Colonel Henry Ludington A Memoir

The part performed by the militia and militia officers in the War of the Revolution does not seem always to have received the historical recognition which it deserves. It was really of great importance, especially in southern New England and the Middle States, at times actually rivaling and often indispensably supplementing that of the regular Continental Army. It will not be invidious to say that of all the militia none was of more importance or rendered more valuable services than those regiments which occupied the disputed border country between the American and British lines, and which guarded the bases of supplies and the routes of communication. There was probably no region in which borderland friction was more severe and intrigues more sinister than that which lay between the British in New York City and the Americans at the Highlands of the Hudson, nor was there a highway of travel and communication more important than that which led from Hartford in Connecticut to Fishkill and West Point in New York.