Twenty-Five American Bad-Ass Snipers Who Stopped a British Army
by Patrick K. O'Donnell · BreitbartThis week, 250 years ago, 25 rugged individuals, some of best shots in Washington’s army, did something rarely accomplished in history and stopped an amphibious landing of thousands of troops.
On the evening of October 11, 1776, some 150 vessels carrying thousands of British soldiers entered the dark turbulent waters at the entrance to the Long Island Sound. A thick fog engulfed the boats in total darkness as they navigated some of the world’s most dangerous tidal waters—Hell Gate, as the whirlpool vortex at the mouth of the East River was called. Boats spun around and crashed into each other on the surface of the murky water while scores of unlucky craft from previous sojourners lay wrecked below. Admiral Richard Howe put “most of the captains of the fleet, and of the navy officers in general,” on the operation to stave off a maritime disaster. Despite the British officers’ best efforts, the vortex still claimed the lives of three men and several 6-pound cannons that sank in the swirling whirlpool. Finally as the sun rose, seasick and groggy, thousands of the Crown’s finest troops landed on a thin strip of land known as Throggs Neck.
General William Howe had planned the amphibious landing on Throggs Neck in order to trap Washington’s army. Using the might of the Royal Navy, the British soldiers would arrive behind the American lines and march swiftly north, cutting off the northern tip of Manhattan Island. The British commander in chief, however, could not have chosen a worse spot to land. At high tide, the neck became an island engulfed in marshland with only two avenues of egress: a narrow causeway connected to the mainland by a bridge and a ford near the mouth of a creek in front of a pass.
Here, with the British isolated on this thin strip of land, twenty-five Pennsylvanians and their officer would halt the Crown’s amphibious landing.
Days earlier, American General William Heath and Colonel Edward Hand had reconnoitered the area. Col Edward Hand commanded the 1st Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment made up of some of the best shots in Washington’s army drawn from the Pennsylvania frontier. Many of these elite men were long hunters who lived and hunted beyond the Allegheny Mountains and often had to battle Native Americans. Their woodcraft, scouting abilities, and expert marksmanship would allow them to pioneer many aspects of early American special operations.
Throggs Neck, located just below Hand’s camp, caught the two officers’ attention. “Apprehensive that the British might land on Frog’s Neck,” Heath immediately directed Hand to “fix upon one of his best subaltern officers, and 25 picked men of his corps.” He “assign[ed] them to the pass, as their alarm-post at all times; and, in the case of the enemy made a landing on Frog’s Neck, to direct this officer to take up the planks of the bridge immediately; to have everything in readiness to set the mill [in front of the bridge and causeway] on fire; but not to do it unless the fire of the riflemen should appear insufficient to check the advance of the enemy on the causeway.” To protect the other egress, Heath directed Hand to “assign another party to the head of the creek . . . [and] reinforce both, in case the enemy should be supported.”
Hand hand-selected his deadeye snipers to prepare the position by hastily constructing defensive works. The men used what they had. A pile of logs and cordwood near the mill also served as an ideal barrier. Hand further ordered his men to focus on the officers and “take down their Horses, which, if done, will impede their march effectually.” One of Washington’s aides added regarding the position, “If we cannot fight them here, we cannot do it anywhere.”
“About 10 o’clock without any Opposition,” thousands of troops poured out of their boats on the neck. The Crown’s men came ashore near the estate of James and Charity Ferris near the peninsula’s tip. Months earlier, the British had captured James while he was fighting for the Americans and sent him to the Sugar House Prison in New York, where he would spend the next five years. His wife, Charity, also an ardent Patriot, would become an intrepid, unsung heroine in the battle.
Before invading, the British ships commenced a shore bombardment against Throggs Neck. According to legend, Mrs. Ferris bravely walked back and forth on her veranda during the attack until the Royal Navy, perhaps not wanting to kill a civilian woman, ceased fire. More than likely, the British stopped because they had completed their preparatory cannonade. After disembarking, the Redcoat officers occupied the Ferris mansion. Although she secretly spirited her daughters out of harm’s way by sending them with an enslaved servant who rowed them across the sound by night, Mrs. Ferris remained behind to cook for the men—and, according to legend, gather intelligence that she relayed to the Americans.
The full story of these remarkable riflemen and the role of the Pennsylvania Long Rifle in helping win the Revolutionary War can be found in my latest book, which releases in a few weeks, Revolutionary Snipers: Washington’s Frontier Commandos Whose Marksmanship Forged A New Way of War and Helped Win the Revolution, the third book in a trilogy on the elite units of the war. A bestseller already from preorders, this ground-breaking look at the Revolutionary War recounts the untold story of the Continental Army’s first soldiers in an immersive band-of brothers style narrative that puts the reader in the boots of these expert woodsmen, long hunters and scouts—snipers who preceded today’s U.S. Army Special Operators.
Shortly after landing, the British moved inland. “We march’d immediately forward for about three miles until we came to a small Bridge and Mill dam over West Chester Creek where a small party of Rebels appeared to oppose us and we halted,” a British officer recorded in his diary.
Hand’s men went to work. They tore up the planks on the bridge. From concealed positions, the snipers fired at the advancing British troops, picking off the officers. Stymied as they tried to cross the marsh on the narrow causeway, the British moved to the second egress point and attempted to seize the pass at the mouth of the creek. They were stopped dead in their tracks by the riflemen, who managed to check the Crown forces long enough for reinforcements. For over an hour, two dozen riflemen held off the British Army.
Hand’s men bought the Continental Army time—enough to bring hundreds of reinforcements and several cannon.
“Riflemen and Jägers kept up a scattering popping at each other across the marsh; and the Americans on their side, and the British on the other, threw up a work at the end of the causeway.” The American artillery took potshots at the British “when there was an object saluted with a field piece.” Men dropped on both sides.
The British built works on their side, set up camp, and continued to try to break out of the neck. Every attempt failed. The Americans halted an amphibious landing—an infrequent historical occurrence, especially against the highly skilled British Army and Navy. The American rifle wielded in the hands of expert snipers proved decisive, altering the tactics on the field and strategically changing the outcome of the landing, buying precious time for Washington to respond to an attack that could have been fatal to the Continental Army.
The Americans kept the British bogged down on the neck for five days until a frustrated General Howe loaded his men back onto their vessels and headed roughly five miles up Long Island Sound to Pell’s Point, from where he could travel down the Eastchester Road to King’s Bridge to once again attempt to trap Washington’s army.
In one battle at least, the Revolutionary snipers with their crack-shot frontier skills and deadly, game-changing weapon, the Pennsylvania long rifle, had bested the most powerful army in the world—a lesson to us all in the power of a dedicated, focused group of individuals to fend off a seemingly unstoppable foe and change the course of events.
Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically acclaimed military historian and a leading authority on American elite and special operations units. The author of fourteen books, including Revolutionary Snipers: Washington’s Frontier Commandos Whose Marksmanship Forged a New Way of War and Helped Win the Revolution, The Indispensables, and Washington’s Immortals, a trilogy on the elite units of the Revolutionary War, along with The Unvanquished, which are all featured prominently at Barnes & Noble. He is a senior fellow at Mount Vernon, and his books have received numerous national awards. O’Donnell is a professional public speaker and will be on a national book tour for Revolutionary Snipers and for events he is keynoting related to the 250th Anniversary of the United States starting November 9. O’Donnell served as a combat historian with a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah. He is a director and the historian for The OSS Society and is a professional speaker who frequently lectures on America’s conflicts, espionage, special operations, and the Revolutionary War. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers and for documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Discovery.
@combathistorian