P181 - Plan of the ambuscade at East Chester, October 3, 1779

Plan von dem Hinterholt bey Ost Chester
P181 - Plan of the ambuscade at East Chester, October 3, 1779
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    Abstract
    Map of the area around East Chester, New York showing Hessian and British plans for an October 3, 1779 ambush of American troops operating in the vicinity. Published in a 1979 English language translation of the diary of a Hessian officer Ewald, Johann von. Diary of the American War : a Hessian Journal / translated and edited by Joseph P. Tustin. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1979, p. 125 from a 1791 transcription of notes and sketches found in the original diary (Tagebuch von dem Amerikanischen Kriege). The original map, only one of three contemporary views of Valley Forge known to exist, includes the page number on which it occurs in the 1791 transcription.
    Description Long

    The plan shows the old village of East Chester, traversed by the Hutchinson River, which was located beyond Third Avenue in present Mount Vernon.  The ambuscade is indicated above the village by a "burnt-out house in which the English infantry was hidden," between Pell's Bridge and the fork of the roads to White Plains and New Rochelle.  Ewald occupied a hill at the lower left of the plan where the horizontal writing states, "The place where I stopped to protect Captain Beckwith's rear."  At the fork of the roads to the right, "The roads were occupied by 2 noncommissioned officers and 24 jägers."  At the bottom of the plan, across the Williams Bridge and the Bronx River, a  jäger picket was posted under Lieutenant Bickell.  The British ambuscade failed because the Americans approached East Chester from an unexpected direction along the dotted "Road which the enemy patrol took" and escaped by the road to White Plains, marked "Flight of the enemy."  Ewald's support is indicated by the dotted lines running across the terrain and the East Chester heights to the White Plains road.

    Date Created
    1791
    Date
    1779
    Note

    Source: Ewald, Johann von. Tagebuch von dem amerikanischen kriege. 1791. This is a ms. transcription of Ewald's notes.

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