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by Richard Borkow (Author)
During the summer of 1781, the armies of Generals Washington and Rochambeau were encamped in lower Westchester County at Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, Hartsdale, Edgemont and White Plains. It was a time of military deadlock and grim prospects for the allied Americans and French. Washington recognized that a decisive victory was needed or America would never achieve independence. In August, he marched these soldiers to Virginia to face General Cornwallis and his redcoats. Washington risked all on this march. Its success required secrecy, and he prepared an elaborate deception to convince the British that Manhattan, not Virginia, was the target of the allied armies. Local historian Richard Borkow presents this exciting story of the Westchester encampment and Washington's great gamble that saved the United States.
Author Biography
Richard Borkow is the village historian of Dobbs Ferry, New York, a trustee of the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society and editor of the website www.VillageHistorian.org. In 2009 and 2010, he was project director for Noted Historians Reveal Dobbs Ferry's Historic River Connections, a series of video interviews on YouTube with distinguished historians, including Pulitzer Prize recipient, David Hackett Fischer. In the interview entitled, American Revolution: The Decision Which Won the War, Dr. Fischer speaks about the dramatic "moment of choice" in Westchester County which led, two months later, to the decisive Franco-American victory over Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia: http: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxX0Kzfyeyk. That same "moment of choice," and the great risks that were associated with it, are explored in detail in George Washington's Westchester Gamble.
