Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga

Northern Theater after 1777 Part of the American Revolutionary War Date 1778–1782 Location New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England Belligerents  Great Britain  United States  France Vermont Republic

The Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga consisted of a series of battles between American revolutionaries and British forces, from 1778 to 1782 during the American Revolutionary War. It is characterized by two primary areas of activity. The first set of activities was based around the British base of operations in New York City, where each side made probes and counterprobes against the other's positions that sometimes resulted in notable actions. The second was essentially a frontier war in Upstate New York and rural northern Pennsylvania that was largely fought by state militia companies and some Indian allies on the American side, and Loyalist companies supported by Indians, British Indian agents, and occasionally British regulars. The notable exception to significant Continental Army participation on the frontier was the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, in which General John Sullivan led an army expedition that drove the Iroquois out of New York. The warfare amongst the splinters of the Iroquois Six Nations were particularly brutal, turning much of the Indian population into refugees.

The only other notable actions occurred in New England. A combined American-French attempt was made to drive the British out of Newport, Rhode Island. The Battle of Rhode Island ended badly when the French fleet abandoned the effort; the failure did some damage to American-French relations. In 1779 the British established a base on the Penobscot River in the District of Maine with the intent of establishing a Loyalist presence there. The state of Massachusetts responded with the amphibious Penobscot Expedition which ended in complete disaster.

The British continued a process of raiding the New England coastal communities. One such raid led to a skirmish at Freetown, Massachusetts, while others descended on Massachusetts and Connecticut coastal communities. In the 1781 Battle of Groton Heights, the British were led by Connecticut native Benedict Arnold, who did substantial damage to the town.

British strategy after Saratoga

After General John Burgoyne surrendered his army after the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777 France entered the war, recognizing the United States and entering into a military alliance. France dispatched a fleet and army across the Atlantic to aid the Americans fighting for independence, in addition to pursuing military operations in the Caribbean and the East Indies. France also applied pressure on Spain to enter the war; although this did not happen until 1779, Spanish actions in other theaters further stretched British military resources.

These strategic changes forced the British to shift their attention away from North America, moving troops, ships and resources to defend the West Indies, India and other colonial possessions, as well as guarding against the threat of a French invasion of Great Britain itself. In North America, the British withdrew from Philadelphia in 1778, and made New York City the headquarters for the North American theater of war. They then embarked on a southern strategy, in which they sought to gain control over the colonies of Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia, where they believed Loyalist sentiment to be strong. This activity formed the bulk of military activity in North America for the remainder of the war, but actions and forays occurred from British strongholds in Quebec, New York, Rhode Island, and Nova Scotia.

Following their consolidation after the Saratoga disaster, the British began recruiting American Loyalists and Natives allies in great numbers to make up for their lack of army troops, and dispatched them on what were essentially raiding expeditions against Patriot settlements on the frontiers. Using their naval supremacy the British also launched raids and amphibious actions against the New England coastline.

American strategy after Saratoga

American military strategy widened to some extent following entry of France into the war. The states were still dominated by the larger British army, which kept the Continental Army on the defensive outside Philadelphia and New York. The British began withdrawing from Philadelphia early in 1778, and the arrival of a French fleet off Philadelphia in July increased prospects for offensive action. While these large-scale actions occupied the army, militia and settlers on the northern and west frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania had to contend with incursions by Indians and Loyalists organized by the British out of posts in Quebec.

Skirmishes around New York

Each side made probes or diversionary movements designed to keep the other side on edge and uncertain of its intentions. General Clinton sent troops to "clean out that nest of Rebel Pirates" at Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, in an October 1778 raid that also featured a surprise attack on Pulaski's Legion. Apparently as a diversion to draw attention away from that raid, Clinton also sent troops into northern New Jersey. During those movements, a company of British soldiers led by Charles Grey bayoneted a sleeping company of Washington's troops in the Baylor Massacre on September 27.

In May 1779 Clinton captured the outpost at Stony Point, New York, which guarded one side of a major crossing point on the Hudson River. When he weakened this force to provide troops for William Tryon's coastal raids, Washington devised an attack to regain Stony Point, which succeeded on July 16. Clinton later withdrew his forces back to New York as part of the planning for the invasion of the southern states. Later in 1779, "Light Horse Harry" Lee led American troops in a surprise attack on a British position in present-day Jersey City, New Jersey that weakened British control of northern New Jersey.

In early 1780, a British attack against an American outpost in Westchester County, New York resulted in about 50 American casualties and 75 captured in the Battle of Young's House. The last notable action in the New York area was an attempt by the British to regain control of northern New Jersey in June 1780 by attacking the main Continental Army camp at Morristown. After an initial engagement at Connecticut Farms, about 2,000 men under General Nathanael Greene held off more than 2,500 British regulars in the Battle of Springfield, putting an end to British ambitions in New Jersey.

Coastal actions

The northern coast did not see a great deal of military action after 1777, although the British executed a series of raids against the coastal communities of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and there was occasional skirmishing.

The arrival off New York of a French fleet in July 1778 caused a flurry of activity. Major General John Sullivan had earlier been sent to Rhode Island to organize an attack on British-occupied Newport. The British raided his supply caches, as well as destroying military defenses and significantly damaging several communities on Mount Hope Bay. Sullivan's efforts became part of the first major attempt at Franco-American cooperation after the idea of an attack on New York was rejected. Marred by bad weather and poor communication, French troops arrived but were not used, and the Americans, while in retreat after a brief failed siege effort at Newport, fought an inconclusive battle with British forces in the Battle of Rhode Island. General Clinton marshalled troops from New York intending to support the New York garrison, but he arrived off Newport after the Americans had been driven off. Clinton instead ordered these troops on a raid (also led by General Grey) against New Bedford, Massachusetts and Martha's Vineyard in September 1778. He also ordered a series of raids on the Connecticut coast led by William Tryon in 1779. The most devastating raid was against New London in 1781, led by turncoat British General Benedict Arnold.

In the summer of 1778 British military planners in London began to develop plans for a new Loyalist settlement in Penobscot Bay. An expedition was organized in early 1779, and on May 30, a fleet carrying troops and supplies left Halifax, Nova Scotia. Arriving about two weeks later, the British established a series of fortifications on the east side of the bay. The State of Massachusetts organized an expedition to drive the British out with minimal support from the Continental Congress. This expedition ended in disaster, with the entire fleet destroyed and nearly half the expedition's men killed, captured, or wounded. It was the worst defeat of an American naval force until the 20th century. Failure of the expedition was attributed to a lack of well-defined command between the land and naval components, and Commodore Dudley Saltonstall's unwillingness to engage the British fleet that arrived in relief.

Frontier war

Brutal skirmishing on the frontier continued after Saratoga, until war's end. These operations were conducted primarily by Loyalists and Iroquois under the leadership of Walter Butler, John Butler, and Joseph Brant, with supplies provided by the British in Quebec. In 1779, Washington sent General John Sullivan on a punitive expedition to suppress Indian attacks. Sullivan and his troops systematically destroyed Iroquois villages, successfully driving the Iroquois north into Quebec. In the only major action in that expedition, Sullivan's forces defeated those of the Butlers and Brant in the Battle of Newtown. Brant led raids that specifically targeted the villages of the Oneida and Tuscarora, who supported the American cause. This destruction of Indian villages on both sides effectively depopulated much of the Iroquois territory as the survivors of the raids became refugees.

The Butlers continued to attack New York frontier areas while Brant became more active on the western front. In early April 1782, Anne Hupp defended the fort of Miller's Blockhouse against a Shawnee Indian attack,^[1] for over 24 hours in 1782 while eight months pregnant,^[2] after her husband was murdered and scalped.^[3][4]

Even after preliminary peace had been agreed on, Brant tried to continue the war, but was forced to abandon the effort when the British stopped supplying him.

References

1. ^ Alfred Creigh (1871). History of Washington County. B. Singerly. p. 49. http://books.google.com/?id=qEsVAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA49&dq=%22ann+hupp%22+indian. 
2. ^ Pittsburgh Post Gazette. July 22, 1998. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AI4NAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CHADAAAAIBAJ&pg=3366,590125&dq=ann-hupp. 
3. ^ G.D. Albert, Thomas Lynch Montgomery, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards, John M. Buckalew, Sheldon Reynolds, Jay Gilfillan Weiser, George Dallas Albert (1916). Thomas Lynch Montgomery. ed. Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania: The frontier forts of western Pennsylvania. W.S. Ray, state printer. p. 413. http://books.google.com/?id=fSEUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA413&dq=%22ann+hupp%22+indian. 
4. ^ John Crawford, Henry Jolly, Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger, Jared Lobdell, Lyman Copeland Draper, Draper Society (1992). Jared Lobdell. ed. Indian warfare in western Pennsylvania and north west Virginia at the time of the American Revolution: including the narrative of Indian and Tory depradations by John Crawford, the military reminiscences of Captain Henry Jolly, and the narrative of Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger. Heritage Books. ISBN 9781556136535. http://books.google.com/?id=_mvfFUJTUSUC&pg=PP1&dq=%22ann+hupp%22+indian. 

External links

• Bibliography of Operations in the Norther Theater compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History