Boscobel

A diorama of the Loyal American Regiment storming the North Redoubt of Fort Montgomery. On display at Fort Montgomery State Historic Site.

          On October 6, 1777, the Hudson Highlands saw what proved to be their largest battle of the war. Late in the day, British, Hessian, and loyalist forces marched on the paired forts of Clinton and Montgomery, located roughly 40 miles north of New York City near the site of the modern Bear Mountain Bridge. The Battle of Fort Montgomery is notable both for its ferocity and for the role that loyalists from the Hudson Valley played in it.

            Construction began on the forts in 1776, as it became clear that the British were going to take New York City and use it as a launching point for future offensives into the Hudson Valley. Over the winter of 1776-77, a chain to stretch across the Hudson was fashioned at Sterling Iron Works and the Ancram Iron Works in Poughkeepsie. Rebel commanders hoped that this chain could trap any British ships that advanced up the river, allowing the heavy guns of Fort Montgomery to destroy them. From the river, the forts presented a difficult target, with steep cliffs and rocky terrain promising to make any direct attack a costly affair.

The south-looking view from Fort Montgomery’s Grand Battery. In the forground is the modern Historic Site’s 32-pounder cannon, one of the few to be regularly fired today. In the distance is the Bear Mountain Bridge.

            Unfortunately for the rebels, General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander tasked with destroying the forts, allowed one of the area’s loyal residents to advise him in developing a plan of attack. Beverly Robinson, who is discussed in the previous post as the first Warden of St. Philip’s Chapel, had fled to New York City in late February or early March of 1777. On March 14, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army’s Provincial Corps, and authorized to raise a regiment. Two months later, on May 13, this unit, the Loyal American Regiment, had recruited 394 men and 33 officers and was deemed suitable to be ordered into action. Robinson noted that “many of these were his own Tenants and most of them from his own Country.” Though it fought under a different flag, the Loyal American Regiment was as much a unit of the Hudson Valley as any of the rebel bodies raised in the area.

A rifleman of Emmerick’s Chasseurs. Several men who had enlisted in the Loyal Americans were selected to serve in this elite corps of light infantry. They were some of the few soldiers at the battle using rifles as opposed to smoothbore muskets.

            In addition to supplying troops to the British Army, Robinson was also tasked with gathering intelligence in the Hudson Highlands. His numerous friends in the area, and his understanding of the region’s geography, allowed him to form a sound strategy for attacking the Twin Forts that was adopted almost without alteration by General Clinton. Rather than a direct assault against the front of the forts, Robinson recommend that the British forces land at Stoney Point, ten miles to the south, then  march through a along a small road running through the Timp Pass. Branching off at the small settlement of Doodletown, one half of the British force would advance on the rear Fort Clinton, while the other half followed the trail around Bear Mountain to fall upon Fort Montgomery from behind. Robinson’s spies also told him that the two forts were incomplete on their rear sides, further sweetening the plan.

Map of the Battle of Fort Montgomery. Note the incomplete walls on the back side of the fort and Loyal American Regiment on the left of the British formation.

On the morning of October 6, British and loyalist forces landed at Stoney Point and began their advance northward. After several small skirmishes, the two attack forces arrived in position behind the forts in the late afternoon. Robinson’s Loyal Americans marched in the north most column, tasked with taking Fort Montgomery. As the autumn sun set, the force’s commander, Lt. Colonel Mungo Campbell, led his troops in an attack against the fort’s North Redoubt, one of the strongpoints on the forts half-completed rear wall. The attack was repelled with heavy losses, among them Lt. Colonel Campbell.

            With no senior British officers present, command of the assault now fell to Beverly Robinson. Reorganizing the battered Royal forces, he personally led the next attack. The Loyal American Regiment, attacking in column, spearheaded the effort to breach the redoubt’s walls, and was successful. A brief but brutal melee erupted when the Loyal Americans came over the wall, with loyalists from Dutchess, Orange, and Ulster Counties fighting their rebel neighbors and relations. After a few hectic and bloody minutes, the crush of green- and red- coated men proved to be too much for the outnumbered rebel defenders, and the garrison surrendered. The loyalists of the Hudson Valley had won their biggest victory of the war.

The North Redoubt as it appears today. Viewed from the southeast. The depression mark cannon embrasures.

            The Loyal American Regiment suffered heavy causalities in their attack. In addition to the rank and file that were killed and wounded, the unit lost its Lieutenant Colonel and at least one Captain. Two of these vacancies were filled by Beverly Robinson’s sons; 26 year-old Beverly Jr., was named the unit’s new Lieutenant Colonel, and Robinson’s third son, Morris Robinson, was promoted to Captain.

            The bulk of Loyal Americans spent the rest of the war garrisoning King’s Bridge and Bloomingdale near New York City, though detachments of the unit fought again at the Battle of Stoney Point and in the Southern Campaigns under Lord Cornwallis.

            After the War, the Loyal Americans were granted land around what is now Fredericton, New Brunswick. They were lead to their new home in Canada by Beverly Robinson Jr.; Beverly Sr. decided to move to England after the war, though he was offered an influential position in the Canadian government. The men of the Loyal American Regiment did not end their military careers with the Revolution. Veterans of the Loyal Americans made up the backbone of a militia unit from the area, the King’s New Brunswick Regiment, during the War of 1793. Some of the younger Revolutionary War veterans even joined a later unit, the New Brunswick Fencibles, which fought during the War of 1812.

St. Philip’s as it appears today.

St. Philip’s in the Highlands is an Episcopalian church that was originally founded by Beverly Robinson, one of the Hudson Valley’s most prominent loyalists. A devout Anglican, Robinson built the chapel to service the other Anglicans living on his 60,000 acre estate in lower Dutchess (now Putnam) County. The estate included the entirety of the modern town of Putnam Valley, and parts of Philipstown, Kent, Patterson, and Garrison.

            St. Philip’s suffered from a turbulent beginning. Opening its doors in 1771, the small congregation was quickly divided by the American Revolution. The Wardens and Vestrymen of the Revolutionary Generation were divided almost evenly by the war, with members rising to prominence on both sides of the conflict. Most famous of these was Beverly Robinson himself, who raised a loyalist regiment (the Loyal Americans) to fight for the King and was intimately involved with both the treason of Benedict Arnold and attempts to lure Vermont’s Ethan Allen to the British cause.

Colonel Beverly Robinson, from Benson Lossing’s Fieldbook of the American Revolution

            Robinson ultimately suffered for his allegiance to the Crown. He was attainted (declared an outlaw) by New York State in 1777, and as such was subject to be executed on site and buried “without benefit of clergy” should he ever be found in New York again. His home and property were confiscated in 1779, an estimated value of ₤148,000 (by way of comparison, States Dyckman was able to live comfortably in London on ₤200 a year). Robinson settled in England after the war, and died in Bath on April 9, 1792.

A memorial plaque dedicated to Beverly Robinson that hangs near the baptismal font at St. Philip’s.

            St. Philip’s fared little better than its chief benefactor during the War. The chapel closed its doors in 1774 when its minister, John Doty, fled the area for Schenectady in the face of the Revolution.  The vacant church grounds were used by as a camp ground by the American and French armies, due to the abundant timber resources in region and the church’s location directly across from West Point. The American forces were largely made of New England Congregationalists, who had little love of the Anglican Church. The church was gravely damaged by these troops, who its fencing and walls for firewood or the construction of winter “hutts.” From this period in the Church’s history comes one of its most famous stories: Supposedly, as a band of drunken New Englanders were on their way to burn down the chapel, George Washington himself ran ahead of them, stood in the doorway of the church, and boldly declared “This is my church!” A stained glass window by the church’s door marks this event; however, it is somewhat unlikely that it ever occurred. A history of the church, written by E. Clowes Chorely in 1912, makes no mention of an attempt to burn St. Philip’s down. Rather, Chorely reports that Washington, an Anglican himself, commented on the church being his own when one of his aides picked it out as “a Tory church.”

The aforementioned stained glass window.

            After the war, the parishioners of St. Philip’s struggled to rebuild. Funding to rebuild the church was raised by two of Robinson’s more affluent tenants, William Denning and Mr. Olgive. However, St. Philip’s struggles were not over. In the 1790’s, the local Presbyterian congregation, which had aided in the reconstruction, attempted to seize possession of the chapel. The congregation also had trouble securing a stable minister, with several rectors leaving St. Philip’s for successful careers elsewhere in the Episcopal Church. In 1862, the rebuilt wooden chapel was replaced by a stone structure that still stands today.

            To learn more about the history of St. Philip’s in the Highlands, please visit their website at http://stphilips.highlands.com/