By comparison to later wars, the battles of the Revolutionary War tended to involve a small number of troops and took place over a small area. But the fighting was no less intense. The fights at Paoli, PA, and Stony Point, NY, illustrate the brutality of these fights. The “Paoli Massacre” took place on the night of September 20, 1777, during the Philadelphia campaign, which led to the British occupation of Philadelphia and the American army’s winter at Valley Forge. The British made a surprise night-time attack on an encampment occupied by 1500 men of General Anthony Wayne’s Pennsylvania division, who had been kept behind to keep their eyes on the Redcoats.
The British commander ordered his soldiers to unload their muskets and rely on the bayonet to avoid an accidental discharge that would ruin the surprise. Two Pennsylvania regiments attempted to form up minutes before the attack, but others appear to have been sleeping. Overall, the British killed about 50 Americans, wounded about 100, and captured 71 – serious losses for a small fight. Years later, one veteran remembered,
Revenge breathed out along the whole line, and ‘Remember Paoli’ was the watchword of Wayne’s men in many future engagements. The men declared they would pay the British for this massacre.
In July 1779, Wayne’s troops had a chance to gain a measure of revenge for Paoli. Wayne took command of the “Corps of Light Infantry,” a new unit that was trained to use loose, open-order, skirmish formations (as opposed to “closed order” involving rigid maneuvers in lines and columns). This allowed light infantry units to perform scouting and special operations missions.
Wayne was assigned to lead a surprise, night-time attack on a British outpost at Stony Point, along the Hudson River a few miles south of West Point. Like the British who attacked at Paoli, Wayne had his soldiers unload their muskets and rely on bayonets to reduce the chance that an accidentally discharged weapon would alert the garrison.
Wayne’s biography described the attack:
At half-past eleven … [two columns advanced]. … So accurately had the movement for storming the works been timed … that both columns of assault … met almost at the same time in the interior of the fort. They encountered, as they advanced, a persistent fire of grape and musketry. … Colonel Fleury, feeling that resistance was at an end, shouted in broken English, “The fort is ours!” the watchword previously agreed upon.
A veteran related,
“.. one of the men, as profane as he was brave, jumping over a wall, asked a British officer if he had ever seen the Almighty. On the officer’s reply in the negative, the continental pointed to Gen. Wayne and said, “That’s him, coming to avenge Paoli.” The men fought like fiends and Wayne was obliged to grant quarter.”
While this action was explicitly seen as “payback” for Paoli, the Americans apparently showed better behavior than the British had at Paoli. Although no such pleas had been heeded at Paoli, Wayne ordered his soldiers to grant mercy as soon as the resistance ended. The Americans claimed said that not a man was killed who begged for quarter.
Wayne announced the capture of the fort to Washington:
Dear Gen’l, the fort and garrison with Colonel Johnson are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free.”
In all, the British suffered 63 killed and 543 captured. The fort was of no value to the Americans and they quickly abandoned it. But the important purpose was accomplished: Paoli was avenged.
