The Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery was fought in the Hudson Highlands of the Hudson River valley on 6 October 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton captured Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery and dismantled the first iteration of the Hudson River Chains.
The purpose of the British attack was to create a diversion to draw American troops from the army of General Horatio Gates, which was opposing British General John Burgoyne's attempt to gain control of the Hudson. Both forts were garrisoned by about 600 Continental Army troops under the command of two brothers, General George Clinton and General James Clinton, while General Israel Putnam led additional troops at nearby Fort Independence in the vicinity of Peekskill, New York. Using a series of feints, Clinton fooled Putnam into withdrawing most of his troops to the east, and then he landed 2,100 troops on the west side of the Hudson to assault the two forts.
After several hours of hiking through the hilly terrain, Clinton divided his troops to stage simultaneous assaults on the two forts. Although the approach to Fort Montgomery was contested by a company armed with a small field piece, they attacked the two forts at nearly the same time and captured them after a relatively short battle. More than half the American defenders were killed, wounded, or captured. The British followed up this success with raids as far north as Kingston before being recalled to New York City. The action came too late to be of any assistance to Burgoyne, who surrendered his army on October 17. The only notable consequence of the action was the casualties suffered and the British destruction of the two forts on their departure.
The Hudson River valley was a strategically critical area throughout the American Revolutionary War. Through this area moved supplies, men and materiel between the New England states and those further south, something that became vitally important when the British largely abandoned New England as an objective of military control later in the war. In June 1777, General John Burgoyne began an attempt to gain control of this key area by moving south from the British province of Quebec. After his early success at Ticonderoga, his campaign become bogged down in logistical difficulties, not reaching Saratoga, New York, until mid-September. Burgoyne held expectations that his campaign would be supported by military forces based in New York City under the command of General William Howe and that the forces would meet at Albany, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Saratoga.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
This page covers Battle of Fort Clinton. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.