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Revolutionary War Historical Article
The American Revolution Month-by-Month July 1779
By Compatriot Andrew "Andy" Stough
Editor's Note: This article was reprinted by Permission of the Gold Country Chapter No. 7 of the CSSAR and was slightly edited by the Sons of Liberty Chapter of the CSSAR
In this month of July 1779 we meet up again with an old acquaintance, William Tryon. Appointed Royal Governor of North Carolina in 1764 he gained favor with the King and his ministers by refusing to allow the Colonial Assembly to send delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. He later suppressed with great tenacity and force the "Regulator Uprising" of 1768-1771, further impressing the powers in London. Later in the year (1771) and because of his ability to control the population, he was transferred to New York as acting Governor. He acted in that capacity until relieved in 1780.
During his tenure as governor he assumed command of a Corps of Loyalists (The King's Own Regiment). Active in command, he led the Corps in April 1777 in the first invasion of Connecticut. The second raid on Connecticut (July, 1779) was inspired by two things. First and foremost was the nuisance of small boat attacks and general harassment of British shipping on Long Island Sound. Secondly, on land the people of Connecticut were active in the supply and support of the Continental army. General Henry Clinton ordered a mixed force of 2,600 British and Loyalists to attack and eliminate the nuisance. On the morning of July 3rd the embarkation of the expedition began. A mixed force of 2,600 men included Governor Tryon in command of a Tory Regiment, dubbed "The King's Americans."
On the morning of the 5th, the transports set sail, protected by four war ships anchored off New Haven, Connecticut, where the force debarked and deployed in two divisions. As the 1st Division marched toward New Haven they encountered some resistance from local militia who fired at them from behind rock walls and trees. While this was militia's most effective form of combat it was at best only a deterrent as their numbers were insufficient to be more than an annoyance to British regulars. The 2nd Division landed at East Haven, meeting with some opposition, which again was a deterrent but could not stop the march against the city. Both Divisions successfully reached New Haven plundering and pillaging the town. They departed New Haven carrying off their stolen booty and a few prisoners.
Re-embarking on July 6th, the force proceeded southwest about 20 miles to Fairfield. On the 8th, the expedition entered the town to find it empty, the population forewarned had fled. As at New Haven the town was stripped of its wealth, and routinely burned. Fairfield was followed in turn by an attack on the village of Green's Farms which was plundered of much personal wealth then burned.
On July 11th, Norwalk was attacked; light resistance from local militia delayed capture of the town for several hours but did not change the final outcome. Norwalk was looted of great personal wealth (over $150,000). In addition to burning the town, the torch was put to five ships in the harbor. The end result of the second Connecticut raid was not so much men killed in battle as the indignation of the local inhabitants at the burning and pillaging of private wealth which had no military value or function.
On July 10th, the "Penobscot Expedition" with twenty transports escorted by seventeen ships of the Massachusetts Navy and three ships from the Continental Navy cleared Boston Harbor. The armed vessels boasted a total armament of 200 guns while the transports carried 3,000 ground troops. The expedition was unilaterally directed and sponsored by the Massachusetts government with perhaps tacit approval of the Continental Congress to obtain the three ships of the Continental Navy. Another source says the fleet cleared Boston nine days later [July 19th] with a strength of 19 armed vessels with 344 guns while 24 transports carried 2,000 men. Quite a discrepancy between sources, don't you think!
The expedition was to retake from the British an American settlement (Today's Castine, ME) on the Penobscot River just off Penobscot Sound. The question came to mind, why would the Commonwealth of Massachusetts solely on its own authority and expense, be interested in a captured settlement in Maine? Wasn't this something the Continental Congress and its army and navy should pursue, perhaps with assistance from Massachusetts? With these questions in mind I briefly traced the history of Maine to understand why this was such a personal thing to the government of the Old Bay State.
The Pilgrims' voyage in the "Mayflower" and a proposed settling in Virginia was financed in London by the Plymouth Company. Why the Pilgrims arrived and settled at present day Plymouth, as opposed to Virginia is unknown. Arriving off the Massachusetts coast on December 11th, 1620, a party landed to locate a suitable site for a settlement. The Pilgrims established Plymouth Plantation or settlement after landing on December 21st, 1620. This was the beginning of British settlements in New England.
Pilgrims were Separatists from the Anglican Communion, the official Church of England, as were the Puritans who several years later settled in the area of what became Boston. Both had fled England to escape religious persecution. This is included to explain some of the later actions by the Massachusetts government.
The New England land grant was given to the sponsoring Plymouth Company in England, not to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony. It isn't clear as to the amount of land that was granted by the Crown to the Plymouth Company. The policy of large land grants by the settling nation allowed that nation to lay claim to vast territories. Therefore it is logical that the Plymouth Company's claim might well have covered the entire area north and west of Plymouth until reaching French Canada in the north.
In 1622, only two years after the Pilgrims landed, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason received from the Council for New England (Successor to the Plymouth Company) a grant to the property between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers and all the lands for 60 miles inland, under the name of "Province of Maine." Gorges was an Anglican; Pilgrim and Puritan Massachusetts was unwilling to have Anglicans as owners of the province. Massachusetts then asserted a claim to ownership to all territory to a point 3 miles north of the source of the Merrimac River. Controversy and much litigation as to ownership of the province followed. Massachusetts gradually assumed ownership (between 1652 and 1658) of the entire area, north to the St. Croix River. In 1677, Gorges claim was purchased by Massachusetts for 1,250 pounds sterling. Massachusetts then asserted full ownership, claiming the area and any settlements as a proprietor.
With this background in mind it can be assumed that the government of Massachusetts sent the Penobscot Expedition to reaffirm it's claim to the vast untamed area of Maine. Canada surrounded the inland area of Maine on two sides. Failure by Massachusetts to forcefully pursue its claim could have resulted in the entire Province of Maine being retained by Britain at the 1783, Treaty of Paris.
The Penobscot Expedition arrived at what is now Castine, Maine on July 15th or perhaps July 24th and began an attack on the British position. The maneuvering continued into August.
After the British capture of Stony Point in June the fort was completed and garrisoned. The two forts, Stony point and Fort LaFayette on Verplanck's Point across the river, gave British Commander-in-Chief Henry Clinton control of the Hudson and jeopardized West Point. General George Washington was disturbed; the two forts as set up by Clinton were impregnable without a great loss of life and equipment. Almost destitute of supplies and funds, not to mention men, Washington was at first unwilling to take the risk of seizing one or both of the forts. On June 28th he asked Anthony Wayne (Mad Anthony) to assess the true state of affairs and determine the possibility of at least seizing Stony Point, the more strategically valuable of the two forts. Here again we come upon a more than familiar name, Captain Allen McLane. On July 2nd, McLane in company of a local woman went to the fort under the guise of coming to visit the woman’s son. Entry was granted and McLane was able to observe and report on the Fort's defenses to Washington. Then, covered by McLane’s troopers, Washington spent an entire day examining the area around the fort. With all of Allen McLane's accomplishments, why is he still a captain? Why hasn't he been promoted?
Ward (see references) notes that on . . . "the morning of July 15, Wayne's men were drawn up . . . for inspection . . . freshly shaved and well powdered. . . in accordance with his customary attention to their appearance." That day they marched thirteen miles over what was at times a lane so narrow that the men had to march single file. At eight o'clock that night they were concealed in a position one and a half miles from Stony Point. At half past eleven the force advanced in two columns; both proceeded in the dark over marshland and in one case through waist deep water. Despite an early discovery of their presence the Americans pressed on through several lines of abatis until they had scaled the wall of the fort and engaged the enemy hand-to-hand. In thirty minutes it was all over. British losses were: 63 killed, 70 wounded and 543 captured. American casualties were 15 killed and 80 wounded.
When the fort was secured, its guns were turned on a sloop in the Hudson and on Fort LaFayette with no visible effect. After examination, Washington determined that it would require too many men and equipment to maintain the fort. He ordered the removal of anything useable, then destruction and abandonment of the fort. Clinton later restored and re-garrisoned Stony Point. While nothing more than the armament, stores and prisoners was physically gained, the psychological effect on the army and civilian population was tremendous
Political Events, July 1779
The largest American naval armada to be assembled during the Revolution leaves Boston July 19th under former privateer Dudley Saltonstall, 44, with orders to dislodge the British from a fort they are building at the head of Penobscot Bay. Saltonstall has 19 armed vessels with 344 guns and 24 transports with some 2,000 men, while the British have only 700 men under Brigadier General Francis McLean, but Saltonstall refuses to attack. His land force commander General Solomon Lovell and second-in-command General Peleg Wadsworth of the Massachusetts militia put 200 men ashore but get little support from the expedition's artillery commander Paul Revere. British reinforcements arrive August 14th as seven ships from Halifax land 1,530 men and 204 guns. The Americans flee upriver toward Bangor, run their ships ashore and destroy them, and walk home to Boston through the woods. Saltonstall is cashiered for incompetence; Revere is court martialed for cowardly misconduct. (Also see September 1779 Month-by-Month Article).
References: Arthur Meier Schlesinger's"The Almanac of American History"; Christopher Ward's "The War of the Revolution"; Don Higginbotham's "War of American Independence"; Encyclopedia Britannica "The Revolutionary War Years"; James Trager's "The People's Chronology".
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