Attack in Westchester: Emmerich Raids the Van Tassels

Monday, November 17, 1777. The men started their march north through Westchester County at six o’clock, more than an hour after nightfall. The afternoon’s clouds had given way to wind and freezing rain. After a few hours the sleet turned to snow. Roughly one hundred men marched in silence. Their green coats disappeared in the darkness, leaving only the white facings dimly visible.[1] The Loyalist corps of Emmerich’s Chasseurs was on the move.

Their commander was Capt. Andreas Emmerich. Despite being short and fat, the dark-haired German’s look was fierce. His swarthy face was stained by gunpowder, his bearing stiff and military. He was said to be deadly with a rifle. Among the rural people of New York his “appearance inspired dread.” A boy remembered one night opening the house door to see Emmerich ranging on foot in front of his troops, rifle on his shoulder. Emmerich harshly ordered the door closed and was instantly obeyed.[2]

Captain Emmerich was forty and hoping to make his mark in America. A veteran of the Seven Years’ War, he was a proud Hessian partisan officer who after the peace had been reduced to working in England as deputy surveyor general of His Majesty’s Parks and Woods. In 1776 he had served as a volunteer in command of a corps in the New York campaign and earned praise from Gen. Sir William Howe. Emmerich returned to England, proposing to raise a corps of one thousand Germans to fight in America. His proposal was turned down. By the summer of 1777 he was back in New York, and in late August Gen. Sir Henry Clinton appointed him to the command of a company of one hundred “good rifle men,” drawn from five provincial units.[3] Thus was born the Loyalist corps Emmerich’s Chasseurs, in its nascent state a small infantry unit patrolling lower Westchester County, guarding the outposts of British headquarters on Manhattan.

Emmerich was determined to mold his Loyalists into the ideal light infantry corps. He demanded alertness and instant obedience. In September when some of his new chasseurs were swimming near Kingsbridge he ordered a drummer to suddenly beat to arms. The men dashed from the water to their firelocks and drew up naked and streaming, ready to meet the foe. Delighted, Emmerich awarded each man a dollar. When displeased, however, his temper could be volcanic. An observer recalled, “Emmerick was a severe disciplinarian and often whipped his men for disobedience and plundering.” Even civilians found him irascible. When a farmer tried to reclaim his plundered cattle, Emmerich thrashed him with a cane, roaring in his accented English, “To you call my mens cow tieves?”[4]