During the American Revolutionary War, the upper Delaware River valley was a frontier repeatedly raided by Indians allied to the British, often accompanied by white Loyalists or Tories. The most significant of these attacks was the second Minisink raid in July 1779, led by Joseph Brant, a Dartmouth-educated Mohawk warrior commissioned a colonel in the British Army. On July 20, 1779, Brant and about ninety Tories and Iroquois Indians swept through the Neversink Valley settlements of Peenpack and Mahackamack, destroying farms, a school, a church, and other buildings. The next day, militia groups led by Lt. Col. Benjamin Tusten of Goshen, New York, and Maj. Samuel Meeker of Sussex County, New Jersey, met in Mahackamack and began pursuing Brant up the Delaware River in hopes of ambushing him and recovering stolen horses, cattle, and personal belongings. Later on July 21, Col. John Hathorn's militia unit from Warwick, New York, joined them, bringing the pursuing force to about 120 men. On the morning of July 22, the patriots discovered Brant and his raiders crossing the Delaware at Lackawaxen and prepared an ambush, but a scout's gunshot alerted Brant, who outflanked the patriots on the hillside above the river, cut off one of the three militia units, and threw the others into disarray. The patriots retreated to the top of the hill overlooking the river, where only about forty-five or fifty remained, and fought through most of the afternoon in a small defensive square until Brant's forces broke through. Between forty-five and fifty Americans were killed, perhaps seven of Brant's men died, and Lt. Col. Tusten, a physician, was trapped with seventeen wounded militiamen under his care and killed. The Battle of Minisink, the only Revolutionary War battle fought in the Upper Delaware River valley, sent shockwaves of loss and grief through the frontier population and became part of the heritage of the surrounding region in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.