American Revolution

The first shots of the American Revolution were fired in Massachusetts in April of 1775, and that November Connecticut authorized forts on both sides of the Thames River to protect New London Harbor from British attack. The original Fort Trumbull, built just north of this fort and named for Governor Jonathan Trumbull, was designed to repel a naval attack with earth-and-sod walls sixteen feet thick facing the harbor, while Fort Griswold, named for Deputy Governor Matthew Griswold, was built across the river in Groton and still stands. Fort Trumbull's weak landward defenses proved fatal on September 6, 1781, when a British fleet under Benedict Arnold entered New London Harbor and about eight hundred soldiers landed on each side of the river about two miles south of this site. Five companies advanced on Fort Trumbull from the rear while the rest went with Arnold to burn New London. Outnumbered and lacking earthen walls or cannon facing the land approach, Captain Shapley and twenty-three men withdrew across the river to help defend Fort Griswold. The British occupied Fort Trumbull and fired on Fort Griswold, which was already under attack from troops landed on the east side. After hard fighting, Fort Griswold fell; Colonel Ledyard, commander of both forts, surrendered his sword, and the British killed him and more than eighty of his men. In 1794, as president of the new nation, George Washington urged Congress to fortify the seacoast, and Fort Trumbull was repaired and reconfigured in the 1790s under the federal First System.

New London, Connecticut · United States