Massacre at Pines Bridge
Since our ancestor Jeremiah Rushton (see Revolutionary War Cowboy post) enlisted in the Westchester Refugees in March 1781, I will describe a raid in which he likely took part in May that year that became known as the Massacre at Pines Bridge. A monument to the American soldiers killed there now stands at Yorktown Heights, New York.26
https://warrensculpture.com/project/battle-of-pines-bridge-monument/#:~:text=The%20Pines%20Bridge%20Monument%20commemorates,line%20along%20the%20Croton%20River.
The Refugees raided a Continental outpost on the Croton River, killed American Colonel Christopher Greene, may have chopped up his body and left him to die, and wounded, captured, and killed many other soldiers of his regiment, the First Rhode Island. Since the First Rhode Island was made up of black and Native American soldiers, racism could be a reason behind the viciousness.27 This supposition is supported by the future actions of Lt. Colonel DeLancey -- as a member of the Nova Scotia legislature, he tried to legalize slavery in that province, but his idea garnered no backers and failed.28
See addendum.
The Croton River was a strategic weak point for the Continentals. It formed the border between Westchester County and northern New York, but was shallow and easily forded in several places. General George Washington, concerned, tried to keep it guarded, but there were not enough soldiers to guard it permanently.29
A Fictional Look at Jeremiah's Actions in the Raid
Jeremiah expertly guides his horse 20 miles along the road with 100 other riders and even more marching men. His heart pounds and his legs feel shaky. He constantly scans what little he can see of the countryside in the pale light. In two months with the Cowboys, Jeremiah has patrolled roads and captured men out on their own who willingly surrendered to the fierce groups of dragoons. He has become adept at finding the few well-hidden cows left in Westchester. But he has never taken part in an actual battle, never attacked anyone or had to defend himself.
He turns to the rider closest to him. "What was it like?"
"What was what like?" the Cowboy asks.
The horseman ahead turns swiftly and points at them accusingly. They lapse into silence. There is nothing to hear but birdsong and the quietest possible hoofbeats.
At the Croton River bank, the Refugees stop to reconnoiter. They are divided into groups, and Jeremiah is glad to find himself with Captain Totten. Totten lives here, while Jeremiah has never traveled to this corner of the county farthest away from Rye.
Totten explains the plan. They will ford the river here, then ride directly across the fields to four houses. Totten's men will attack the Davenport House, which is Headquarters for American Colonel Greene. Intelligence tells them the river is but lightly guarded. Headquarters is likely guarded by Greene's First Rhode Island regiment. The plan is to attack quickly with the advantage of surprise, inflict damage, and get out.
They walk the horses across the river to avoid splashing. As the sun comes up in his eyes, all Jeremiah can see are the rumps of the horses ahead of him. He takes advantage of the slow walk to ready his musket, gripping it tightly to keep his hands from slipping.
"What if I die here?"
The thoughts are pushed from his mind by the sounds of quick gunshots. They are immediately answered by the guns of the Refugees, and Jeremiah hears his comrades shouting, "Kill! Kill! No quarter!"
All the horses are galloping now. Jeremiah bursts onto a wide lawn surrounding a grand white house. The image of his own home in Rye with its destroyed fields fills his brain.
"Why is my home a wreckage, yet their home still here, looking whole?"
Jeremiah spurs his horse forward. Seeing gunfire exchanged on the west side of the house, he careens to the east. White tents cluster on the lawn. Men emerge shooting. Jeremiah aims at a man and fires. He gives the horse its head while he reloads. Fires again. Ducks low to the horse's back. As they gallop around to the front of the house, Jeremiah is struck by an odd sight. His brain on overload, he cannot consider what it means.
The front porch is covered with blood and the floorboards with bloody men. Jeremiah stills his weapon. The shooting dies down. Two Refugees emerge carrying a barefoot, bareheaded man, bleeding profusely from his nightshirt. A horse and rider pull up to the porch. The two men awkwardly push the wounded man onto the saddle behind the rider. Jeremiah moves forward and steadies the man against the rider's back. The rider moves off at a trot. Jeremiah finds himself following.
"Slow down! He'll fall off!" Jeremiah shouts to the rider.
"No time! The rebels will be upon us!" the Cowboy yells back.
Jeremiah guides his horse to stay close by the wounded man. Refugees gallop past, but Jeremiah barely notices. His eyes focus on the man's ashen face and closed eyes. Blood is pouring from several jagged holes in his nightshirt. His limp bare legs bounce against the horse's flanks. Several times Jeremiah reaches out to prop him back up. The man makes no sound. He must be beyond pain.
As they move awkwardly along, scenes from the attack appear without bidding in Jeremiah's mind. The odd sight re-appears - Negroes and Indians emerging from the tents, shooting at him. Was it a nightmare?
Jeremiah is familiar with black men, free and enslaved, and has seen a few Indians. There were some blacks in Rye before the war, but in New York City there are thousands. Most live in shanties in the center of the city. Since the British offered freedom and protection to escaped slaves who would work for the Army, whole families made their way to the British lines. But they work as laborers, porters, laundresses. These men in the tents wore uniforms. They were armed. They shot. And they fought on the rebel side.
Most of the rebels Jeremiah knows regard anyone who is not white as something less than human. Why would they fight for someone like that? Especially when the British offer freedom and pay for work?
A mile and a half down the road, Jeremiah's thoughts are abruptly halted when the man suddenly buckles. Jeremiah grabs for him, but he falls completely off the other side and lands with a thump on the road. Both riders stop and dismount.
"Is he alive?" the Cowboy asks.
Jeremiah feels for breath. "Barely."
"He'll never make it to the city."
They carry the man off the road into the shade of a thicket of whortleberry bushes.
Whortleberry or dwarf bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), https://wildfoodgirl.com/2023/huckleberries-billberries-whortleberries-grouseberries/
"Colonel Greene."
"Their leader?" Jeremiah's eyes widen. "Why do we have him?"
"He asked for quarter, so we granted it. We cannot take him farther, tho."
"What to do?"
"Leave him here."
"Like this?"
"He's not long for this world. We, on the other hand, want long lives. We need to get out of here." The Refugee jumps on his horse and gallops down the road.
Jeremiah moves to mount his horse, then casts a look at Colonel Greene. He pauses. Swiftly looking up and down the road, Jeremiah pulls off his jacket, crumples it up, and gently places it under the head of the dying man. Then he jumps on his horse and gallops away.
A Factual Account of the Massacre
Lt. Col. James DeLancey, possibly in revenge for an attack on his home by Patriots, led 60 to 100 cavalry and 140 to 200 infantry (accounts differ) in a dawn assault30 on four homes used to house American soldiers a mile or so from Pines Bridge. The Richardson Davenport House quartered officers. Colonel Christopher Greene and Major Ebenezer Flagg dwelled in a large upstairs bedroom with several others. Lower-ranking soldiers lived in tents on the lawn.31
On the fateful night of May 13, Colonel Greene disastrously decided to leave the river crossings (fords and bridge) unguarded next day and went to bed. Altho on watch overnight, Greene's orders dismissed the guards at dawn.32 (not sure exactly how this came about). That unwise decision cost him his life. One of the Refugee leaders, Captain Totten, lived close by and knew the land intimately, as did many of his men;33 the Cowboys forded the river and attacked the homes.34
An unnamed roommate of Colonel Greene's, a lieutenant, saw the approaching raiders and fired at them from the bedroom window, drawing their attention.35 The Cowboys headed for the bedroom, shooting all the way. Colonel Greene jumped from bed and grabbed his weapons. Shouting "They're only cowboys!" to rally his men, he fought hand-to-hand from his bedroom to the top of the stairs, barefoot in his nightshirt. Greene was stabbed several times and shot.36 The Cowboys carried him out and put him on horseback behind a rider. However, Greene fainted from loss of blood and fell off the horse. The Cowboys laid him by some whortleberry bushes, still in his nightshirt, put a pillow under his head, and left him there to die.37 When Patriots found him later, they spread the rumor that his body had been hacked to pieces and scattered around the countryside.38
We are fortunate enough to have two first-hand accounts of the attack from Richardson Davenport's grandchildren.
Lydia Vail recorded this story in 1848:
“I was at Davenport’s house a few minutes after the Refugees left…Greene, Flagg and a young Lieutenant whose name I do not remember, occupied a large room in the northwest corner of the second story…My grandfather was in the adjoining apartment, and overheard all the conversation of the three officers.
“The rashness and folly of the young Lieutenant was the cause of the disaster, as my grandfather and his family always said;…The young Lieutenant always slept with a pair of loaded pistols upon a stand at the head of his bed, and when he heard the noise he sprang up, raised the window sash on the west side of the room and discharged both pistols at the enemy…who instantly cried out: ‘Kill! Kill! No quarter!’ Flagg then exclaimed aloud to the Lieutenant, calling him by name, ‘…you’ve undone us!’ These were the last words he was ever to utter.
“Green, half dressed, but sword in hand, said, ‘We must sell our lives as dearly as we can.’ And approaching the head of the stairs, called aloud to the soldiers below: ‘Stand to your arms men! Courage! They are only a parcel of cow boys, fire away!’ Flagg approached the window from which the Lieutenant had fired, and a volley was discharged at him. He fell pierced with five or six balls.
“When I entered the house just after the Refugees had left, the young Lieutenant was lying dead at the door. He was the first one they killed on breaking in. Flagg, although desperately wounded, was yet alive and they dispatched him. Four or five were dead where the tents stood east of the house, besides many wounded…
“The Refugees retired by the south road or path to the Crompond Road taking Green with them on horseback; near where the path or farm road comes into the highway. Greene, faint with the loss of blood, fell off. Finding that he was dying they placed him in a spot surrounded by whortleberry bushes, and putting something under his head for support, left him in that state to finish his days alone. Here he bled to death, and was found soon after with no clothing on but his shirt and drawers.
“Two negro servants and my father were wounded, one in the arm and the others in the shoulder…The disaster happened a little before sunrise…I lived at my father’s half a mile off, northerly on the Crompond Road; word came to us that they were all cut off and killed at head-quarters, and we all ran through the fields to Davenport’s house…found the floors and walls covered with the blood of the dead, wounded and dying..."39
Joshua Carpenter, born six years after the massacre, heard this story from his grandfather:
“The Refugees got to the house unperceived coming up from the west side where only a single sentinel who did not see them until near but who then fired. Some soldiers asleep on the south side stoop also fired. Greene and Flagg sprang up. The former encouraged the soldiers to defend themselves saying: ‘They are only a few cowboys, fire away boys, fire.’ Flagg advanced to the west window a pistol in each hand. He was answered by a volley and fell pierced by several balls.
“The Refugees at the same time burst in the north door thus making a cross fire. Fifty six bullet holes remain. Greene met the enemy at the north door and attempted defense sword in hand. He struck at Totten foremost with all his might and would have killed him but the blows were parried by a Refugee.
“Totten was stunned and wounded. Greene received several shots and was hacked with sabers. He then asked for and was given quarter. He then asked for parole. This was refused. They said that he must go to Morrisiania and mounted him behind a dragoon. He fell off one and one half miles down the hill a little north of Griffen’s where he was left by the road.”40
After the War
Colonel DeLancey resigned his commission in April 1783 and sailed for England.41 I surmise this would be about the same time that Jeremiah left a disbanded corps; he and Sarah made plans to take up King George's offer of land in Nova Scotia. DeLancey later joined other Loyalists there, altho not in the same location -- I think that as a wealthy officer, he got the prime farmland in Annapolis,42 while the rest of the Refugees settled together in the Cobequid Mountains.
Jeremiah signed a "Memorial of New York Loyalists" to His Excellency Sir Guy Carleton, the general in charge of Britain's surrender. It read: the memorialists have "been deprived of very valuable Landed Estates," and were "obliged to abandon their possessions in this City on Account of their Loyalty to their Sovereign and Attachment to British Constitution and seeing no prospect of their being reinstated had determined to remove w their Families and settle in His Majestys Province of NS..."43
After the war, Jeremiah petitioned for reimbursement for a salary and two horses and clothes he provided himself. His petition was rejected.44 This evidence points strongly to his serving under Lieutenant Colonel James DeLancey's Cowboys -- they were not paid or given uniforms, so Jeremiah had no right to expect any.
Despite some logistical snafus, the Westchester Refugees got their land grants in Nova Scotia. Jeremiah and Sarah were granted 500 acres along the Cobequid Road to London-Derry in Cumberland County.45 They raised crops and children - five more sons and two daughters. My 3rd great-grandfather, Isaac Rushton, was their first child born in their new country.
The Refugees named their new home Westchester.
Addendum
The First Rhode Island is the only non-white American regiment I am aware of. A few free blacks and Indians had joined the Continental Army, and some slaves were sold to the Army by slave-owning Patriots. But Washington did not trust this arrangement and sent them away. After the British Army promised freedom to escaped slaves who could reach their lines, Washington felt forced to take blacks and Native Americans and promise freedom to slaves. In this way the First Rhode Island was formed. However, Rhode Island slaveowners were against it, even tho they were paid for their slaves, and the program only lasted about four months. The agreement with the Rhode Island soldiers was honored, and between 130 and 180 slaves earned their freedom.46 This contrasts with the 20,000 slaves who earned their freedom by allying with the British.47
Endnotes
DiSanto, Victor J. from: Hufeland, Westchester County During the Revolution, 324, 379; John Lockwood Romer, Historical Sketches of the Romer, Van Tassell, and Allied Families, and Tales of the Neutral Ground (Buffalo: W.C. Kay Publishing Company, 1917), 46-47, 53 and 93; Lincoln Diamont, Yankee Doodle Days (Fleishmanns: Purple Mountain Press, 1996), 116-117; Robert Howe to Washington, July 8, 1780, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-27-02-0028; Barnett Schecter, The Battle for New York (New York: Walker and Company, 2002), 350; Sy Shepard, Patriot vs. Loyalist (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2022), 34.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_Revolutionary_War.
Moody, Barry M. DELANCEY, JAMES in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol.5, University of Toronto, 1983, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/delancey_james_5E.html. Accessed January 2026.
Virgintino, Mike. Revolutionary War Massacre at Pines Bridge Part I. 2017. https://classicnewyorkhistory.com/revolutionary-war-massacre-at-pines-bridge-part-i/. Accessed January 2026.
British accounts give the larger number. Virgintino, Mike. Revolutionary War Massacre at Pines Bridge Part II. 2017. https://classicnewyorkhistory.com/revolutionary-war-massacre-at-pines-bridge-part-ii-davenport-house/. Accessed January 2026.
Ibid.
Virgintino Part II.
31A MacCallum, Ken. Comment on DiSanto. 8 March 2024. Accessed January 2026.
MacCallum.
Virgintino Part II.
Vail, Lydia in Virgintino Part II.
Carpenter, Joshua in Virgintino Part II.
DiSanto.
37A Virgintino Part II.
DiSanto.
Grandchild quotes from Virgintino, Mike. Part II.
Ibid.
“James DeLancey Attributed to John Durand ca. 1778-1782,” Society of the Cincinnati. https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/asset/james-delancey-attributed-to-john-durand-ca-1778-1782/#:~:text=By%20the%20fall%2C%20Colonel%20DeLancey,their%20property%20confiscated%20by%20patriots. Accessed January 2026.
41A Moody.
James DeLancey Attributed to John Durand.
The memorialists were alarmed that an application of 55 persons requesting tract of 275,000 acres was ‘terminated” and expressed disappointment that “ they find themselves in being left to the lenity of their enemys on the dubious recommendation of their Leaders they yet hoped to find an Asylum under British protection...” Gilroy, Marion, compiled by, Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia, Cumberland County Grants, Public Archives of Nova Scotia. Appendix B, p. 149.
Coldham, Peter Wilson. American Migrations 1765-1799: The lives, times, and families of colonial Americans who remained loyal to the British Crown before, during and after the Revolutionary War, as related in their own words and through their correspondence. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000. p. 330. Rushton, Jeremiah Memorial. Cumberland 1786. He served with the Westchester Refugees from March 1781 until he left NY in 1783; he received no pay. Claim for two horses; clothing. Rejected. (13/26/429-430).
Gilroy.
DiSanto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_Revolutionary_War.
https://collections.westchestergov.com/digital/collection/mcdonald/id/271
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