Young's House

On February 3, 1780, amid the American Revolutionary War, British and American troops clashed just beyond New York City in what became known as the Battle of Young's House, a name that also appears in historical records as the Battle of Young's Corners, Affair at Youngs House, and Action at Youngs Corners. In this skirmish, British soldiers struck a Continental Army post situated in Westchester County, New York, wiping it out.

Background

After the British Army seized control of New York City in 1776, the conflict's second year, a stretch of territory north of the city fell into a strange limbo between the opposing forces. Soldiers and locals came to call this contested strip the Neutral Ground. Westchester County, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut, both lay within this zone, and combatants on both sides repeatedly launched raids into it. By late 1779, the boundaries of this contested territory had shifted to encompass Tarrytown and White Plains, with American positions sitting just to the north, reaching as far as Mount Pleasant.

A junction of roads known as the Four Corners, located in what is now the hamlet of Valhalla, New York, held considerable strategic value because of its terrain. Control over this crossroads changed hands more than once, as both armies recognized its worth.

The land where the outpost stood belonged to Joseph Youngs, a Patriot and landowner who served on the New York Committee of Safety. Before the war began, he had farmed this property as a tenant under Frederick Philipse III, who held the title of the last lord of Philipsburg Manor. Youngs' son Samuel contributed to the American cause as well, serving in the Westchester militia and acting as a guide for Continental Army forces in the region.

Continental soldiers first moved into Youngs' house and barns at the Four Corners in August 1776, establishing a military presence there. This arrangement held until December 1778, when a British raiding party overwhelmed the modest garrison stationed at the site and set one of the barns ablaze. Despite this success, the British chose not to hold the position afterward, and Continental Army troops moved back in to reclaim it early the following year.

Battle

Perhaps as payback for an American strike against a British post at Kingsbridge earlier that January, British commanders resolved to strike the American position at Youngs House. Under cover of darkness on February 2, 1780, Lieutenant Colonel Chapple Norton set out with a composite force from the high ground near Fort Knyphausen, the name the British used for Fort Washington. His command drew together four flank companies pulled from the 1st and 2nd Brigade of Guards, a hundred Hessian soldiers from two regiments garrisoned at Kingsbridge, forty mounted Loyalists under James DeLancey, and additional detachments of Hessian jägers, some on horse and some on foot. All told, the expedition numbered somewhere between five hundred and six hundred men. Given the heavy snowfall, they initially traveled by sleigh and hauled along two small artillery pieces, but soon abandoned both the sleighs and the guns once it became clear the troops could advance faster on foot alone. Snowdrifts as deep as two feet slowed their progress considerably, so that the column did not reach the American defenses until nine in the morning on February 3.

Youngs House itself served as the hub for a garrison responsible for guarding roughly two miles of the American line stretching west toward the Hudson, along with a somewhat longer stretch to the east. This garrison, numbering two hundred fifty men, drew its five companies from the Massachusetts 1st, 3rd, 9th, 14th, and 15th Regiments, all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Thompson. To the west stood Captains Stoddard and Roberts, representing the 15th and 1st Regiments respectively, while Captain-Lieutenant Farley of the 9th and Captain Cooper of the 14th held positions to the east. Captain Watson of the 3rd remained alongside Thompson at the house itself. Not long before the British columns appeared, a local resident alerted Thompson to the approach of a substantial enemy force, though Thompson seems to have doubted the scale of the warning, choosing only to dispatch messengers calling back the four companies then away on guard duty.

Contact between the two sides began when the British vanguard ran into an American picket, a sergeant with his small squad. Though the picket fought back, the British horsemen quickly overran and captured them. The cavalry then pressed forward toward the house itself, where Captain Roberts's company had already taken position on its right flank. Following an exchange of fire at a distance, the horsemen paused to allow the infantry to catch up, arriving roughly when Captain-Lieutenant Farley's company also reached the scene; neither Stoddard's nor Cooper's companies made it in time to join the fight. What followed was an intense firefight lasting about fifteen minutes between the three American companies present and the larger British force. Outnumbered, the Americans found their flank turned as the British seized the orchard positioned behind the house. Roberts fell mortally wounded in the fighting, and the American formation collapsed, with some men retreating into the house itself and others scattering across the open country. Those who had taken refuge inside held out briefly, but once the British put the house and its outbuildings to the torch, the defenders were compelled to surrender, even as mounted troops ran down those who had fled into the surrounding fields.