Places Discussed
(Critical Guide to Settings and Places in Literature)
*New York City
*New York City. At the time in which this story is set, the city that James Fenimore Cooper calls New York is confined to Manhattan Island, whose northern territory is the last major stronghold of the royalist forces.
*Westchester County
*Westchester County. Large tract of land northeast of Manhattan, to which it is connected at the point of narrowest separation by the strategically important King’s Bridge. The country between the Hudson and Long Island Sound comprises a vast patchwork of hills and valleys, until it flattens out to the northeast into the plains of Connecticut. The hills are relatively gentle in the eastern part of the county, but they rise more precipitously as they approach the Hudson, into a ribbon of terrain that Cooper calls the Highlands.
Neutral Ground
Neutral Ground. Land lying to the east of the Highlands that is controlled by neither the British, who command the southern entrance to the Hudson, nor the Revolutionary forces, who hold the Highlands to the north. The effects of the war have left the Neutral Ground abandoned, its fields unplanted, its fences fallen, and its roads in a perilous state. Few of the sites at which the rival armies camp and exchange fire are named, but reference is made to the “hamlet” of White Plains, the heights above Sing Sing and—most significantly—to the village of Fishkill, around which the Revolutionary forces regroup. The most significant setting other than those detailed below is the ledge bearing the...
(The entire section is 640 words.)
