Meigs Raid

On May 24, 1777, Continental Army troops led by Connecticut's Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs struck a British Loyalist foraging party stationed at Sag Harbor, New York, an episode that became known as the Battle of Sag Harbor as well as the Meigs Raid. The clash left six Loyalists dead and another 90 in American hands, while not a single Continental soldier was harmed. This strike came as an answer to the Crown forces' earlier success at Danbury, Connecticut in late April, an assault that Americans had tried to blunt at the Battle of Ridgefield.

Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons put the mission together in New Haven, Connecticut. From Guilford, the force set out across Long Island Sound on May 23, hauling their whaleboats overland across Long Island's North Fork before descending on Sag Harbor in the early hours of the following day, where they wrecked boats and stores belonging to their opponents.

Background

For the British, 1776 brought mixed fortunes in the ongoing struggle against the American colonies. Driven out of Boston, British forces seized New York City, yet failed to keep control of New Jersey once General George Washington caught them off guard at Trenton and Princeton. As winter settled over the region in early 1777, British troops tightened their grip on New York City and Long Island, while Continental forces ringed the city with a blockade stretching through New Jersey, southern New York, and southwestern Connecticut.

When spring arrived, Lieutenant General William Howe sent out raiding parties targeting storage depots belonging to the Continental Army and local militias near the city. After a March raid on Peekskill, New York proved effective, he set his sights on a larger operation aimed at a supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut. William Tryon, the former royal governor of New York, commanded this expedition, landing at Fairfield, Connecticut before reaching Danbury on April 26 and destroying the stores found there. Connecticut's militia had already mustered, and clashes with the retreating British troops continued over the following two days, culminating in a notable engagement at Ridgefield on April 27. In response, General Samuel Holden Parsons, who oversaw Connecticut's defense efforts, resolved to strike back.

Word soon reached them that a British party had gone ashore at Sag Harbor, Long Island to gather supplies, presenting just the chance Parsons needed. British troops had held Sag Harbor since the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, fortifying Meeting House Hill with earthworks and palisades to create a formidable stronghold. The location proved valuable for supplying the Royal Navy, whose ships anchored in Gardiner's Bay while patrolling the eastern reaches of Long Island Sound. Twelve small boats made up the foraging party, escorted by a twelve gun schooner, with roughly 40 men crewing the smaller vessels. Guarding Sag Harbor at this time were 70 troops drawn from the Loyalist battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Stephen De Lancey, with Captain James Raymond in command of the detachment.

Raid

Command of the operation fell to Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, appointed by Parsons himself. Parsons later told General Washington that the gathered force numbered 234 men, drawn from several regiments and mustered at New Haven, before setting out on May 21 aboard 13 whaleboats bound for Guilford. Foul weather intervened, with heavy seas and strong winds holding them ashore for two days. Not until the afternoon of May 23 could they finally push off from Guilford, escorted across the water by a trio of vessels, two of them armed sloops and the third unarmed.

Of the original party, only 170 men actually reached the far shore near Southold, New York, arriving there around six in the evening. There Meigs discovered that the bulk of British troops stationed nearby had received orders to march for New York City, leaving behind nothing more than a modest Loyalist garrison at Sag Harbor. Seizing on this, he ordered his men to haul eleven of the whaleboats overland across the North Fork to reach the bay. With 130 men loaded into those boats, they made the crossing and, by midnight, had come ashore roughly four miles from the harbor. Meigs then organized his troops and pushed forward on foot, reaching Sag Harbor by about two in the morning.

There he split his men into two groups. One column rushed the earthworks while the other made for the harbor itself, setting fire to British vessels and seizing supplies. Bayonets fixed and voices hushed, the assault on land unfolded almost without a sound, with only a single shot said to have been discharged. As the raiders torched the boats, a schooner returned fire on them, though accounts differ on whether the vessel was ultimately captured and destroyed. In total, twelve boats went up in flames, and the Americans came away with 53 prisoners seized at the earthworks and 37 more taken at the wharf, all without losing a single man. The captives were then marched back to Connecticut.

Aftermath

Loyalists on Long Island did not let the raid go unanswered, and they mounted their own retaliatory effort. Nine of them slipped across the sound in May 1779 and seized Gold Selleck Silliman, a Connecticut militia general, right at his home, dragging him back with them to Long Island. The following November, Connecticut Patriots turned the tables by capturing a judge on Long Island, holding him until May 1780, when he was traded for Silliman's release.

Parsons had not finished with such raids either. He launched a second crossing of Long Island Sound in August 1777, this time targeting a Loyalist post at Setauket, but the effort failed to achieve its aim. Meanwhile, Colonel Meigs received recognition from the Second Continental Congress, which presented him with what was described as "an elegant sword" for his part in the earlier action. Decades later, on May 23, 1902, a stone marker was set at the site to commemorate the battle.