Battle of Staten Island

On August 22, 1777, Major General John Sullivan led Continental Army forces in an unsuccessful strike against British troops stationed on Staten Island, an episode now remembered as the Battle of Staten Island. The opportunity arose after British Lieutenant General William Howe departed New York City that July with the bulk of his army, leaving Sullivan convinced that the remaining British garrison on the island could be exploited. He moved forward with his plan even though George Washington, the commanding general, had asked him to send his troops back to bolster the main force in preparation for an assault on Philadelphia, then under British control.

The operation was undermined by several missteps. A lack of sufficient boats hampered the withdrawal, resulting in the loss of two companies, while a guide steered one detachment toward the front of the British lines instead of the rear as intended. These errors left American casualties, whether killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, at more than twice the British totals, and Washington found himself short some 180 to 300 men he had counted on for his campaign. Sullivan later faced accusations that he had bungled the raid, but a court martial convened later that year cleared him of every charge brought against him.

Background

General William Howe pulled his troops out of Boston in March 1776, a retreat prompted by Major General George Washington's decision to fortify heights that endangered both the city and its harbor. Bolstered afterward by fresh troops sent from Europe, Howe went on to seize New York City, and this success pushed Washington into a full withdrawal across the length of New Jersey. As that year drew to a close, Washington led his men back across the Delaware River and caught German soldiers off guard at Trenton, New Jersey, eventually reclaiming much of the state for his side. Both armies then hunkered down for winter, though frequent skirmishes continued right up until the 1777 campaign season began.

Months of planning and a handful of preliminary movements through New Jersey preceded July 23, 1777, when Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, set sail with a fleet carrying the bulk of their New York army southward, aiming to seize Philadelphia, the American seat of government. Their plan called for landing troops near the upper reaches of Chesapeake Bay before pushing north on foot.

Washington learned quickly that the fleet had departed, yet its intended target remained a mystery to him. By August 10, word reached him that the ships seemed to be heading past Philadelphia toward the south, perhaps bound for Charleston, South Carolina. This led him to start shifting his forces northward instead, intending to help Major General Horatio Gates hold the Hudson River against Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, who was advancing south from Quebec. Then on August 21, Washington received word that the fleet had actually been sighted a full week earlier near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Grasping the threat this posed to Philadelphia, he wasted no time ordering his whole army to march south as quickly as possible. Major General John Sullivan, then holding the forward defensive positions in eastern New Jersey, was instructed to bring his men back to join the main force "with all convenient speed."

Prelude

Once Howe's forces pulled out, Sullivan realized Staten Island had been left exposed, and he set about organizing a strike against British positions there. Word had reached him that most of the British regulars were massed near the island's northern end, while roughly 700 Loyalist militiamen from New Jersey were spread thin along the western shoreline, opposite the New Jersey mainland. His scheme called for sending two detachments across from Elizabethtown (known today as Elizabeth, New Jersey), seizing prisoners from the scattered militia posts, and wrecking their supplies before withdrawing via the Old Blazing Star Ferry, situated between modern Carteret, New Jersey and Rossville, Staten Island.

Brigadier General John Campbell oversaw the island's overall defense, which included regulars from the 52nd Foot, so-called "Hessian" units drawn from the German territories of Waldeck and Ansbach, and Skinner's Brigade, a Loyalist New Jersey militia force under Cortlandt Skinner. Campbell commanded roughly 900 men, German troops included, positioned near the island's northeastern tip. Skinner's force, which Campbell's account put at about 400, held outposts stretching along the western coast from Dexter's Ferry to Ward's Point.

From his headquarters in Hanover, New Jersey, Sullivan instructed his officers on August 20 to ready their men for a march scheduled the following day. Exactly which units were selected remains unclear in the record, though the bulk came from Sullivan's own division, made up of the First and Second Maryland Brigades and their constituent Maryland Line regiments. Also assigned to the mission were companies from the 2nd Canadian Regiment along with a New Jersey militia company. Around 1,000 men in two columns departed camp on the afternoon of August 21. Brigadier General William Smallwood commanded one column, while Sullivan personally led the other, which included troops under the Chevalier Philippe Hubert Preudhomme de Borre, a French officer holding a Continental Army brigadier's commission. The force reached Elizabethtown late that night, paused for a brief rest, and resumed moving before dawn to begin the crossing. Colonel Matthias Ogden took one detachment across opposite Fresh Kills, rowing up the waterway so they could strike Elisha Lawrence's militia brigade from behind. The rest of the men landed near Palmer's run on the island's north side, then divided into three separate groups. Both Smallwood and Sullivan pushed the majority of their columns forward toward assigned objectives, each detaching a regiment to guard their retreat route.

Battle

At first light, Ogden fell upon Lawrence's outpost, catching the militia company off guard and scattering it. Within a few minutes of fighting he had 80 men in custody, and he pressed onward to confront the post held by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Vaughan Dongan, who led the 3rd battalion of Skinner's Brigade. Dongan's men fought back with determination despite their commander suffering a fatal wound in the clash. Facing this resistance, Ogden pulled his forces back toward the Old Blazing Star. He lingered there only as long as caution allowed, then ferried his men across to the mainland just ahead of the arrival of Sullivan and Smallwood.

Meanwhile, Sullivan set his sights on Skinner's 5th battalion, stationed at the New Blazing Star Ferry under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Barton. That unit, however, was on guard and bolted as soon as Sullivan's men drew near. Sullivan had stationed troops to cut off any who fled, yet a good number of Barton's soldiers still managed to slip away, some crossing to the Jersey shore and others vanishing into the surrounding woods and swampland. In the end Sullivan secured 40 captives, Barton among them. A portion of his force pushed toward Skinner's headquarters, but found the defenders too formidable and had to fall back.

As for Smallwood's column, its guide mistakenly led them to the front rather than the rear of Abraham van Buskirk's Loyalist battalion. Undeterred, Smallwood ordered the assault regardless. Buskirk's troops initially ran, but General Skinner rallied them, and the momentum shifted against the Americans, forcing a quick withdrawal. Even so, in the confusion they found time to wreck the enemy's camp stores and equipment, and they came away with a captured battle standard.

Near the village of Richmond, in the island's interior, Smallwood's and Sullivan's forces united and continued on toward the Old Blazing Star. Sullivan called for boats to hasten the crossing, but none came, so instead he used the same three vessels Ogden had seized earlier that day to begin ferrying troops and prisoners over. During this effort, Skinner's company appeared on the scene, reinforced by Campbell's men, the 52nd regiment, and the Waldeck and Anspach units. To buy time, Sullivan directed the companies under Majors Stewart and Tillard, roughly 80 men in all, to hold the line. They managed to keep the gathering British forces at bay long enough for the rest of the American troops to reach the mainland safely, beating back several fierce attempts to break through. While part of this rearguard eventually got away, others were killed in the fighting, and a considerable number surrendered once their ammunition ran dry and grapeshot began tearing into their position.

According to the Loyalist paper Gaine's Mercury, dated September 1, 1777, British losses amounted to 5 dead, 7 wounded, and 84 unaccounted for. Sir Henry Clinton later claimed that 259 prisoners had been taken during the fighting, though the historian Douglas Southall Freeman puts that figure closer to 150. Among the Americans captured, twenty-one were officers, one of them wounded, and the highest-ranking of these was Lieutenant Colonel Edward Antill.

Aftermath

After the fighting ended, what remained of Sullivan's troops headed south, arriving in time to link up with Washington's defenses below Philadelphia and take part in the pivotal clash at Brandywine on September 11.

Accusations soon followed that Sullivan had bungled various aspects of the expedition, leading to a court martial. The proceedings, conducted with notable leniency, cleared him of every charge brought against him.

The site of the engagement lives on today through Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island, where structures dating to the late 1700s still stand, offering a lasting trace of the fierce struggle that once took place on the island.