Collections of the Ulster Historical Society (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860. Excerpt: ... AN ACCOUNT BRITISH EXPEDITION AEOVE THE Highlands of the Hudson River, THE EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE BUKNING OF KINGSTON IN 1777. BY GEORGE W. PRATT. VAUGHAN'S SECOND EXPEDITION. Eighty-three years ago this day, Thursday, October 16th, 1777, the village of Kingston was burned by the common enemy. The Ulster Historical Society has chosen to keep in remembrance this anniversary in the day of holding its annual meeting. Notwithstanding the severe blow our forefathers experienced in this event, and the almost universal cry for vengeance which arose throughout the land, it is somewhat surprising that even contemporary accounts should differ as to the exact day of the landing at Esopns. A desire on the part of the Executive Committee of the Society to fix the true dale, led me to investigate the subject, and I will therefore at once proceed to mention some of the statements. Stedman, a British military historian, says the event happened on the thirteenth of October, 1777;l in this he is followed by Gordon, in his History,2 and by Lossing, in his Field Bonk of the Revolution,3 as well as in a more recent publication. A similar date occurs in an extract from the New York Packet and also in Ramsey's History of the American Revolution. In Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs we have the date of the fifteenth, with which a note to Sparks's Correspondence of the American Revolution agrees6, and this is perhaps more generally followed. But Beatson, in a note (p. 249), gives the date of the 16th, which may thus transfer his testimony to the other side; and a very late work, the New American Encyclopedia (sub wee Kingston) has it upon the 17th. The British official reports of the expedition are not specific as to the time of the landing. Gen. Vaughan says "on the evenin...