Battle of Minisink

On July 22, 1779, fighting broke out at Minisink Ford, New York, marking one of the notable clashes of the American Revolutionary War. This engagement stands as the sole significant confrontation of the war within the upper Delaware River valley. Iroquois and Loyalist forces emerged with a clear triumph, largely because the opposing militia had been thrown together on short notice, lacked proper equipment, and had little experience in combat.

Brant's raid

Most British troops stationed in the northern theater remained clustered around New York, yet Joseph Brant, a Mohawk war leader, made his way into the upper Delaware Valley accompanied by Loyalist and Indigenous fighters. His purposes included gathering intelligence, seizing cattle, and perhaps throwing off American plans to launch an expedition against the Iroquois.

The upper Delaware River valley found itself nearly stripped of defenders after Brigadier General Kazimierz Pulaski's infantry departed for the Southern Theater in February 1779. Seeing this opportunity, Brant guided his volunteers toward Minisink, intent on driving off cattle and breaking the spirit of the colonial inhabitants there.

Around midday on July 20, Brant arrived with 60 Iroquois warriors and 27 Loyalists dressed to resemble native fighters. Word of their approach sent most settlers running for the safety of the main fort, which meant the toll was limited to four dead and three captured. Writing afterward to Lieutenant Colonel Mason Bolton at Fort Niagara, Brant noted that the abundance of fortifications in the area let residents scatter "like ground-hogs" into their strongholds, preventing a larger haul of captives. The raiders left behind considerable destruction: ten dwellings, eleven barns, a church, a gristmill, and the fortified structure called Fort Decker all burned. Brant's own account described losing one man killed and having another wounded during the assault, while he took care to emphasize that no harm had come to any women or children.

Battle of Minisink

After Brant's raiders left the settlement and moved upriver, messengers from Minisink rode to Goshen to spread word of what had happened. On the morning of July 21, local militia gathered at Minisink under Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Tusten, soon joined by a detachment from Sussex County, New Jersey. Tusten favored caution, urging the group to wait for reinforcements rather than chase after Brant. But a good number of the gathered men scoffed at the idea that the Iroquois posed much of a threat and pressed for swift action instead. Finding himself in the minority, Tusten relented and agreed to march. Colonel John Hathorn arrived soon after with men from the 4th Orange County Militia Regiment out of Warwick, took charge of the combined force, and led roughly 120 militiamen off in pursuit of Brant.

By the morning of July 22, the militia had taken up a position on high ground east of where the Lackawaxen meets the Delaware, hoping to catch Brant's warriors as they crossed at Minisink Ford. Hathorn arranged his troops into a skirmishing party alongside two larger groups making up the main body. Before the trap could be sprung, though, a rifle went off by accident and gave away the militia's presence. Brant seized the moment, maneuvered his forces onto higher ground behind Hathorn's line, and began firing.

Hathorn found it impossible to rally his scattered men for any organized response. As many fled the field, those left behind found themselves cut off and vastly outnumbered. The two sides traded fire for hours until ammunition ran short, at which point the engagement dissolved into close combat. The militia lost at least 46 men, Tusten among them. Brant's warriors killed the wounded and captured without exception, sparing only Captain John Wood, whom Brant spared only because he wrongly took him for a brother Mason.

On Brant's side, losses numbered just seven. According to Brant's own account, three men died in the fighting while four more suffered wounds severe enough that survival seemed unlikely. Hathorn, though seriously injured, lived through the ordeal and made his way back to Warwick, where he composed an account of the defeat for his commanding officers.

Aftermath

Once the fighting ended, Brant led his force across the Delaware and pressed onward to Onaquaga on the Susquehanna. Their efforts, however, did nothing to derail the Sullivan Expedition. Weeks afterward, at Newtown, Major General John Sullivan's 3200 Continental troops swept past Brant's volunteers, Butler's Rangers, and the several hundred Seneca and Cayuga warriors fighting alongside them. Sullivan then pushed into Iroquois territory in New York's Finger Lakes region, laying waste to forty of their villages.

For the residents of the Precinct of Goshen, the predecessor to Orange County's later townships, retrieving their dead proved impossible for forty-three years, since the remote battlefield lay far beyond easy reach. Widows of the fallen soldiers tried more than once to make the journey but were turned back each time. Finally, in 1822, a committee set out to search the grounds for whatever remains could still be found. What few bones they gathered were first interred together in Barryville before eventually being relocated to Goshen. When the battle's hundredth anniversary arrived, a stone obelisk bearing the names of those killed was raised in Goshen.

Elsewhere, a grave uncovered in 1847 at Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania is thought to hold the remains of another man lost at Minisink. That spot has since become a memorial tomb honoring unidentified soldiers of the Revolutionary War.

The battlefield itself now lies within Minisink Battleground County Park in Sullivan County, just a short distance north of Barryville near Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct. Nothing from the era of the fight still stands there, though visitors will find walking trails, memorials, picnic grounds, and a center for guests.