Special Operations in the American Revolution by Robert L. Tonsetic

Author:Robert L. Tonsetic [Tonsetic, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
ISBN: 9781612001654
Google: rZHUAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2013-07-19T04:10:33+00:00

After the American victories at Trenton on December 26, 1776, and Princeton on January 3, 1777, Washington’s army went into winter quarters in the hills around Morristown in northern New Jersey. General Howe then decided to withdraw from his outposts in southern and central New Jersey, and occupy only a strip of land in northeast New Jersey running from New Brunswick to Perth Amboy. Howe did not plan for a winter campaign in New Jersey, but remained concerned that Washington’s army was encamped just 30 miles from New York City.

After the battle of Princeton, General Washington formulated a strategy for the winter of 1777. Washington’s plans did not include an attack on British-occupied New York City during the winter months, but he was determined not to give the British army any rest. He therefore planned a campaign of harassment and interdiction using small detachments of Continentals and militia. Those forces would attack British outposts, supply depots, and intercept British foraging parties as they searched the countryside for forage for their horses and other plunder. Washington knew that General Howe could not feed his troops and their horses solely from foodstuffs and forage shipped from Britain, and was reliant on his men foraging in the countryside. Washington knew that if British foraging parties were attacked, the British would have to send escort forces with them, of up to two thousand men in strength.13 Washington also ordered the Continentals and militia to clear horses, wagons, and other livestock from all areas near the British lines to prevent their confiscation and use by the British in a spring campaign. Thus, Washington’s winter campaign was essentially a “forage war.”

Inspired by Washington’s successes at Trenton and Princeton, Patriot militiamen, who felt powerless after Washington’s army withdrew to Pennsylvania, were eager to take the offensive against the British and their Loyalist allies. Washington knew that his Continentals were not capable of impeding all British efforts to gather supplies from the countryside, and the success of his winter war depended in large measure on the militias.

New Jersey militia units and local partisans played a major role in the winter war of 1777, at times operating on their own, and when necessary supported by detachments of Continentals. In late January 1777, Colonel Philemon Dickinson led four hundred New Jersey militia in a an attack on a British foraging party near Somerset Court House in north central New Jersey. The militia captured 40 wagons filled with forage and other foodstuffs, along with one hundred horses, and several prisoners. Dickinson would later become the overall commander of the New Jersey militia. On February 1, some five hundred Continental light infantry and four hundred New Jersey militia, under the overall command of Colonel Charles Scott, attacked a two-thousand-man British foraging party near New Brunswick in Middlesex County. After the heavy fighting, the British withdrew, leaving behind a number of wagonloads of hay. It was a costly defeat for the British, who sustained around one hundred casualties, while the American losses totaled 24 killed and wounded.

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