Therefore
Tom, as a loyalist officer, was no less at home than formerly, in the
house of his rebel father. I know not how many such family situations
were brought about by this strange war.
CHAPTER VIII.
_I Meet an Old Friend in the Dark._
I shall not give an account of my military service, since it entered
little into the history of Philip Winwood. 'Twas our duty to help man
the outposts that guarded the island at whose Southern extremity New
York lies, from rebel attack; especially from the harassments of the
partisan troops, and irregular Whiggery, who would swoop down in
raiding parties, cut off our foragers, drive back our wood-cutters,
and annoy us in a thousand ways. We had such raiders of our own, too,
notably Captain James De Lancey's Westchester Light Horse, Simcoe's
Rangers, and the Hessian yagers, who repaid the visits of our enemies
by swift forays across the neutral ground between the two armies.
But this warfare did not exist in its fulness till later, when the
American army formed about us an immense segment of a circle, which
began in New Jersey, ran across Westchester County in New York
province, and passed through a corner of Connecticut to Long Island
Sound. On our side, we occupied Staten Island, part of the New Jersey
shore, our own island, lower Westchester County, and that portion of
Long Island nearest New York. But meanwhile, the rebel main army was
in New Jersey in the Winter of 1776-77, surprising some of our
Hessians at Trenton, overcoming a British force at Princeton, and
going into quarters at Morristown.
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