Battle of Ridgefield

The Battle of Ridgefield was a series of American Revolutionary War skirmishes in Danbury, Connecticut and Ridgefield, Connecticut.

History
On April 25, a British force under the command of the Royal Governor of the Province of New York, Major General William Tryon, landed at Compo, Connecticut between Fairfield and Norwalk in what is present-day Westport, and marched from there to Danbury. There, they destroyed Continental Army supplies after chasing off a small garrison of troops. Connecticut militia leaders Major General David Wooster, Brigadier General Gold S. Silliman, and Brigadier General Benedict Arnold raised a combined force of roughly 700 Continental Army regular and irregular local militia forces to oppose the British, but could not reach Danbury in time to prevent the destruction of the supplies. Instead, they set out to harass the British on their return to the coast.

On April 27, the company led by Wooster twice attacked Tryon's rear guard during their march south. In the second encounter, Wooster was mortally wounded and died five days later. The main encounter then took place at Ridgefield, where several hundred militia under Arnold's command confronted the British and were driven away in a running battle down the town's main street, but not before inflicting casualties on the British.

The expedition was a tactical success for the British forces, but their actions in pursuing the raid galvanized Patriot support in Connecticut. While the British again made raids on Connecticut's coastal communities, they made no more raids that penetrated far into the countryside.

Background


The state of Connecticut was not a scene of conflict during the first two years of the American Revolutionary War, even though the war had begun in neighboring Massachusetts in April 1775, and New York City had been taken by the British in the New York and New Jersey campaign in the fall of 1776. Major General William Howe commanded the British forces in New York, and he drafted a plan for 1777 in which the primary goal was to take the American capital at Philadelphia.

Troops left to defend New York were to include a brigade of 3,000 provincial troops under the command of New York's former royal governor William Tryon, who was given a temporary promotion to "major general of the provincials" in spring 1777. Howe's plan included authorizing Tryon to operate on the Hudson River or to "enter Connecticut as circumstances may point out." Tryon was given one of the early operations of the season, a raid against a Continental Army depot at Danbury, Connecticut. 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.

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, all led by Generals Sir William Erskine and James Agnew. Command of the entire operation was given to General Tryon, and the fleet sailed from New York on April 22, 1777.

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. In April 1777, the army began mustering regiments for that year's campaigns, and there were about 50 Continental Army soldiers and 100 local militia at Danbury under the command of Joseph Platt Cooke, a local resident and a colonel in the state militia.

Danbury
The British fleet was first spotted when it passed Norwalk. When the troops landed messengers were dispatched to warn Danbury and local militia leaders of the movements. Generals Wooster and Arnold were in New Haven when messengers reached them on April 26. Wooster immediately sent the local militia to Fairfield. When he and Arnold reached Fairfield, they learned that General Silliman had already departed for Redding, with orders that any militia raised should follow as rapidly as possible; they immediately moved in that direction. The forces assembled at Redding moved toward Danbury in a pouring rain, but had only reached Bethel, about 2 mi short of Danbury by 11 pm, where they decided to spend the night rather than press on to Danbury with wet gunpowder. The forces consisted of about 500 regular militia members and about 200 volunteers.