Extract of a Letter from Sir Henry CLINTON to Lord George GERMAIN dated East Hampton, Suffolk County, Long Island, August 20, 1780.

I HAVE the satisfaction of communicating to your Lordship an instance of courage, which reflects the greatest honor on a small body of the refugees.

About seventy of them had taken post on a part of the opposite shore on the North River, called Bull's Ferry, where they had fortified themselves with a blockhouse and stockade, to be protected in cutting wood, the labour they were employed in for their maintenance.

A corps of near 2000 rebels, under their Generals Wayne, Irving and Proctor, with seven pieces of cannon, made an attack upon them on the 21st ult. Notwithstanding a cannonade of three hours, almost every shot of w[h]ich penetrated throughthrough [sic] the blockhouse, and an attempt to carry the place by assault, they were repulsed by these brave men, with the loss of a great many killed and wounded. The exertions of the Refugees did not cease, after having resisted so great a force; they followed the enemy, seized their stragglers, and rescued from them the cattle they were driving from the neighbouring district.

The blockhouse, which I visited, was pierced with fifty-two shot in one face only, and the two small guns that were in it dismounted. Six of the refugees were killed, and fifteen wounded, the far greater part in the blockhouse.

The Royal Gazette, (New York), December 9th, 1780.

Click here for ---> Regimental History Main Page

                               More Loyal Refugee Volunteers History

                               Top of Page

The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies
For information please contact Todd Braisted