West Point, New York: Impregnable Fortress of the Continental Army

Architect Richard Thornton is a member of an alliance of Creek, Choctaw and Seminole scholars, who over the past seven years have been intensely studying the heritage of the Muskogean peoples. Much of their activities have involved re-examination of the archives of the early Spanish, English and French exploration of the Southeastern United States. We have asked Richard to provide AccessGenealogy with some of his work.  As we add to these articles we will also be providing a question and answer section for the reader to ask questions of Richard.

Today, this revered place in America is the United States Military Academy. In popular history, the beautiful hillside on the Hudson River is vaguely remembered as the location where Benedict Arnold betrayed his countrymen for a bribe. However, in 1778 it was a well planned, but “last ditch” attempt, to block the seemingly invincible British Army from splitting the former colonies in half, then picking them off, one by one. It is where George Washington, Commanding General of the Continental Army, drew a line across the landscape that said, “Thou shalt not pass here!”

We often remember the winner of a great war or the big football game, but forget the details. Without doubt, the attempted independence of 13 British colonies in North America seemed doomed at the beginning of 1778. It was the winter that the main Continental Army was garrisoned in crude hovels at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The British juggernaut had captured New York and Philadelphia. George Washington’s army had lost several important battles the previous year. It seemed only a matter of time, before his starving, freezing army would scatter to their homes, to await the wrath of the King’s justice.

However, the great character in George Washington showed again and again as he inspired his men to endure the winter and come back fighting. Great Britain was the superpower of the world back then. It's massive army and navy had won war after war in the 1700s. Its arrogant officers, almost all of whom from were from the aristocracy, had nothing, but contempt for yeoman rebels they opposed.

The attitude among military and Tory leaders in early 1778 was that the war was essentially won. The Crown was commissioning maps to show vast estates that would be rewarded to the victorious British generals in North America, However, at Monmouth, New Jersey on June 28, 1778, the British officers were rudely shocked when their rear guard, under their ablest general, Cornwallis, was attacked by Washington’s army, and then held to a standstill, after the entire British Army counter-attacked the Americans.

During the “starving time” of the winter of 1777-78, several able European military officers had come to the aid of the struggling Continental Army. Among these volunteers was Baron von Steuben of the Prussian General Staff, the Marquis de Lafayette from France, French Army engineer, Captain Louis de la Radiere and Polish General & Engineer, Tadeusz Kosciusko. France was sending more and more munitions to the colonies. America will always be indebted to the valor of the French, Polish and Prussian men who came to her aid.

French and Polish engineers helped American engineers to create a defense system that stopped the British Army from moving out of New York City

Fortress West Point

In the spring of 1778, under the guidance of French and Polish engineers, the engineers of the Continental Army constructed a cluster of forts, fortified field artillery positions and river barriers on the Hudson River, north of New York City. Their purpose was to keep the main British Army confined to its cozy quarters in New York City.

The keystone of this defense system was Fort Arnold (later renamed Fort Clinton) and Fort Putnam. They were constructed with heavy stone walls and earthen ramparts that would stop any British cannon balls. Fort Putnam was on a heavily fortified hill top above Fort Clinton, and so protected it from British flanking maneuvers. The rugged landscape behind the forts, along with earthen infantry fortifications protected the rears of these fortresses, while the elevated locations of French-made cannons at For Clinton could cut any British armada to pieces, if it dared to sail upstream on the Hudson. Heavy iron chains were strung across the Hudson to impede British boats.

After being subject to abuse by some jealous Continental officers and pressured by his pretty Tory (pro-British Conservative) wife, still living in British-occupied Philadelphia, General Benedict Arnold secretly became a “mole” for the British Army. Arnold arranged to be placed in command of the forts at West Point. He planned to surrender them to the British, without a fight, and pretend to be a prisoner of war. In the mean time, he turned over the plans for West Point area fortifications in return for a large sum of money and a general’s commission in the British Army. A British army officer, traveling in disguise, was captured before the plans to capture the forts could be carried out.

British forces did capture a lightly defended position at Stony Point, south of West Point. They fortified it as a base to attack West Point. British Commanding General Clinton boasted that it was the Gibraltar of the American colonies. Things had changed radically, though, in the Continental Army. The combination of European professional military skills and ingenuity of the American officers was creating a formidable military force. General Anthony Wayne developed an elite strike force, comparable to the Ranger battalions of World War II; prepared an extremely detailed plan of battle; then captured the entire Stony Point garrison. That action essentially ended major combat in the northern colonies. Later that year, Cornwallis’s entire army would surrender at Yorktown. The American War of Independence sputtered on for another three years as British Tories kept on grasping at straws in the vain hope of victory. A new British government eventually took power and agreed to peace terms, which confirmed an American victory and independence.

Little known political impact of the victories around West Point

Americans tend not to be knowledgeable about the details of European history; especially in regard to what was going on in England during the 1770s. At the onset of the Revolution, the American colonists enjoyed the highest median standard of living in the entire world. The colonists enjoyed political and religious freedoms, plus economic opportunities that were inconceivable to most Europeans.

Meanwhile, the Tories in Great Britain had nearly bankrupted the government in their drive for world dominion. The various tax acts on North American colonists that were passed by Parliament, were an effort to balance the Crown’s budget; depleted by two decades of immense military expenditures. The aristocracy and some members of the mercantile class had become very wealthy from the expanded commercial opportunities of being a world super-power, but the middle and lower classes were suffering terribly because of the shift of wealth to an alliance of traditional nobility and nouvaux riche mercantile families.

The high level of poverty that resulted from the Tories’ policies resulted in many petty property crimes. The Tories responded by instituting a “law and order campaign, which made over 300 crimes punishable by hanging, beheading, or being burned at the stake. Most "property" crimes now could be punished by the death penalty. There are many documented cases of children being hung for stealing a loaf of bread or a scrap of meat. Homeless people walked the streets while debtors filled the prisons. The Tory approach to widespread poverty was to permanently eliminate the poor, either by hanging or transportation to one of Britain's colonies. The Tory approach to representative government was to buy off the voters.

Most Americans do not know that the progressive political opposition in Great Britain (known as Whigs) openly supported the principals of the American revolutionaries. Throughout the eight years of the Revolution, Whig men and women wore clothing, which mimicked the Columbia blue and tan uniforms of Continental officers. For decades they had been kept powerless, by the use of economic strangulation, until things started to go bad for the Tories in the war. The American Revolution offered hope that no longer would England be tightly controlled by a few super-wealthy families.

Ironically, it was men and women from some of the wealthiest families in Great Britian, who campaigned most for political and social reform. The Prince of Wales was an American sympathizer, and openly accused his father, the insane George III, of causing the Revolution. Whig leaders such as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Charles Fox and Charles, Earl of Grey (as in Early Grey tea) openly communicated and provided intelligence to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The Whigs would throw parties after every American victory.

The failure of a powerful British task force to capture the fortresses at West Point, and humiliating defeat at Stony Point, caused widespread disillusionment among the British public. They no longer believed the Tories were invincible, despite all their wealth and power. That shifted support of the less affluent members of the mercantile class to the Whigs. The final British catastrophe at Yorktown ended the Tory stranglehold on Great Britain’s political life. It ultimately resulted in powerful Great Britain giving up the war against the new American nation.

Some Whigs hoped that the economic and political egalitarianism of the American revolutionaries would spread to Great Britain. Once in power, in the 1780s, the Whigs did accomplish major reforms, which improved the standard of living for average citizens. However, the violence of the French Revolution frightened people in Great Britain so the reforms that Americans now take for granted, required many decades to occur in the United Kingdom.

After the American Revolution, the forts at West Point fell into disrepair. Fort Clinton soon became the home of the new military academy. All of the quickly-built Revolutionary Era buildings were demolished to make way for academic buildings or parade grounds. However, there is still no more appropriate place for our future army officers to be educated, than among the beautiful hills of the Hudson River Valley, where General George Washington first drew the line! From that courage came a nation where (quoting President Franklin Roosevelt) "It is the welfare of the average Joe, the regular American on the street, who comes first with the government of this land."

Notes About this Material

Source: Richard Thornton, an alliance of Muskogean scholars, professors and professionals. Copyright Richard Thornton, Blairsville, GA, 2010. Used here with permission. 

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