Danbury

Danbury, Connecticut: The Supply Depot That Burned and the Raid That Backfired

By the spring of 1777, the American Revolution had settled into a grueling contest of logistics. Armies needed gunpowder, salted meat, tents, and rum just as urgently as they needed muskets and courage. The British high command understood this arithmetic perfectly, and it was this understanding that brought fire and devastation to the quiet inland town of Danbury, Connecticut—a place that had never seen a pitched battle but had become, almost invisibly, one of the most important supply nodes sustaining the Continental cause in the northern theater. Connecticut was essential to supplying the war effort during the American Revolution because its coastline harbored privateers that captured almost 500 British ships and more importantly, vast stores of food, supplies, and ammunition.

Additionally, it provided more troops to George Washington's army than any other state except Massachusetts. What happened at Danbury in late April 1777, and the chain of events it set in motion, constitutes one of the most dramatic and instructive episodes of the entire war: a story of strategic vulnerability, civilian suffering, improvised resistance, and unlikely heroism that still resonates nearly two and a half centuries later.

Danbury's role in the Revolution began not with a bang but with a bureaucratic decision. The Danbury depot had been established in 1776 by order of the Second Continental Congress, and it primarily served forces located in the Hudson River valley.

When General George Washington ordered that Danbury serve as a supply depot for the Continental army in early 1777, he based his decision on the town's importance as a regional trading and manufacturing center, served by several major roads. Danbury was an attractive choice: it sat roughly twenty-five miles inland from Long Island Sound, connected by passable roads to the main army but shielded—or so it seemed—by rough, hilly terrain. Over the following months, warehouses and barns in and around the town filled steadily with provisions that the Continental Army could ill afford to lose. By April 1777, Danbury held an estimated 4,000 barrels of beef and pork, 5,000 pairs of shoes, 1,600 tents, a large quantity of hospital stores, and significant reserves of gunpowder and cartridges. For an army perpetually on the edge of material collapse, these stores represented months of painful accumulation. Protecting the army's supplies was a militia regiment of 100 men under Colonel Jedediah Huntington and a militia company of 50 men under the command of Colonel Joseph P. Cooke. The force at their disposal was woefully inadequate for a determined assault.

The British, well informed by Loyalist intelligence networks that threaded through Connecticut's divided communities, knew precisely what Danbury held and resolved to destroy it. Howe had learned of the depot's existence through a spy working for British Indian agent Guy Johnson, and he had also met with some success in an earlier raid against the Continental Army outpost at Peekskill, New York.

Looking to counter a series of recent defeats at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, the British commander in North America—William Howe—decided to take the war to nearby Connecticut and New York.

Howe believed that the destruction of American supply depots located in those states would give his army a distinct advantage over Washington's force and compel it to withdraw or disperse. The man chosen to lead the expedition was General William Tryon, the former Royal Governor of New York, a figure already notorious among Patriots for his aggressive conduct and his willingness to wage war on civilian populations. Generals James Agnew and William Erskine accompanied Tryon as senior brigade commanders, though effective field command seems to have devolved largely upon Erskine. Simultaneously, a diversionary force of frigates sailed up the Hudson to draw attention away from the true objective.

A fleet was assembled consisting of 12 transports, a hospital ship, and some small craft, all under the command of Captain Henry Duncan.

The landing force consisted of 1,500 regulars drawn from the 4th, 15th, 23rd, 27th, 44th, and 64th regiments, 300 Loyalists from the Prince of Wales American Regiment led by Montfort Browne, and a small contingent of the 17th Light Dragoons.

Although they were considered less disciplined and experienced than British Regulars, the Loyalists served as the vanguard of Tryon's force. General Tryon expected that other loyal Connecticut citizens would be moved to join his army at the sight of their neighbors returning at the head of the King's army.

The fleet sailed from New York on April 22, 1777.

For two days the troops waited out a headwind in discomfort aboard ship before they could proceed the remaining 30 miles. They landed on the afternoon of April 25 at Compo Beach in Westport (then part of Fairfield), roughly the closest point on the Sound from which a rapid overland march to Danbury was feasible. They landed at 5:00 P.M. on April 25th at a stretch of beach which Duncan called "exceedingly unfavorable," but they quickly took possession of Compo Hill and Bennet's Rocks. The landing was unopposed. A light rain fell as the soldiers carried their supplies ashore and, before midnight, began their march to Danbury on the Redding Road (today's Connecticut Route 58).

Sighted by patriots who then sent messengers to spread the alarm, the soldiers met with only light resistance.

The British column reached Redding 12 hours later—a distance of 20 miles. Moving