Stony Point

On the night of July 16, 1779, amid the ongoing struggle for American independence, an elite detachment of Continental soldiers serving under Washington struck a fortified British position at Stony Point. Brigadier General "Mad Anthony" Wayne led this handpicked force through a swift and carefully orchestrated assault, catching the garrison off guard at their outpost in what is now Rockland County, New York, roughly 30 mi (48 km) above New York City.

The engagement proved costly for the British side, and though brief, it delivered a substantial boost to Continental morale. Washington soon ordered the position abandoned following the fight, yet the site retained strategic value: Continental Army units later relied on this same crossing point to traverse the Hudson River as the conflict wound toward its conclusion.

Battle

On the morning of July 15, the Corps of Light Infantry mustered and then set out from Sandy Beach, just north of Fort Montgomery, beginning their march at noon. Orders called for any civilians encountered along the way to be detained, so they could not alert the British. Because the terrain and roads offered little more than narrow footpaths, the men frequently had to walk single file, and the column wound westward through Queensboro and over Dunderberg Mountain in a deliberately roundabout path meant to keep the British from noticing them. By eight that evening the troops began reaching the Springsteel farm, situated a mile and a half from the fortifications, and within two hours they had organized into their assault columns.

There, the soldiers received a ration of rum along with their instructions for the coming fight. Scraps of white paper were pinned to their hats so they could recognize one another once darkness made friend and foe hard to distinguish. At half past eleven the columns departed for their separate starting positions, splitting apart so that the attack could commence right at midnight. Each column was led forward by small bands of volunteers known as the "forlorn hope," whose task was to hack and pry open gaps in the enemy's defenses, and who carried axes and picks in addition to their firearms.

Fortune favored the Americans that night through the weather. Thick clouds blocked out the moon, and strong winds pushed British vessels stationed in Haverstraw Bay away from Stony Point and farther down the river. Right on schedule, the assault began at midnight as the columns pushed across the marshy edges of the point. The southern column, however, ran into unexpected trouble when its route turned out to be flooded with two to four feet of water, forcing a half hour delay while the men waded toward the first line of abatis. During this crossing, British sentries spotted both this column and Murfree's diversionary force and opened fire on them.

Despite taking fire, Wayne's column managed to break through the outer defenses. Wayne himself went down after a spent musket ball struck him in the head, and command of his column passed to Col. Febiger. At the same time, Butler's column cut its way through the abatis as well, suffering the single American fatality of the engagement in the process. Both columns reached the crest of the hill at nearly the same moment, overrunning it just as six companies of the 17th Regiment of Foot, positioned to meet the decoy attack elsewhere, found themselves isolated.

Because the attacking troops had crept up the slopes so quietly, the British artillery stationed on the hilltop specifically to guard against such an assault proved useless. The Americans moved too fast up the incline for the cannon to be angled low enough to do any real damage to them.

The distinction of being first into the enemy's upper works went to Lt. Col. Francois de Fleury, a French aristocrat and engineer who commanded a battalion within the 1st Regiment. Close behind him came Lt. Henry Knox, along with Sgt. William Baker, Sgt. William Spencer, and Sgt. George Donlop. As they broke into the works, the men shouted the agreed signal meant to tell allies from enemies: "The fort's our own!" From start to finish, the fighting lasted only twenty five minutes

Aftermath

Whether seizing Stony Point actually mattered strategically remained a matter of dispute, but there was no question that it lifted spirits within the Continental ranks tremendously. If it held any tactical worth, that worth lay in reinforcing Washington's grip on West Point nearby. On July 17th, Washington traveled to the site of the fighting himself, and after surveying the rugged ground the attackers had crossed, he praised the soldiers who had carried out the capture.

Wayne had received orders from Washington that left room for pushing on to Verplanck's Point once Stony Point fell. To support this possibility, Washington had already set two brigades marching toward Verplanck's while the assault on Stony Point unfolded, and he sent Colonel Rufus Putnam with a modest detachment to keep the British garrison there occupied. Putnam managed to open diversionary fire on Verplanck's not long after the main assault commenced, and he kept the British distracted right through until daybreak.

When the 16th dawned, Wayne's men turned Stony Point's own guns toward Verplanck's, though shooting at such distance accomplished little real damage. It did, however, prove enough to make the Vulture sever her anchor line and drift away downstream. Washington subsequently ordered General Robert Howe to bring the two brigades forward and lay siege to Verplanck's on the 17th, yet this force lacked sufficient artillery or siege equipment, leaving it capable of little beyond a blockade. By the 18th, British reinforcements had come ashore from vessels sent up the river, with word spreading that still more troops were advancing by land, prompting Howe to pull back.

Washington had never planned to keep hold of either position permanently, and after removing the seized cannons and stores, the Americans gave up Stony Point on July 18th. British forces returned to occupy it briefly afterward, only to abandon the site again in October, when General Clinton began organizing a large campaign aimed at the southern colonies.

Several captured officers were traded away not long after the fighting ended, though the rank and file, numbering more than 400, were marched to a prison camp in Easton, Pennsylvania. On July 17th, a handful of these prisoners tried and failed to overwhelm their guards, a struggle that left one British sergeant dead and roughly twenty other soldiers injured.

According to accounts from the period favoring the American side, Wayne showed mercy to the Stony Point garrison even though his own men had allegedly suffered brutal treatment during the 1777 "Paoli Massacre." British accounts of the time likewise noted that the garrison received unexpectedly lenient treatment right away.

Given how easily the Continentals had overrun the fort, Colonel Johnson, the British officer in command at Stony Point, faced a court martial in New York City over claims that he had failed to defend it adequately.

Roughly thirty miles above New York City, Stony Point occupied ground crucial to dominance over the lower Hudson River and over Kings Ferry, the essential crossing linking Stony Point with Verplanck's Point. Both sides valued this ferry greatly since it served as a principal channel for moving goods and provisions between New England and the rest of the colonies.

West Point lay twelve miles to the north, a fact that only heightened the fort's importance to the region's defense. For Washington and his Continental Army, West Point represented a critical stronghold, its fortifications essential to maintaining command over the upper Hudson.

Jutting out into the Hudson just south of Peekskill, New York, Stony Point formed a roughly triangular peninsula whose steep, rocky sides climbed to a summit some 150 feet high, giving it powerful natural defenses. These features made any assault upon it exceptionally difficult and earned the position the nickname "Little Gibraltar."

During the engagement, Stony Point functioned almost like an island, hemmed in by water except to the west, where marshy ground nearly cut it off from solid earth entirely. That swamp has since largely dried up, though the landscape otherwise remains much as it was, save for a lighthouse and a museum along with other structures belonging to the state park that now sit atop the hill.

A dramatized retelling of the battle appears in the third season of AMC's Turn: Washington's Spies. This portrayal errs by placing the action in winter instead of summer and by showing Major Benjamin Talmadge, rather than General Anthony Wayne, leading the American troops.