Importance of Long Island Sound to Revolution

FALLS VILLAGE — Author Richard Radune said the importance of Long Island Sound to the American Revolution and the shape of post-war America has been underestimated by historians.Radune, author of “Sound Rising: Long Island Sound at the Forefront of America’s Struggle for Independence,” was speaking at the Tuesdays at Seven lecture series sponsored by the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society at the South Canaan Meeting House Tuesday, July 1.Radune covered the period between 1750-1820.He said Long Island Sound was “the superhighway of its time,” with ships going back and forth for commerce and transportation. With three major Connecticut rivers — the Connecticut, Housatonic, and Thames — entering the Sound, it was vital to the economy of the colony.Radune described the political situation in terms that sound strikingly contemporary. The trade routes between Long Island Sound and the Caribbean islands known as the West Indies created a complicated situation. The British, French, Spanish and Dutch all controlled different islands and different aspects of inernational trade. And European politics meant the British were not always on the best of terms with the French, not to mention the Spanish and Dutch.Radine said it is difficult to get a clear idea of the extent of trade, in part because of the 1781 burning of the New London customs house, which destroyed all records. And a lot of the trade was illegal, and not documented anyway.“The colonists called it free trade; the British called it smuggling,” said Radune.So the source of conflict boiled down to the American desire for free trade vs. the British determination to control and tax trade.The British did not want the American colonies to trade with the French, Dutch and Spanish.“They were at war with France all the time,” the speaker said.This meant the colonies, in theory, could not trade directly with the Dutch, for instance, for manufactured goods, but had to go through British middlemen, and pay British tariffs, taxes, and fees.This made for some pretty odd strategies to get around British regulations. For instance, when Britain was at war with France (which was most of the time) a tactic used was to have a Spanish crew from Santo Domingo go to the French side of the island (Haiti) to pick up a shipment for an American ship.And if an American ship was in the islands and had to put into Haiti for repairs, the currency was French prisoners of war, who would be exchanged for the repair work. Radune said this became a cottage industry — some men hired themselves out for the purpose.British enforcement efforts concentrated on the larger ports, especially New York and Boston. During crackdowns New York merchants redirected ships to New London, with forged clearances, and generally got up to “all sorts of shenanigans.”The British ramped up their efforts in 1760, but failed. There was simply too much territory, too many coves and inlets on the Connecticut coast to cover completely.The British tried bringing in warships, with mixed results. Radune said the captain of one ship, the Signet, was mostly interested in having a good time, and was not very vigilant. He was replaced by another ship, the Liberty, whose captin was hyper-vigilant, so much so that the colonials nicknamed his ship the “Slavery.” Eventually, the Liberty was burned while in harbor in Newport.“So by 1768 things were getting very nasty.”As the revolution began, Connecticut’s state navy (one of three, with Massachusetts and South Carolina) was effective. With 11 major ships, the Connecticut navy captured 43 British ships and lost four.Connecticut privateers, with 220 ships, made between 300 and 360 trips, and made 500 captures.The privateers preyed on British ships in the North Atlantic, traveling between Halifax, Nova Scotia, New York and the West Indies.“It was a crossroads, and very lucrative.”A privateer was a privately-owned ship authorized to attack foreign vessels during war. Congress authorized the Connecticut privateers in March of 1776 but they didn’t get organized until 1777.Long Island Sound was thus a battleground, with the British doing whatever they could to prevent the Americans from using New York as a port for supplies.And from New York the British could attack smaller ports — Norwalk, Fairfield, New Haven.British invaded New York and Long Island in the fall of 1776, and 5000 patriots fled Long Island for Connecticut. A smaller number, about 2000, of Connecticut loyalists in turn left for Long Island, and in many cases occupied the homes of the absent patriots, which did not make them popular.Raids were conducted in the Sound during the “Whaleboat War.” A whaleboat was rowed by 10 men, plus one man for the tiller and another in the bow. They moved quietly and quickly, and were hard to spot from shore, especially at night.A May 23, 1777 raid on Sag Harbor (retaliation for a British raid on Danbury that badly disrupted American supply lines) left from Guilford and rowed to the North Fork, attacked the fort, captured 90 British soldiers, killed six, burned 12 ships and destroyed supplies.This set a precedent for future raids, which were smaller, involving one or two whaleboats.Radune said the goals of the raiders were: plunder, revenge, kidnapping, military targets, and espionage.One of the plunderers was Ebenezer Dayton. “He was plundering everybody.”With a privateer sloop and four whaleboats and based in Bethany, Conn., he wreaked so much havoc and was so indiscriminate that George Washington had to rein him in.“He said you have to cool it, you’re hurting our cause.”William Franklin of Long Island was “a flaming Loyalist” and the son of Benjamin Franklin. He sought revenge on the Connecticut raiders, and set off on his own raid.It failed because he used tall ships, easily spotted from shore, and because of the weather, which caused the raiders to arrive at their target, Guilford, at 7 a.m. They were driven off by the Guilford militia.Then there was the strange case of Gen. G.S. Silliman, commander of the Connecticut militia. He was kidnapped by Tories in May of 1779 and held on Long Island.The Americans captured Judge Thomas Jones in November for the purpose of getting Silliman back.“He was giving a party, and didn’t hear the invaders knocking on the door. They had to smash windows to get his attention,” Radune explained.An exchange was arranged, and the ship carrying Jones left Connecticut carrying also a turkey dinner made by Mrs. Silliman.Both Silliman and Jones were Yale graduates. “They must have had an interesting conversation” over the turkey.Long Island Sound remained a place of contention after the war. American ships were at risk of harassment or capture from both British and French vessels, and American sailors were forced into service on British ships — a situation that led to the War of 1812.The legacy of the Sound, Radune said, is threefold: It contributed to economic and political independence, and is much more significant to the war than historians realize. Traders helped transform Connecticut into an industrial society, with major inland ports bringing in raw materials. And the port of New York continued to develop, shaped in large part by businessmen from Connecticut.