Stony Point and Verplanck’s Point became a focus of British strategy in 1779, but British interest in the Hudson Highlands had appeared earlier. On October 6, 1777, British forces landed here and attacked Forts Clinton and Montgomery, seven miles to the north, then withdrew two weeks later after sailing up the Hudson River and burning Kingston. On May 30, 1779, the British returned as six thousand troops moved from New York City by land and water toward Stony Point. The next day, as forty American soldiers finished a blockhouse nearby, the first British ships appeared in Haverstraw Bay, and the soldiers burned the blockhouse and fled. After the Battle of Stony Point, the Americans destroyed the fort, removed the prisoners, and captured supplies and equipment, including fifteen pieces of artillery. Two days later, General Washington abandoned the peninsula after deciding it could not be defended against the combined strength of the British army and navy. When the Americans withdrew, the British returned and built a second fort with blockhouses surrounded by an abatis, but the war had widened, and by 1779 Crown forces were also fighting the French and the Spanish, allied with the Americans. Strain on military resources and a lack of reinforcements forced the British to abandon the forts at Stony Point and Verplanck’s Point in October 1779. The American victory at Stony Point was the last major battle in the north, after which British efforts shifted south and ended with defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.
