. They left up to a dozen of the worst wounded prisoners at houses along the way to avoid being slowed down. Lt. George Mathew wrote with pride, “we marched a good forty-six miles in twenty-four hours, in deep snow, and across the country to avoid giving the alarm. . . . We left Kingsbridge at ten o’clock one night, and returned about the same hour the next.”

Once all the Crown soldiers were gone, Continentals ventured back out to the site to collect and bury the dead and then withdraw again. The photograph above, courtesy of M. A. Kleen, shows the 1923 memorial standing near the site of the mass grave for those soldiers.

Marching Over Twenty Miles through the Snow

On Friday, 2 Feb 1780, the British army holding New York City set out to attack a Continental outpost that had become troublesome.

Charles Stedman described the situation this way in 1794:

The enemy having established a post at [Joseph] Young’s House, in the neighbourhood of the White Plains, which greatly annoyed the provincial loyalists, as well as the British army, by the interception of cattle and provisions intended to be brought to New York, it became an object of importance with the governor [Lord Tryon] and commander of his majesty’s troops [Gen. Henry Clinton], if possible, to dislodge that party, consisting of about three hundred men.

Maj. Gen. Edward Mathew, who was in command at the forward position of King’s Bridge, assigned this mission to Lt. Col. Chapple Norton of the 2nd Foot Guards. Norton was given command of the grenadier and light infantry companies of the Guards’ 1st and 2nd regiments, two Hessian companies, two three-pounder cannon with their crews, a contingent of Jäger scouts, and forty horsemen from Col. James De Lancey’s Loyalist regiment, many of them familiar with the area. In all, the force consisted of well over 500 men.

Young’s house was a little more than twenty miles away across the snowy landscape. Gen. Mathew therefore arranged for sleighs to be brought to his base. Stedman wrote about Norton’s response:

The colonel, though highly gratified by this command, and unwilling to say any thing that might seem to retard the service, or throw difficulties in the way of the intended expedition, yet thought it his duty to point out the improbability of the sleighs answering the purpose

In response, Mathew gave Norton the freedom—and responsibility—to decide how to proceed based on conditions in the field.

According to Mathew’s nineteen-year-old nephew and aide-de-camp, Lt. George Mathew, the raiding party “left Kingsbridge at ten o’clock one night.” They set a course “across the country to avoid giving the alarm, which we should have done by going by the road.”

“The night was dark,” Ens. George Eld wrote in his diary. But as for the sleighs, “these conveyances were immediately quitted, for the cold was too intense to remain inactive, nor was it possible for the horses to get through the snow.”

The snow, up to two feet deep, also blocked the cannon carriages. According to Stedman, Norton “was therefore obliged to leave the guns and with them a guard sufficient to ensure their return.” The colonel estimated his troops ”were yet short of three Miles from Kingsbridge” in a report Todd W. Braisted quoted at the Journal of the American Revolution.

Lt. Mathew described another set of obstacles:

This being a very stony country, and the stones at this time being covered with snow, threw our men down often. Another thing, which tires very much on a long march, is getting over rails, which is the only fence used in this country. The pioneers took them down until they were tired, and were left behind.

The slow progress threw off Norton’s plan. As Lt. Mathew wrote, ”The intention was to have surprised them by night.” But, Stedman stated, “At sun rise they learned from the guides that they were yet seven miles short of the enemy’s post.”

Lt. Col. Norton reviewed the situation. Stedman wrote:

Their situation was, now, not a little embarrassing. As the guns, intended to open the doors of the stone house, were left behind, to surprise the enemy was impossible. To proceed, and not to carry the point, would be to expose the detachment, in their return, already fatigued with a long and toilsome march, to be harassed for the space of twenty miles, by an enemy in force, fresh, and with a perfect knowledge of the country.

In these circumstances, the colonel, unwilling to return without accomplishing some object that might answer the expectation of those who had placed their confidence in him, determined, at all events, to march to the enemy's post, and then act according to circumstances

In sum, the colonel saw all the difficulties and dangers ahead and decided to go forward anyway because it would have been too embarrassing to turn around.

About two miles from Young’s house, Norton ordered his cavalry to advance and surround the site, but the snow was too deep to allow that. The Crown forces arrived within sight of Young’s house “two hours after daybreak,” Mathew recalled. Since there was “a fine, open country about the house,” the Continentals spotted the British coming.

Some of the British, at least. Officers guessed that only about two hundred of the Crown soldiers were on the scene by this point. Almost half the guards and the Hessian companies had fallen behind.

And in front of them, the British saw a stone house, “strongly & advantageously situated,” and more than two hundred Continental soldiers, “judiciously disposed to annoy or prevent the attack.”

TOMORROW: Shots fired.