The Crisis of the Revolution

              35
share the repast, and its humble nature apologized for. He replied: | Oh,
madam, it is all very good, but indeed I cannot eat." A young girl of the
company was Irving's informant in her old age, and said she could never restrain
her tears when recalling the scene. The house had been the quarters of
Lieutenant-Colonel John Jameson,1 of Sheldon's regiment.2 As the Colonel
himself was under arrest8 at the time, for some unknown military offense,
Jameson was in temporary command, and possibly for that reason had transferred
his headquarters to Sands' Mills, in the town of North Castle. Hence the squad
resumed their march, over the North Castle road.4 One-half the distance from
Tarrytown had been covered, and six miles remained. It could not have been
earlier than three o'clock, and was probably somewhat later. Andre was still
riding his brown horse, which one captor after another led by the rein, the others
marching on either side and behind. Sands' Mills would be reached by five or
half-past.6 The "Mills" is merely a sawmill and two or three houses in the
northern part of the small town of Armonk, formerly called Mile Square. None
of the present dwellings are of Revolutionary age, the Sands house being dated
1809. Probably Sands' original dwelling and that we are interested in, the
outbuilding or annex to the barn,8 were the only ones there in 1780, besides the
mill. The second and third are not a hundred feet apart. The mill was closed
on the day of our visit, but is modern, at least outside. It is run by the power
of Wampus Pond, a pretty little lake on the higher ground westward. To the
north and west are the " Heights of North Castle," where Washington's forces
encamped after the battle of White Plains (1776).
The farm's outbuilding,7 like most others of its time, has lost its appear-
ance of age with its ancient shingle siding.    Smooth modern boards effectually
1 John Jameson, of a distinguished Virginia family, was born in either Curpeper or Fairfax, Va., in 1751. At the
time we are considering he had been for three years an officer of Sheldon's regiment, to which he had
been promoted from Major of Bland's First Dragoons, a Virginia regiment, as Sheldon's was of Con-
necticut. He had been wounded near Valley Forge in 1778, and served creditably throughout the
Revolution. He was for many years Clerk of Culpeper County, dying in Culpeper, November 20, i8jo.
He was a member of the same Masonic Lodge in Alexandria as Washington. The portrait shown
has never before been published. I am indebted for it to his grandson, Mr. Philip R. Jameson, of
Culpeper.
8 Sheldon's was a "crack" regiment, the arms and accoutrements of which had been bought in France.   That
part of it on duty  Arnold's district comprised only 142 men, "about one-half mounted " (see page 16).
The paper with this detailed information was at that moment in possession of Paulding (or Dean).
8 Sheldon was tried by court martial at West Point, October 23, 1780, Colonel Hazen, of the "Congress," or
Second Canadian Regiment, being president, and acquitted.
4 Williams' account says : '' We kept to the by-ways, and went as quickly and silently as we could. He suffered
much in mind, as was apparent from his great dejection, but he acted like a gentleman, candidly and
politely, and never once attempted to escape."
B History has generally stated that only the three captors went to Sands' Mills. But in 1832 Samuel Youngs,
who had been a private in the First Westchester when commanded by Colonel Hammond, and became
a lieutenant in Sheldon's in 1782, endorsed the pension application of Ensign John Dean's widow, to this
effect: In 1780 he himself was employed as a guide for Sheldon's regiment, and as such was at Mile
Square on the twenty-third of September, and there witnessed the arrival of the eight, whom he mentions
by name. When Dean was asked by Jameson for their names, he gave only those of Paulding, Williams
and Van Wart.
6 The 1780 barn has given place to another.
7 Marked 16 on the map.