BLOODY AMBUSH AT PINES BRIDGE: HEROES SLAUGHTERED IN WESTCHESTER
The 1st Rhode Island Take Aim
WESTCHESTER, May 14, 1781 (as told in the style of a current day tabloid) — In a savage dawn raid straight out of a nightmare, a pack of bloodthirsty Tory “Cowboys” stormed Pines Bridge on the Croton River and butchered a gutsy band of Continental troops guarding the vital crossing in the lawless Neutral Ground. Colonel Christopher Greene — tough-as-nails commander of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment — and his integrated crew of white farm boys, freed black soldiers who’d earned their liberty by enlisting, and battle-hardened Wampanoag warriors were caught by surprise. The attack turned the quiet outpost near the Davenport House into a slaughter pen.
The Loyalist raiders — De Lancey’s New York Volunteers, about 300 strong — hit like lightning just as the sky was turning gray. What followed was pure hell: bayonets, swords, clubbed muskets, hand-to-hand carnage. Greene, yanked from his bed half-dressed and barefoot, roared for his men to “sell our lives as dearly as we can!” His soldiers fought like lions around him, piling up bodies so the enemy had to climb over the dead to reach their commander. Major Ebenezer Flagg was cut down in his own quarters. Greene himself was hacked, stabbed, dragged off wounded, then dumped in the woods where he bled out. At least a dozen Patriots were slaughtered, more hauled away as prisoners. The Cowboys mutilated the fallen before scampering off like the cowards they were when American reinforcements finally arrived.
The brutal attack has rocked Patriot forces across Westchester and beyond. Greene, cousin to the legendary General Nathanael Greene, was one of the best — a fighting Quaker who put everything on the line for independence. His mixed regiment proved what real Americans look like: every color, every background, united against the King’s tyranny. Now their blood stains the Croton banks, a raw reminder that this war’s ugliest fights happen in the shadows, not on the big battlefields. The fallen at Pines Bridge didn’t die for glory — they died for freedom in a godforsaken corner of New York. Their stand won’t be forgotten as the fight for these United States grinds on.
This retelling is based on primary and secondary accounts of the May 14, 1781 skirmish at Pines Bridge, including reports preserved in the Rhode Island Historical Society, local Yorktown histories, and standard Revolutionary War scholarship. Key references:
Town of Yorktown NY official page on the Battle of Pines Bridge
AllThingsLiberty.com article on the 1st Rhode Island Regiment
Wikipedia / DAR / America250 event pages for context (with the usual caveat on crowd-sourced sites).
