On the night of July 9, 1777, a young Rhode Island militia officer named William Barton and a small raiding party slipped through British defenses on the Portsmouth shore and carried away General Richard Prescott—wearing nothing but his nightclothes.
Colonel Barton was second-in-command of the fort at Tiverton Heights, a small foothold against the British forces that occupied Aquidneck Island across the Sakonnet River. That spring, Rhode Island’s General Assembly declared it a disgrace that no attack ``hath, as yet, been made against the enemy.’’ The assembly set bounties on the capture of British soldiers, from $20 for a private to $1,000 for a general.
Barton opted to go after the big prize, the officer in charge of 4,000 British and Hessian soldiers occupying Newport. His plan was so bold that it bordered on foolishness. Besides the troops under his command, Prescott was on an island, protected by a squadron of warships.
On July 3, Barton asked the regiment at Tiverton Heights to undertake a hazardous mission. According to lore, every man stepped forward. He selected forty strong rowers, including Thomas Austin, who carried the scars of 300 lashes on his back, ordered by Prescott after Austin refused the use of his oxen to haul British cannon.
On July 4, 1777, they launched three whaleboats into the Sakonnet for a roundabout trip across Mount Hope and Narragansett Bays before doubling back toward Portsmouth, their oars muffled with sheepskin. They rowed between two British warships, passing so near to one of them that the oarsmen could hear the watch on deck calling out the time.
Finally, the boats crunched ashore at Portsmouth. The men’s feet smudged the dew in the fields as they hiked to the farmhouse of Mr. Overing, where Prescott spent his nights, crossing a creek then cutting through the edge of an orchard hoping to avoid detection.
Led by African-American Guy Watson, who may have been Barton’s slave, the men kicked in the door and stormed into Prescott's chambers. The raiders led the partially-clothed general back across the fields, sat him in a whale boat and rowed him across the bay. The daring raid had succeeded.
The General Assembly made good on its $1,000 reward, a prize that Barton divided among his men. Continental Congress voted to present him “an elegant sword,” even though Barton wrote that he preferred cash. The sword is now in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society. The fortification at Tiverton Heights now bears his name, Fort Barton.
Even British Lt. Frederick Mackenzie gave grudging respect to Barton and his men for pulling off the capture: "The Rebels certainly run a great risk in making this attempt. They however executed it in a masterly manner, and deserve credit for the attempt. It is certainly a most extraordinary circumstance, that a General Commanding a body of 4,000 men, encamped on an Island surrounded by a Squadron of Ships of War, should be carried off from his quarters in the night by a small party of the Enemy from without, & without a Shot being fired."
]]>During August 1778, Tiverton was the fulcrum on which the American Revolution teetered. From all over New England militiamen marched along dusty roads to rendezvous at the fort on Tiverton Heights.
From Gloucester, Newburyport, and Marblehead came 265 fishermen to ferry American troops across the Sakonnet River.
From Boston came John Hancock, in command of the Massachusetts militia including Paul Revere, who wrote home, “It seems as if half of Boston was here.”
From New York came 1,000 Continental troops led by Rhode Islander Major-General Nathanael Greene, and another 1,000 led by the 19-year-old Marquis d’Lafayette.
Perhaps most importantly, from France came a fleet of twelve warships commanded by Comte D’Estaing, gun ports open, brass cannon glinting in the sun, the lead ship flying the French colors.
The French were not impressed by the American troops gathered at Tiverton. Lafayette’s aide wrote: “I have never seen a more laughable spectacle; all the tailors and apothecaries in the country must have been called out. They were mounted on bad nags, and looked like a flock of ducks in cross-belts.”
The target of this amassed force was Aquidneck Island, a short row across the Sakonnet. The British occupied the island with a garrison of 6,700 men. Their surrender might break England’s will, resulting in victory for the Americans.
D’Estaing knew that the British fleet expected reinforcements to arrive any day, which would mean certain destruction for the French ships. On the morning of August 10, D’Estaing decided to attack the enemy fleet anchored in Newport, but the British commander ordered his ships to flee. They receded toward the horizon with the French fleet after them, preparing to battle in the Atlantic.
American commander John Sullivan decided to press the land attack without French naval support. He ferried troops, cannon, horses, and supplies across the Sakonnet River, and the force of 10,000 marched toward Newport.
For days, both sides fired cannons at each other mostly without effect, while keeping an anxious eye on the sea, wondering what happened to the naval fleets that had slipped away from Newport to do battle. Whose sails would appear on the horizon?
Fog shrouded Newport on the morning of August 20, so thick it was difficult to see fifty yards. When skies cleared after noon, the sails of twelve large ships appeared. They drew nearer until a look through field glasses revealed the French tri-color flying from their masts.
But the French fleet had been crippled, not through battle with the British but by a storm at sea, and D’Estaing intended to sail into Boston for repairs.
Without support from the French fleet, many militia men wanted no part of British bullets and bayonets, and they began crossing the Sakonnet back to Tiverton in droves. The time had come to end the siege of Newport, but it would not be easy. Sullivan had to ferry nearly 5,000 men across the Sakonnet with an enemy force of 6,000 at his back.
The American retreat was defended by the Rhode Island First Regiment, a segregated unit of enslaved Rhode Islanders—African-Americans, Narragansetts, and men of mixed race—who were promised their freedom in exchange for enlisting. The solders of the 1st wore uniforms of cream-colored pants and jackets, with tall white hats emblazoned with blue anchors and topped with big blue feathers.
Twice the Hessians charged with their bayonets. Twice, in deadly hand-to-hand fighting, the 1st Rhode Island drove them back. The Hessians took on reinforcements and again attacked. With the help of reinforcements, the 1st “soon put the Enemy to rout,” Nathaneal Greene reported to General Washington, and the American forces escaped to Tiverton.
The Battle of Rhode Island resulted in a military draw. The Americans lost 30 dead and 137 wounded, while British losses were 38 dead, 210 wounded. The enemy temporarily kept their stranglehold on Rhode Island, but the underdog Americans stood toe-to-toe with the mighty British and had driven them back.
]]>In May of 1776, the Americans hastily built an earthwork battery in a large field on the west side of the Beavertail peninsula on Conanicut Island. British diarist Frederick Mackenzie later described the fortification as a "Battery or Redoubt with 4 embrasures” facing the West Passage of Narragansett Bay.
There were at least two other fortifications on Conanicut during the American Revolution: another battery at Beavertail and a battery on the eastern side of the island that later was rebuilt and named Fort Dumpling, after the shape of the rocky protrusions along the shoreline. There may have been another American battery further north on Beavertail at Sheffield Cove. These defenses, along with a battery across the West Passage on Bonnet Point, were intended to protect Narragansett Bay from British naval incursions. They failed in this role.
When the British sailed past Conanicut Battery on December 7, 1776, they were met with no opposition. The British forces occupied Conanicut and Aquidneck Island, and took control of the abandoned American defenses. The British improved most of these fortifications, including the Conanicut Battery, to defend their occupation.
When the French finally arrived on July 29, 1778, British soldiers at Conanicut Battery fired its guns at two of the French ships. American Colonel John Laurens wrote to his father that, “The Sagittaire, a ship of the line, went up the western passage on the morning of the 30th , and was fired upon by a two gun battery of 24 pounders, which the enemy had on the west side of Cononicut. The Sagittaire returned a broadside as she passed, and we discovered from the Admiral's ship an explosion at the battery, which induced us to believe that the enemy had abandoned it. … The ship received two scratches in her hull, and proceeded to her station.” Upon their departure, the British destroyed the magazines, and the abandoned fort was left to decay.
After the Revolution, Beavertail returned to agricultural uses. In 1931, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a bronze plaque on the site, but it has since disappeared. During World War II, the military installed observation and communication posts nearby. In the 1990s a local profit group, Friends of the Conanicut Battery, secured funding to protect the site. Today the 22-acre park features trails to the World War II structures, interpretive signs, and the remains of the Conanicut Battery.
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