Celebrate America250: Battle of Stony Point

July 16, 1779. Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne seized Stony Point, a vital crossing point on the Hudson River, from its British garrison in a daring nighttime assault.

After the American victories at Saratoga in fall 1777 and a draw at Monmouth in May 1778, the Revolutionary War settled into a stalemate in the north. The British focused on peeling the South away, expecting that strong Loyalist sentiment and a Southern attachment to slavery would enable Cornwallis to conquer it. In the north, the British occupied New York as their base of operations, while Washington surrounded the city with the Continental Army in strong defensive positions. Since France and Spain had joined the war, British manpower was diverted not only to the campaign in the South but also to the Caribbean, Gibraltar, and India. As a result, Gen. Clinton was holed up in New York without sufficient forces to drive Washington away from his outposts around New York City.

But Clinton hoped to draw Washington out of his fortifications by taking Stony Point, a vital crossing on the Hudson River about thirty miles north of downtown Manhattan, and then defeating him in a pitched battle. The King's Ferry at Stony Point was a crucial link between the New England colonies and the South. If Clinton could hold Stony Point, he could break the colonies in two and force Washington to fight. And he could threaten the powerful fort at West Point, ten miles farther up the Hudson, where Washington had his headquarters.

In May 1779, Clinton landed 6000 British soldiers at the site and drove off the small garrison of 40 Americans. Gen. Washington watched through a telescope from a nearby mountain as the British proceeded to build fortifications and to install cannon on the point and leave 750 men as a garrison. But Washington noticed a fatal flaw in their defenses. The point stuck out into the Hudson River, so the British constructed a wooden abatis on the western side where the point joined the mainland. Washington noticed that they had failed to build the abatis far enough out into the Hudson River. At low tide, soldiers could wade around the southern end of the abatis and storm unobstructed into the British fortifications on the point.

After midnight on July 16, 1779, Washington ordered Gen. Anthony Wayne to take 1500 light infantry and march in silence across the swampy ground connecting Stony Point to the mainland and then slip around the abatis by wading through the river. Then they would storm up the steep slopes of Stony Point and assault the garrison with bayonets. Even though the British spotted the Americans as they waded around the abatis, they moved so quickly up the slopes that the British could not adjust their artillery to fire on them. The battle was over in 25 minutes, with only 15 killed on the American side. The British lost 20 killed, 58 missing, and 546 prisoners.

Most importantly, the British lost their brief control of a key point connecting New England to the rest of the colonies. The war in the north would drag on for four more years, with the British conducting raids throughout New York and New England. Continental morale plummeted as inflation destroyed the value of the dollar, the army lacked supplies, Indians attacked settlers, and the army mutinied. Benedict Arnold betrayed his country and defected to the British. But the British did not threaten to cut New England off from the rest of the states again. As long as Washington could hold in the north and continue to bloody the British in the South, the Americans would not lose.