x miles, where a halt was made. In a
spirit of revenge, unworthy the general of an army, more in the
character of Tryon who was present, than of Knyphausen who commanded,
this settlement was reduced to ashes.[37]

[Footnote 37: This circumstance would scarcely have deserved notice
had it not been accompanied by one of those melancholy events, which
even war does not authorize, and which made, at the time, a very deep
impression.

Mrs. Caldwell, the wife of the clergyman of the village, had been
induced to remain in her house, under the persuasion that her presence
might protect it from pillage, and that her person could not be
endangered, as Colonel Dayton who commanded the militia determined not
to stop in the settlement. While sitting in the midst of her children,
with a sucking infant in her arms, a soldier came up to the window and
discharged his musket at her. She received the ball in her bosom, and
instantly expired.]

From the Farms, Knyphausen proceeded to Springfield. The Jersey
brigade, commanded by General Maxwell, and the militia of the adjacent
country, took an advantageous position at that place, and seemed
determined to defend it. Knyphausen halted in its neighbourhood, and
remained on his ground until night.

Having received intelligence of this movement, General Washington put
his army in motion early in the same morning that Knyphausen marched
from Elizabethtown Point, and advanced to the Short Hills, in the rear
of Springfield, while the British were in the neighbourhood of that
place. Dispositions were made for an engagement the next morning, but
Knyphausen retired in the night to the place of his disembarkation.

General Washington continued on the hills near Springfield, too weak
to hazard an engagement, but on ground chosen by himself. His
continental troops did not exceed three thousand men. A return of the
whole army under his immediate command, made on the 3d of June,
exhibited in the column, of present, fit for duty, only three thousand
seven hundred and sixty, rank and file. So reduced was that force on
which America relied for independence. "You but too well know," said
General Washington in a letter to a friend, giving an account of this
incursion, "and will regret with me the cause which justifies this
insulting manoeuvre on the part of the enemy. It deeply affects the
honour of the states, a vindication of which could not be attempted in
our present circumstances, without most intim