Battle+of+Stony+Point

The Battle of Stony Point

** Stony Point ** -> **a fortified [|peninsula] jutting one half mile into the Hudson River, and across from it on Verplanck's Point, was Fort Lafayette, also well-fortified; Twelve miles south of West Point**

The battle at Stony Point began on July 15th, 1779 and ended on July 16th, 1779. The battle was fought between the Americans and the British and in the end the Americans won the battle. The head of the American attacks was General Anthony Wayne and one of the head of British attacks was Sir Henry Clinton. The Americans were defending and the British were offencive. The [|topography] of Stony Point greatly favored the defenders. The Hudson River at Stony Point is really an [|estuary], not a river. At high tide the marshes on either side of the 150-foot high peninsula are too deep to wade across. At the base of the peninsula the British chopped down all the trees, creating a double row of [|abatis]. [|Trenches] and [|earthworks] were thrown up making the position extremely strong. To further ensure that General Washington could not successfully attack it, Sir Henry ordered the experienced Lt. Col. Henry Johnston to command the post. Johnston commanded the 17th Regiment of Foot and the grenadier company of the [|71st Highlanders], a strong detachment from the [|Loyal American Regiment]and fifteen pieces of [|artillery], manned by members of the Royal Artillery. - ­a total of 625 battle hardened regulars.



** Sir Henry Clinton: ** 

 Sir Henry Clinton was born on April 16, 1730 in Newfoundland, Canada and died on December 23, 1795 in Gibraltar, Spain from unknown reasons. Clinton was the Commander-­in-Chief of British Forces in North America. He massed 6,000 troops at [|Kingsbridge], New York, for an apparent attempt  to take strategic West Point, known as the // "Key to the Continent.” // In the wake of the [|Battle of Monmouth] in June 1778, British forces under Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton largely remained idle in New York City. The British were watched by General George Washington’s army which assumed positions in New Jersey and to the north in the [|Hudson Highlands]. As the 1779 campaigning season began, Clinton sought to lure Washington out of the mountains and into a general engagement. To accomplish this, he dispatched around 8,000 men up the Hudson. As part of this movement, the British seized Stony Point on the eastern bank of the river as well as [|Verplanck]'s Point on the opposite shore. At the  American [|garrison] on the east bank of the Hudson, seventy North Carolina Continental troops were captured and forced to surrender to the British.  Clinton would start to call Stony Point // "Little Gibraltar" // after the original  capture of it.

**General Anthony Wayne:**

General Anthony Wayne was born on January 1, 1745 in Easttown, Pennsylvania and died on December 15, 1796 in Erie, Pennsylvania due to [|gout] complications. Wayne was ordered by General [|Washington] to prepare a plan to retake Stony Point. When Sir Henry ordered the attack on Stony Point, the 40-man garrison there, observing the superior force approaching, burned the [|blockhouse] and abandoned the works without firing a shot. On the east bank of the Hudson the American garrison was not so fortunate (see "Sir Henry Clinton"). On July 16, 1779, in a [|bayonets]-only night attack lasting thirty minutes, three columns of light infantry, the main attack personally led by Wayne, stormed British fortifications at Stony Point, a cliff-side redoubt commanding the southern Hudson River. General Anthony Wayne's victory boosted American moral and he was also given a [|medal] by the Congress for his victory.