Ruins and the battle of Fort Montgomery
The Hudson Valley is filled with many sites of historical significance especially pertaining to the American Revolutionary War. On this particular day I while doing a day of landscape photography when I visited the nearby ruins of Fort Montgomery a small fort that consisted back in the day of barracks, storage and command post surrounded by simple battlements of around six feet +/- tall which were enough to decently protect and infantryman from enemy rifle fire. All that remains are the foundation stones of the structure that use to exist there shown in the top picture above.
The fort was under the command of Brigadier General George Clinton the Governor of New York State. On October 6 1777 the fort was attacked by over 900 British, German chasseurs and loyalist soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mungo Campbell. The Americans at first try to stop the British advance with a three pound cannon on the road to the fort which only stopped the British advance for a short while and then had to abandon the small cannon and retreat to the fort.
As the British advanced Colonel Campbell was killed and he was replaced by Beverly Robinson a American loyalist who attacked the fort’s three redoubts. The British who outnumbered the Americans advanced. A brief truce was called and the British offered fair treatment of prisoners if the Americans surrendered. The offer was refused and the battle continued and as the British took the fort General Clinton and about half the Americans who weren’t killed, wounded or captured used the heavy smoke and the growing cover of darkness to retreat to an embankment along the Hudson River where waiting gun boats took them to safety across the river. The official tally for the battle was 41 British killed 142 wounded. The Americans had 75 killed or wounded and another 265 captured but this includes those at the nearby small Fort Clinton which was just a short distance away that was attacked at the same time.
Ruins and the battle of Fort Montgomery
The Hudson Valley is filled with many sites of historical significance especially pertaining to the American Revolutionary War. On this particular day I while doing a day of landscape photography when I visited the nearby ruins of Fort Montgomery a small fort that consisted back in the day of barracks, storage and command post surrounded by simple battlements of around six feet +/- tall which were enough to decently protect and infantryman from enemy rifle fire. All that remains are the foundation stones of the structure that use to exist there shown in the top picture above.
The fort was under the command of Brigadier General George Clinton the Governor of New York State. On October 6 1777 the fort was attacked by over 900 British, German chasseurs and loyalist soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mungo Campbell. The Americans at first try to stop the British advance with a three pound cannon on the road to the fort which only stopped the British advance for a short while and then had to abandon the small cannon and retreat to the fort.
As the British advanced Colonel Campbell was killed and he was replaced by Beverly Robinson a American loyalist who attacked the fort’s three redoubts. The British who outnumbered the Americans advanced. A brief truce was called and the British offered fair treatment of prisoners if the Americans surrendered. The offer was refused and the battle continued and as the British took the fort General Clinton and about half the Americans who weren’t killed, wounded or captured used the heavy smoke and the growing cover of darkness to retreat to an embankment along the Hudson River where waiting gun boats took them to safety across the river. The official tally for the battle was 41 British killed 142 wounded. The Americans had 75 killed or wounded and another 265 captured but this includes those at the nearby small Fort Clinton which was just a short distance away that was attacked at the same time.