Affair at Little Egg Harbor was a Revolutionary War engagement fought in New Jersey, 1778. It was a British victory.
On the night of October 15, 1778, forces of American Loyalists under Patrick Ferguson fell upon an outpost belonging to Kazimierz Pułaski's Legion in South Jersey, catching the Patriot defenders unaware. Forty-five men were killed in the surprise attack, and five more were taken prisoner. This clash unfolded during the American Revolutionary War and came roughly a week after British troops had struck at Chestnut Neck, an earlier raid meant to stamp out the privateers who operated from that stretch of coast, preying on British vessels and seizing their cargo.
Captain Patrick Ferguson, a British Army officer, launched an assault on Chestnut Neck along the Mullica River, aiming to reclaim goods seized by privateers and to disrupt the town's role as a hub where those raiders distributed their prizes and sent captured cargo onward to General Washington's forces at Valley Forge.
In response, Kazimierz Pułaski and the troops he had recently assembled received orders to counter this threat. His Legion, bolstered by three light infantry companies, three troops of light horse, and a single artillery detachment, reached the scene one day after Ferguson had already pulled out of Chestnut Neck. Even so, their presence proved sufficient to halt any further move by Ferguson against the ironworks at Batsto. Ferguson had intended to strike Batsto, yet shallow waters on the river combined with dwindling time meant the site was never actually reached or damaged.
Pulaski's forces also succeeded in curbing further assaults on privateering vessels near The Forks of the Mullica River. For the span of a week, the opposing sides held their ground in a tense standoff, neither gaining the upper hand.
When Pulaski's force arrived in the Little Egg Harbor district, close to what is now Tuckerton, they wasted no time pitching camp on a nearby farm. A deserter, Lt. Gustav Juliet, sought out Ferguson and revealed the location of that encampment, adding that discipline among the troops was weak and that almost no watch had been posted. Seizing on this, Ferguson gathered 250 of his finest soldiers, put them aboard boats, and had them rowed under cover of darkness across roughly 10 mi (16 km) of water to the spot known today as Osborne Island.
From there he led them on a 2 mi (3.2 km) march toward an infantry outpost, a detachment of fifty men stationed a short way from the larger camp. As dawn broke, Ferguson gave the order to strike. His force, made up entirely of American Loyalists, took just five prisoners while cutting down nearly fifty of the defenders.
Before long, Pulaski brought his cavalry into action, forcing Ferguson to pull back toward the boats and abandon a handful of men who ended up captured by the Patriot colonists.
The acreage where the massacre took place is now home to the Country Club Estates development. A modest piece of the old colonial farm survived this transformation, set aside on ground lying between Hollybrook Drive and Cedarbrook Lane. Meanwhile, visitors can find the Pulaski Monument along Pulaski Blvd, within the Mystic Island area of Little Egg Harbor.
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