If there is a town in upper New York that had done its yeoman’s duty in the War of Independence, it is tiny Fishkill. After the British took Long Island and New York City in 1776, they followed those conquests with a battle for White Plains farther north. This was a bloody and dangerous fight for the patriot Cause, all the more so because it followed such serious losses. But victory turned the tide of the war. General Howe – the same general with whom Jake is presently preoccupied – had to retreat to New York City to consolidate his gains and lick his wounds as the fall began slowly turning to winter. The Americans likewise had wounds to lick, and a great many of them were healed in Fishkill, a small village some forty or so miles north of where the battle had taken place. The entire hamlet became a hospital, with sundry buildings, tents, and even the roadway used as operating theaters and recovery rooms. The air reeked with the smell of hard-won Freedom and Liberty, the cries of suffering echoing between the hills and across the creek that marked the town.
