Setbacks in the North
Action in the North was largely a stalemate for the rest of the war. The British raided New Bedford, Massachusetts, and New Haven and New London, Connecticut, while loyalists and Indigenous forces attacked settlements in New York and Pennsylvania. The Americans under âMadâ Anthony Wayne stormed Stony Point, New York, on July 16, 1779, and âLight-Horse Harryâ Lee took Paulus Hook, New Jersey, on August 19.
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More lasting in effect was Sullivanâs expedition of August 1779 against Britainâs Indigenous allies in New York, particularly the destruction of their villages and fields of corn. Farther west, Col. George Rogers Clark campaigned against British posts on the northwest frontier. With a company of volunteers, Clark captured Kaskaskia, the chief post in the Illinois country, on July 4, 1778, and later secured the submission of Vincennes. The latter was recaptured by Gen. Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, but, in the spring of 1779, Clark raised another force and retook Vincennes from Hamilton. That expedition did much to free the frontier from raids by Indigenous peoples, gave American settlers a hold upon the northwest, and encouraged expansion into the Ohio valley.
Potentially serious blows to the American cause were Benedict Arnoldâs efforts to surrender his army post to the British in 1780 and the army mutinies of 1780 and 1781. Arnoldâs attempt to betray West Point miscarried, and his British contact, Maj. John AndrĂ©, was captured by the Americans and hanged as a spy. Mutinies were sparked by misunderstandings over terms of enlistment, poor food and clothing, gross arrears of pay, and the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar. Suppressed by force or negotiation, the mutinies shook the morale of the army.