Military History of the Revolution

Connecticut military history should be read in the context of such general works as Christopher Ward’s The War of the Revolution and Don Higginbothan’s The War of American Independence. There is no full account of the military events in Connecticut. Accounts of the state’s battles abound, however, and the most useful articles on military subjects are listed below, though every town historian pays special attention to military operations anywhere nearby, so that local histories should not be neglected.

The battles at Danbury and Ridgefield in April, 1777, have been well studied, but Christopher Ward’s map of the invasion route is not correct: the British reembarked at Compo Beach, where they had disembarked. William Hanford Burr’s “The Invasion of Connecticut by the British: Tryon’s Raid...,” in Connecticut Magazine 10 (1906) 1:139-52, includes a number of photographs of the battlefields at Compo Beach and Ridgefield as they appeared in 1906. The article, part of a campaign to raise money for Sons of the Revolution monuments, appears sound to us. Another heavily illustrated piece is J. Moss Ives, “A Connecticut Battlefield in the American Revolution,” Connecticut Magazine 7 (1902) 5:421-50. The article is on Danbury generally, but features battle sites in the photographs. More serious work has been done by Henry Barton Dawson in Battles of the United States (New York: Johnson Fry and Co., 1858). Volume I, pp. 212-20 is an essay titled “Expedition Against Danbury.” James R. Case, a conscientious amateur, has written An Account of Tryon’s Raid on Danbury, 1777, also the Battle of Ridgefield (Danbury: Danbury Printing Co., 1972). A short analysis by a professional military historian is Gwynfor Jones, “An Early Amphibious Operation: Danbury, 1777,” in the British Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 46 (Autumn, 1968) 187:129-31. The best, most recent, and most readily available study is Bicentennial pamphlet X (1974) by Robert F. McDevitt, Connecticut Attacked: A British Viewpoint Tryon’s Raid on Danbury.

The invasion of several towns along Long Island Sound in July, 1779, has been written about in Dawson’s Battles of the United States, vol. 1:507-16. Documents are included with the essay. The New Haven attack is described best in C.H. Townshend, The British Invasion of New Haven Together with Some Account of the Landing and Burning of the Towns of Fairfield and Norwalk. (New Haven: n. pub., 1879). But see also

Brown, Lloyd A. Loyalist Operations at New Haven. Ann Arbor: The Clements Library, 1938. This is a little collection of maps of the raid on New Haven in 1779 and 1781. It is subtitled, “Including Capt. Patric Ferguson’s Letter with Map Dated May 27, 1779 and Capt. Hubbel’s Report and Map of His Raid on New Haven, April 19, 1781.”

Green, M. Louise. "New Haven Defenses in the Revolution and the War of 1812." Connecticut Quarterly 4 (1892) 9. The author was a professional historian.

Goodrich, Chauncey. "Invasion of New Haven by the British Troops, July 5, 1779." Papers of the NHCHS 2 (1877) :29-92. Goodrich read this paper in 1867 and died the next year. He was familiar with a great many eye-witnesses who were only a generation older than he.

Moore, John E., Jr. "An Episode in the Revolutionary War: The British Attack on New Haven." Journal of the NHCHS 15 (December, 1966) 4:71-78. A modest sketch.

Of course, there is a good account in Rolin Osteweiss's Three Centuries of New Haven, pp. 138-49.

By far the best account of the coastal raids of 1779--those on New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk--is that of Thomas Farnham, "'The Enemy Was in Town': The British Raids on Connecticut, July, 1779," in Journal of the NHCHS 24 (Summer, 1976) 2:3-63. This is a thoroughly professional job by an academic historian, who concludes: "Perhaps the raids from the very beginning were bound to fail, for they were based on a false premise; ... that the Revolution was the work of a small group of immoral malcontents." (p. 63)

The dreadful massacre at Groton Heights during a raid against New London, led by Benedict Arnold, has been graphically and even gruesomely described in a number of eyewitness and narrative accounts.

Allyn, Charles, ed. The Battle of Groton Heights: A Collection of Narratives .... New London, 1882. This updates and expands W. W. Harris's earlier Battle of Groton Heights. It contains eye-witness accounts of several participants, including those of Rufus Avery and Stephen Hemstead, which were separately published in 1840 and reprinted by Arno Press in 1971 under the title Narrative of Jonathan Rathbun with Accurate Accounts of the Capture of Groton Fort.....

Caulkins, Frances Manwaring. History of New London, Connecticut. New London: the author, 1852. Miss Caulkins interviewed many people who could recollect aspects of the battle, and she knew the terrain well. Chapter 32 is the best account of the battle in print.

Dawson, H. B. Battles of the United States. New York: Johnson Fry and Co., 1858. Vol. I:721-32. This account is based on Caulkins.

Hulman, Mable Cassine. "The Hive of Averys." Connecticut Magazine 9 (1905) 2. Genealogical, but with much good material on the battle.

Powell, Waiter L. "The Strange Death of Colonel William Ledyard." CHS Bulletin 40 (April, 1975) 2:61-64. Ledyard handed his sword to the British commander in an act of surrender. The British officer drove it through him.

Todd, Charles Burr. "Massacre at Fort Griswold September 6, 1781." Magazine of American History 7 (September, 1881). Popular account.

Edited Contemporary Journals and Narratives

A number of contemporary journals and narrative accounts of Connecticut Revolutionary veterans who served outside the state have been edited and published. They are listed here, in most cases under the name of the editor.

Collier, Christopher, ed. "Inside the American Revolution: A Silas Deane Diary Fragment," and "Silas Deane Reports on the Continental Congress, October 1-6, 1774." CHS Bulletin 29 (April and July, 1964). This material includes Deane's day-by-day account of his involvement in organizing and financing the Ticonderoga expedition.

Connecticut Historical Society. "Orderly Books and Journals kept by Connecticut Men During...the American Revolution." Collections 7 (1889). Journals of William Coit, Nathaniel Morgan, Simeon Lyman of Sharon, Benjamin Trumbull, Oliver Boardman of Middletown, Bayze Wells of Farmington, Joseph Joslin of Killingly.

Furlong, Patrick J. "A Sermon for the Mutinous Troops of the Connecticut Line, 1782." New England Quarterly 43 (December, 1970) :621-30. On the occasion of an abortive revolt in May, Abraham Baldwin gave this long sermon to the troops in Samuel H. Parsons' brigade.

Howe, Henry, ed. "Personal Reminiscences of the Revolutionary War, by the late Thomas Painter, of West Haven." Papers of the NHCHS 4 (1888) :231-52. Painter (1760-1847) enlisted at the age of fifteen and served a brief time. He wrote this account many years later.

Parsons, John C., ed. Letters and Documents of Ezekiel Williams of Wethersfield, Connecticut, Deputy Commissary General of Prisoners of War within the State of Connecticut. Hartford: Acorn Club pub. no. 32, 1976.

Powell, William S. "A Connecticut Soldier Under Washington: Elisha Bostwick's Memoirs of the First Years of the Revolution." William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series 6 (January, 1949) 1:94-107. Bostwick (1749-1834) came from New Milford. He served in the early campaigns around Boston, New York, and New Jersey, and made the famous crossing of the Delaware. He wrote these memoirs as an old man. They are fully edited, with much explanatory material.

Sabine, Wilbur H., ed. The New York Diary of Lieutenant Jabez Fitch of the 17th (Connecticut) Regiment from August 22, 1776 to December 16, 1777. New York: Arno Press, 1971. This was published originally from a typescript first photocopied in 1954. It is a 285-page work, with full editorial apparatus and a biographical note on Fitch.

Stone, Hiram, ed. "The Experiences of a Prisoner in the American Revolution," Connecticut Magazine 12 (1908) 2:245-47. Transcription of a narrative written by Thomas Stone of Guilford of his experience as a prisoner on the indescribably and lethally wretched British prison ship the New Jersey and in the not-quite-so bad Sugar House in Manhattan. He escaped by swimming the Hudson, thank God.

Tallmadge, Benjamin. Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge. Originally published in 1858, this was reissued in 1968 by Arno Press, New York. Tallmadge was an influential figure close to Washington and present when the General bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in 1783.

See also Sheldon S. Cohen, "The Death of Colonel Thomas Knowlton," in CHS Bulletin 30 (April, 1965) 2:50-57. Knowlton, a local hero early in the War, was killed at the Battle of Harlem Heights.

Two Bicentennial pamphlets deal with military aspects of the War.

Callahan, North. Connecticut’s Revolutionary War Leaders. III (1973). Provides brief sketches of Ethan Alien, Israel Putnam, Rufus Putnam, Joseph Spencer, David Wooster, Samuel H. Parsons, Jedediah Huntington, Thomas Knowlton, Benjamin Tallmadge, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Benedict Arnold. For fuller treatments see the "Biographies" section of this bibliography.

Hayes, John T. Connecticut's Revolutionary Cavalry: Sheldon's Horse. XIII (1975). The Second Continental Light Dragoons consisted of six troops of horsemen, four of which were raised in Connecticut. Its history is not without its moments of small glory, but after a fiasco at Manhattan, it spent most of the War under the direct eye of Washington.