Just so: New Jersey militiamen who had been reluctant to join Washington now assailed their oppressors with raids and ambushes. New Jersey, like Westchester County, soon became a dark borderland of uncertain, shifting loyalties and spasmodic violence. Howe’s staff estimated that rebel bandits by mid-December had rustled seven hundred oxen and almost a thousand sheep and hogs from British foragers. Patrols were bushwhacked, couriers seized, and eight British baggage wagons captured. Six hundred raiders struck Hackensack while the redcoats were campaigning downstate, seizing fifty Tories. As
...more
