Headquarters,
Robinson House, 7 p. m.,
25th September, 1780.
Sir,—I wish every precaution and attention to be paid to prevent Major Andre" from
making his escape. He will without doubt make it if possible; and in order that he may
not have it in his power, you will send him under care of such a party and so many
officers as to protect him from the least opportunity of doing it.
That he may be less liable to be recaptured by the enemy, who will no doubt make
every effort to regain him, he had better be conducted to this place by some upper road,
rather than by the route of Crompond. I would not wish Andre" to be treated with insult;
but he does not appear to stand upon the footing of a common prisoner of war; and
therefore he is not entitled to the usual indulgence which they receive, and is to be most
closely and narrowly watched. ******
The escort, consisting of one hundred dragoons,1 under four officers, was
soon ready, and started in a pouring rain.2 The officers were Tallmadge,
Captains Hoogland8 and Rogers and Lieuten-
ant King. From South Salem the route was
north and west over Long Pond Mountain,
west of Lake Waccabuc to the church at
North Salem. Just before this was reached
the squadron was met by a courier from
Washington, bearing an order for a change of route for fear of the enemy4 on the
present one. The new way led them past the premises occupied in 1889 by Isaac
H. Purdy, thence to Croton Falls and by the " old road " to Lake Mahopac6 and
the Red Mills6—now Mahopac Falls—in Putnam County.
At the mill a short halt was made, and the prisoner was taken into the
house of Major James Cox, of the Ordnance Department of the army. In later
1 Smith.
2 Game's weather prediction—see page 6—was fulfilled that night. As there was no moon the night must
have been of inky blackness, and the journey intensely depressing.
3 Jeronimus (Jerome) Hoogland, of Flushing, New York, was born in 1757. He was Lieutenant and Adjutant
of Colonel John Lasher's First New York Minute Men, or Volunteer Infantry, in 1776, was promoted
to Captain in it, captured at the battle of Long Island and imprisoned in one of the prison ships. He
appears as Adjutant of Sheldon's in 1777, was a Captain in 1779, and served as such through the war,
dying in Lansingburgh, N. Y., 171)—.
"The history of poor Hoogland, his self-sacrificing, devoted patriotism and ill-requited services, had many a
parallel in the lives of the officers of the Revolution. When I first knew him, in 1774, he was a hand-
some, high-spirited, facetious youth of eighteen. Three years after, I met him, a sun-burnt veteran, who
had already seen much hard service. In 1788, fourteen years after, I again saw him, in Lansingburgh.
He was then, although young in years, old in suffering. He appeared like an old man, hobbling on
crutches. Thus he lingered a few years longer, and sunk into a premature grave, a martyr in the cause of
Liberty. Posterity can never estimate the sacrifices and sufferings of the patriots of the Revolution.''—
Men and Times of the Revolution (Memoirs of Blkanah Watson), by Winslow C. Watson, N. Y., 1856.
His companion was probably Jedediah Rogers, of Norwalk. He was Lieutenant in 1778, but no record
of his promotion is discoverable.
* This was probably the same band of Cowboys against whom Boyd had warned Smith, who had driven off the
Underbill cows at Yorktown, and killed Pelham in Pound Ridge, and of whom Jameson had been appre-
hensive. They had apparently been four days at least—Friday to Monday night—within the Neutral
Ground.
6 Dykman.
* So called from the color of the building. The land on which the mill stood was taken by the City of New
York a few years ago and the mill was torn down. The illustration has never before been engraved.
i(s&snstr—
