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. And in the next year, Sir William
Howe having sailed to take Philadelphia with most of the king's
regulars (leaving General Clinton to hold New York with some royal
troops and us loyalists), the fighting was around the rebel capital,
which the British, after two victories, held during the Winter of
1777-78, while Washington camped at Valley Forge.

In the Fall of 1777, we thought we might have news of Winwood, for in
the Northern rebel army to which General Burgoyne then capitulated,
there were not only many New York troops, but moreover several of the
officers taken at Quebec, who had been exchanged when Philip had. But
of him we heard nothing, and from him it was not likely that we should
hear. Margaret never mentioned him now, and seemed to have forgotten
that she possessed a husband. Her interest was mainly in the British
officers still left in New York, and her impatience was for the return
of the larger number that had gone to Philadelphia. To this impatience
an end was put in the Summer of 1778, when the main army marched back
to us across New Jersey, followed part way by the rebels, and fighting
with them at Monmouth Court House. 'Twas upon this that the lines I
have mentioned, of British outposts protecting New York, and rebel
forces surrounding us on all sides but that of the sea, were
established in their most complete shape; and that the reciprocal
forays became most frequent.

And now, too, the British occupation of New York assumed its greatest
proportions. The kinds of festivity in which Margaret so brilliantly
shone, lent to the town the continual gaiety in which she so keenly
delighted. The loyalist families exerted themselves to p