Saturday, September 30 (8:00am-6:00pm)
Led by: Lt. Col Michael McGurty (ret.)
Tour Starts/Ends at: NY State Thruway Park n Ride
Tour Registration: $150.00 (Check or Credit Card)
After the American-French victory at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, George Washington moved the Continental Army back to upstate New York because British forces under Sir Henry Clinton still occupied New York City. Washington’s army encamped near Newburgh, New York where the general established his headquarters. [Read more…]
The Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Iroquois in 1779 has been described as implementing a “scorched earth” policy for no useful purpose other than eradicating Indians, or a failed attempt to capture Fort Niagara. No campaign of the American War for Independence has been more inaccurately described or remains more controversial than the Continental Army’s invasion of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1779. This tour is designed to follow the main effort of that offensive as conducted by troops commanded by Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan’s troops took the war to the very heart of the territory controlled by the Six Nations of Haudenosaunee who had allied themselves with the British Crown. At the tour’s end you’ll decide if the campaign was a success or a well-executed failure; justifiable retribution for the raids and Cherry Valley massacre in 1778 or unvarnished genocide.
The 1780 Carleton Raid devastated the present-day New York State counties of Saratoga, Warren, and Washington. It was known as the “Great Burning” because most of the structures along the “Old Military Road” were destroyed. British Maj. Christopher Carleton’s raid was part of a larger strategy that played out across upstate New York and Vermont. Together with Carleton’s raiders, Sir John Johnson swept across the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys, Col. John Munro attacked Ballston Spa, and Lt. Richard Houghton raided Royalton, Vermont during the autumn of 1780.
On paper, Union Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s plan, approved directly by Lincoln, to release some 13,000 Federal prisoners, “burn the hateful city” of Richmond and capture or kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had all the earmarks of success. As one Michigan officer recalled, “The rationale of the raid was a hurried ride, timely arrival, great daring, a surprise, a sudden charge without a moment’s hesitation – success.” Even Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton felt “the enemy could have taken Richmond” except for some rebel luck. To help Kilpatrick’s command, Brig. Gen. George A. Custer would create a diversion towards Charlottesville, dragging Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry away from Kilpatrick’s column. But in execution the Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid was a dismal failure; and a major embarrassment to Lincoln when controversial orders were found on the dead body of the expedition’s subordinate commander, the dashing and well-connected Col. Ulric Dahlgren.