British Seizure and Fortification of Stony Point
- When
- May 1779
- Where
- Stony Point, New York, on the Hudson River
- Part of
- Capture of Stony Point
British forces occupied Stony Point during Clinton's May 1779 Hudson expedition, driving off a small American garrison and using the heights to shell Fort Lafayette.
During Clinton's late-May 1779 advance up the Hudson with about 8,000 men, British forces seized Stony Point. The position was defended by only around 40 American Patriots, who set fire to the unfinished wooden blockhouse atop the point before escaping north. The British then hauled cannons up the steep slopes and used the vantage point to shell nearby Fort Lafayette. Strategists valued the site because it controlled the Hudson River, the entrance to the Hudson Highlands, and the Kings Ferry crossing to Verplanck's Point.
Sources
- Battle of Stony Point Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-22
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.