Timeline

Fort Griswold Fortified

Fort Griswold was fortified beginning in 1775 as part of the effort to defend the Thames River and New London harbor. The earthwork fortification on Groton Heights commanded views of the harbor and the river, providing a defensive position from which artillery could challenge British naval approaches. The fort was designed to complement defenses on the New London side of the river. Its garrison was typically drawn from local militia, as the Continental Army could not spare regular troops for coastal defense. This reliance on militia meant that the fort's defenders in 1781 were local men — farmers, craftsmen, and sailors fighting on ground they knew intimately.

Battle of Fort Griswold

# The Battle of Fort Griswold By the autumn of 1781, the American War of Independence was entering its decisive phase. In the south, General George Washington and his French allies were maneuvering toward what would become the siege of Yorktown, a campaign that would effectively end major combat operations in the war. Yet even as the British position grew increasingly precarious, the conflict continued to exact a devastating toll on communities throughout the colonies. One of the war's most tragic episodes unfolded on September 6, 1781, along the banks of the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut, when British forces launched a coordinated assault on the towns of New London and Groton. The attack was led by none other than Benedict Arnold, the former American general whose name had already become synonymous with treason. Arnold, a Connecticut native who had defected to the British the previous year, knew the region intimately, and the Crown exploited that knowledge by placing him in command of a force of approximately 1,700 troops tasked with destroying American privateering operations and the supplies stored along the river. Arnold divided his forces into two columns. He personally led the assault on New London, on the western bank of the Thames, where his troops burned much of the town and destroyed warehouses filled with goods captured from British merchant ships. Meanwhile, approximately 800 British soldiers crossed the river to attack Fort Griswold, a stone-walled fortification perched atop Groton Heights on the eastern bank. The fort was garrisoned by roughly 150 local militia under the command of Colonel William Ledyard, a respected community leader who understood that his small force faced overwhelming odds but resolved to defend the position nonetheless. The terrain favored the defenders, and the stout walls of the fort provided meaningful protection, but the sheer disparity in numbers meant that the outcome, barring relief or retreat, was likely predetermined. The British assault proved far costlier than the attackers had anticipated. The militia defenders fought with remarkable determination, repulsing two full-scale assaults and inflicting severe casualties on the advancing British columns. Among those killed during the fighting was Major William Montgomery, a British officer who fell while leading his men against the fort's walls. On the third attempt, however, the British finally breached the fortifications and poured inside. What followed has been remembered as one of the darkest moments of the Revolutionary War. Rather than accepting the surrender of the garrison, many of the British soldiers, enraged by the fierce resistance and the heavy losses they had sustained — approximately 200 killed and wounded — turned on the defenders even after organized resistance had ceased. Colonel Ledyard, recognizing the hopelessness of further combat, reportedly offered his sword to a British officer in the customary gesture of formal surrender. According to accounts that have persisted since that day, the officer took the sword and ran Ledyard through with it. The killing did not stop there. Approximately 85 American defenders were killed in the battle and the massacre that followed, and some 60 more were wounded, many of them gravely. The survivors were loaded onto a cart to be transported downhill, but the cart reportedly broke free and careened down the slope, compounding the suffering of the already broken men. The events at Fort Griswold sent shockwaves through Connecticut and the broader American public. The massacre of soldiers who had already surrendered violated the accepted rules of warfare and fueled outrage that only strengthened colonial resolve. Benedict Arnold's role in directing the operation against his own home state deepened the contempt in which he was already held. For the communities of New London and Groton, the raid was a catastrophe — homes and livelihoods were destroyed, and nearly every family in the area lost someone in the fighting. In the larger story of the Revolution, the Battle of Fort Griswold stands as a somber reminder that the war's final chapter was written not only in the grand maneuvers at Yorktown but also in the blood of ordinary citizens who took up arms to defend their homes. Just weeks after the massacre on Groton Heights, Cornwallis surrendered his army in Virginia, effectively ending the war. The men who died at Fort Griswold never saw that victory, but their sacrifice became a lasting symbol of the cost of American independence. Today, the Groton Monument, a granite obelisk erected on the site of the battle, bears the names of those who fell, ensuring that their story endures for future generations.

Killing of Colonel Ledyard After Surrender

# The Killing of Colonel Ledyard After Surrender at Fort Griswold, 1781 On September 6, 1781, in the final months of the American Revolutionary War, one of the conflict's most infamous acts of violence took place on a hilltop overlooking the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut. Colonel William Ledyard, a militia commander who had organized the defense of Fort Griswold against a powerful British assault force, was killed after attempting to surrender his garrison in accordance with the accepted conventions of eighteenth-century warfare. The manner of his death — reportedly stabbed with his own sword by the very officer to whom he offered it — shocked the region and became a rallying symbol of British cruelty that would resonate for generations. The events of that day unfolded against the backdrop of a British raid on the port town of New London, just across the river from Groton. The raid was commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, the former Continental Army hero who had defected to the British cause the previous year. Arnold's objective was to destroy the supplies, warehouses, and privateering vessels that made New London a thorn in British naval operations. While Arnold led one column against New London itself, a second force was directed across the river toward Groton Heights, where Fort Griswold stood as the primary defensive fortification guarding the eastern bank of the Thames. Fort Griswold was a stone-walled fortification garrisoned that day by a collection of local militia and volunteers, numbering perhaps 150 to 170 men. Colonel William Ledyard, a respected local militia officer from Groton, commanded the defense. Though Ledyard and his men were outnumbered by the several hundred British regulars and Loyalist troops advancing on the fort, they mounted a fierce and determined resistance. The attackers suffered heavy casualties as they attempted to scale the walls, and the fighting was brutal and close-quartered. Among the British losses were several officers, including Major William Montgomery, who was killed during the assault on the walls. The intensity of the British casualties would later be cited as a factor in the violence that followed. When the British finally overwhelmed the defenses and poured into the fort, Colonel Ledyard reportedly recognized that further resistance was futile and moved to surrender. According to the consistent testimony of multiple American survivors and witnesses, Ledyard approached a British officer and offered his sword — a customary and universally understood gesture of formal capitulation. The officer, whose precise identity has been the subject of historical debate, reportedly asked who commanded the fort. When Ledyard identified himself, the officer took the proffered sword and drove it through Ledyard's body, killing him. What followed was a period of intense violence in which many of the American defenders were killed or wounded even after resistance had ceased. Survivors described a scene of carnage that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate combat. The killing of Colonel Ledyard became the defining atrocity of the Battle of Groton Heights. British accounts from the period either disputed the details of the incident or sought to minimize its significance, sometimes attributing the post-surrender violence to the chaos and fury that followed a costly assault rather than to deliberate intent. However, the American testimony — drawn from surviving defenders, townspeople who witnessed the aftermath, and subsequent investigations — was remarkably consistent, and most historians regard the core narrative as reliable. The identity of the specific officer who killed Ledyard remains uncertain, though several names have been put forward in various accounts over the years. The event mattered deeply in the broader story of the Revolutionary War for several reasons. It occurred at a moment when the war was moving toward its conclusion — just weeks before the decisive Siege of Yorktown — and it reinforced American resolve at a critical time. The killing of a surrendering officer violated the fundamental codes of honor and conduct that governed eighteenth-century warfare, making it not merely an act of battlefield violence but a breach of the moral framework that both sides ostensibly recognized. The incident gave Americans powerful propaganda and deepened the animosity toward Benedict Arnold, whose name was already synonymous with betrayal and who bore overall command responsibility for the raid. In Connecticut, the memory of Colonel Ledyard's death and the massacre at Fort Griswold became a lasting part of the region's identity, eventually commemorated by the Groton Monument, a granite obelisk erected in the nineteenth century that still stands on the site today, bearing the names of those who fell in defense of the fort.

Jordan Freeman Kills Major Montgomery

**The Battle of Fort Griswold and the Courage of Jordan Freeman** On September 6, 1781, the coastal town of Groton, Connecticut, became the site of one of the most brutal engagements of the Revolutionary War. The assault on Fort Griswold, led by British forces under the broader command of the infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold, resulted in a fierce and bloody confrontation that would claim the lives of dozens of American defenders. Among those who fought and died that day was Jordan Freeman, a free Black soldier whose act of defiance against a charging British officer became one of the most striking moments of the battle and a powerful symbol of the diverse coalition of Americans who took up arms in the fight for independence. The attack on Groton and the neighboring town of New London was part of a British effort to destroy supplies and disrupt American operations along the Connecticut coast. Benedict Arnold, once one of the Continental Army's most talented generals before his betrayal of the American cause, led approximately 1,700 British troops in a raid targeting the ports and storehouses of the region. While Arnold personally directed the burning of New London on the west side of the Thames River, a detachment of British regulars crossed to the eastern bank to assault Fort Griswold, the primary defensive fortification protecting Groton Heights. The fort was garrisoned by a relatively small force of local militia, men drawn from the surrounding communities who had assembled hastily to defend their homes. Among them was Jordan Freeman, a free Black man who served alongside his white neighbors in the militia ranks. The British force that attacked Fort Griswold was led in part by Major William Montgomery, an experienced officer who commanded one of the columns tasked with storming the fortification's walls. The defenders, though outnumbered, put up a determined resistance, pouring musket fire and cannon shot into the advancing British troops as they crossed the open ground surrounding the fort. The fighting was intense and came at great cost to the attackers. As Major Montgomery attempted to scale the walls of the fort during the assault, Jordan Freeman reportedly confronted him directly and killed him with a spear, striking down one of the most prominent British officers on the field. Montgomery's death in the act of breaching the defenses was a dramatic moment in a battle already marked by extraordinary violence. The fall of Major Montgomery and the heavy casualties suffered by the British during the assault may have contributed to what happened next. After the garrison eventually surrendered, British soldiers carried out acts of retaliatory violence against the American defenders, killing many who had already laid down their arms. The massacre at Fort Griswold became one of the most notorious episodes of the war, fueling outrage throughout Connecticut and the broader American cause. Jordan Freeman himself did not survive the battle. He was killed during the fighting, giving his life in defense of the fort and the ideals of the Revolution. Freeman's sacrifice, and his presence on the battlefield, speaks to a reality of the Revolutionary War that is sometimes overlooked. The forces that fought for American independence were not monolithic. Free Black men like Jordan Freeman served in militia units and Continental forces throughout the war, contributing to a cause whose promises of liberty and equality were not yet extended to all. Freeman's name is inscribed on the Groton Monument, a tall granite obelisk erected on the site of Fort Griswold to honor the defenders who fell there. His inclusion alongside the other names on the monument is a recognition that his service and sacrifice were equal to those of any other soldier who fought and died that day. The Battle of Fort Griswold and Jordan Freeman's role in it matter not only as a chapter in the military history of the Revolution but as a reminder of the complex and often contradictory nature of the founding era. Freeman fought as a free man for a nation still grappling with the institution of slavery, and his courage in the face of a determined enemy deserves to be remembered as part of the full and honest story of American independence.

Wounded Defenders Sent Down the Hill

**The Wounded Defenders of Fort Griswold: Horror on the Hill** On September 6, 1781, the coastal town of New London and the neighboring community of Groton Heights in Connecticut experienced one of the most devastating raids of the American Revolutionary War. A British force of approximately 1,700 troops, commanded by the infamous turncoat Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, launched a two-pronged assault on the twin forts guarding the mouth of the Thames River. While Arnold himself led the attack on Fort Trumbull on the New London side, a detachment under Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Eyre crossed the river to storm Fort Griswold on Groton Heights. What unfolded there would become one of the war's most harrowing episodes, and the treatment of the wounded defenders after the fighting ceased would seal the event's reputation as a massacre rather than a mere battle. Fort Griswold was defended by roughly 165 American militia and volunteers under the command of Colonel William Ledyard. Though outnumbered and outgunned, the garrison put up a fierce resistance, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking British and Hessian forces. Lieutenant Colonel Eyre was mortally wounded during the assault, and command passed to Major Stephen Bromfield, who was also killed. By the time the British finally breached the walls, they had suffered staggering losses, and the surviving officers and soldiers were enraged. When Colonel Ledyard reportedly offered his sword in surrender, a British officer — traditionally identified as Major Bromfield's successor — is said to have taken it and run Ledyard through with his own blade. What followed was a brutal slaughter of men who had already laid down their arms. Approximately 85 American defenders were killed, many after attempting to surrender, and dozens more were severely wounded. It was in the aftermath of this carnage that one of the most disturbing episodes occurred. British soldiers loaded a number of the badly wounded American survivors onto a cart, ostensibly to transport them down the steep hill from the fort. Whether what happened next was a deliberate act of cruelty or a moment of reckless indifference remains debated by historians, but the outcome was horrific. The cart reportedly broke free from the control of those guiding it and careened wildly down the sharp incline of the hill. The wounded men, already suffering from grievous injuries sustained in the fighting and the massacre that followed, were thrown about violently as the cart gained speed. Some of the men were further maimed, and others were killed outright by the uncontrolled descent. Survivors who witnessed or endured this ordeal carried their testimony into the public record, and their accounts spread rapidly through Connecticut and beyond. The incident became a powerful symbol of British brutality and a rallying point for the Patriot cause. The treatment of wounded prisoners violated the accepted conventions of eighteenth-century warfare, which generally held that injured men who had surrendered were to be treated with basic humanity. The episode at Groton Heights shocked communities already weary of war and deepened the resolve of Connecticut's citizens to see the struggle through to its conclusion. Public outrage was compounded by the broader destruction Arnold's forces wrought that day, including the burning of much of New London, a prosperous port town that had served as a base for American privateers. The timing of the massacre gave it additional significance in the larger Revolutionary War narrative. Just weeks after the horrors at Fort Griswold, American and French forces achieved the decisive victory at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781, effectively ensuring American independence. The sacrifice of the Groton Heights defenders, and the cruelty visited upon the wounded men sent hurtling down the hill, served as a grim reminder of the cost of that independence. Communities in southeastern Connecticut mourned their dead for generations, and the memory of the massacre informed local identity well into the nineteenth century and beyond. A monument erected at Fort Griswold in 1830 bears the names of the fallen, ensuring that their suffering — and the shocking mistreatment of the wounded — would not be forgotten. The episode remains a potent testament to the thin line between warfare and atrocity, and to the enduring power of survivor testimony in shaping how history remembers its darkest moments.

Groton's Maritime Defense Legacy Established

# Groton's Maritime Defense Legacy Established On September 6, 1781, the small but strategically vital community of Groton, Connecticut, became the site of one of the most brutal engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The defense of Fort Griswold, perched on the eastern bank of the Thames River overlooking its mouth at Long Island Sound, was a moment of extraordinary sacrifice that would echo through centuries of American military history. What happened that day not only shaped the memory of a community but established a tradition of maritime defense that continues to define Groton's identity well into the modern era. The attack on Fort Griswold was part of a broader British raid on the New London and Groton area, led by the infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold, who had defected to the British cause the previous year. Arnold, a Connecticut native who knew the region's geography intimately, was tasked by British command with striking at the privateer haven of New London, where American ships had been harassing British supply lines with devastating effectiveness. The raid was also intended to create a diversion that might draw General George Washington's attention northward, away from his planned march toward Yorktown, Virginia, where he and French General Rochambeau were closing in on the British forces of Lord Cornwallis. Arnold divided his forces, sending a detachment across the river to assault Fort Griswold while he personally led the attack on New London. Fort Griswold was garrisoned by a relatively small force of Connecticut militia and local defenders, commanded by Colonel William Ledyard. Though outnumbered by the approximately eight hundred British regulars and Loyalist troops who advanced on their position, the garrison mounted a fierce and determined resistance. The fort's stone and earthen walls gave the defenders a strong position, and they inflicted significant casualties on the attacking force as it attempted to storm the fortification. However, the sheer weight of numbers eventually told, and British troops breached the walls. What followed became one of the war's most controversial episodes. According to multiple American accounts, after Colonel Ledyard surrendered his sword to the British officer who demanded it, he was killed with his own blade, and a general massacre of the garrison ensued. Approximately eighty-five American defenders were killed, many of them after resistance had effectively ceased. The brutality of the assault shocked Connecticut and the broader American public, fueling patriot resolve in the war's final weeks. Across the river, Arnold's forces burned much of New London, destroying warehouses, ships, and supplies. The twin attacks devastated the area economically, but they failed in their strategic objective. Washington was not diverted from his march south, and just weeks later, the siege of Yorktown culminated in the surrender that effectively ended major combat operations in the Revolutionary War. The geography that made Groton worth fighting over in 1781 — its commanding position at the mouth of a deep-water harbor with direct access to Long Island Sound and the open Atlantic beyond — would prove equally significant in later centuries. The same natural advantages that drew colonial defenders to Fort Griswold's heights attracted the United States Navy, which in the twentieth century established its primary submarine base along the Thames River in Groton. The Naval Submarine Base New London, as it came to be known, became the home port for the nation's submarine fleet and a center of undersea warfare training and development. The continuity between the Revolutionary War garrison and the modern submarine force is not merely coincidental but represents an unbroken thread of maritime defense stretching across more than two centuries. Local commemorations in Groton actively honor this connection. The Groton Monument, a granite obelisk erected in the nineteenth century near the site of Fort Griswold, stands as a lasting tribute to Colonel Ledyard and the defenders who gave their lives. Together, the monument and the submarine base serve as powerful symbols of a community whose identity has been shaped, from its earliest days, by the imperative of defending America's coastline and controlling the waters beyond.

Anna Bailey Brings Flannel to the Fort

According to local tradition, Anna Warner Bailey — later known as "Mother Bailey" — brought flannel petticoats to Fort Griswold during the battle to be used as wadding for the garrison's cannon. The story, while difficult to verify from contemporary sources, became one of the most celebrated examples of female civilian support during the Revolution. Bailey's legend grew over the decades after the war. She was honored in her later years as a living symbol of patriotic sacrifice, and her story was invoked whenever Connecticut celebrated its Revolutionary heritage. Whether the petticoat story is precisely accurate or represents a broader truth about civilian women's contributions to the defense, it remains part of Groton's Revolutionary identity.

Groton Community Buries Its Dead After the Massacre

# Groton Community Buries Its Dead After the Massacre On the morning of September 6, 1781, a British force of approximately 1,700 troops under the command of Benedict Arnold — the most infamous traitor of the American Revolution — descended upon the twin communities of New London and Groton, Connecticut. Arnold, himself a native of nearby Norwich, knew the terrain intimately and understood the strategic value of New London's harbor, which had long served as a base for American privateers who raided British supply ships. His mission was to destroy the port and neutralize its threat to the Crown's naval operations. What unfolded that day would leave scars on the region that endured for generations, and nowhere was the devastation felt more acutely than in the small community of Groton, which in the days that followed faced the almost unbearable task of burying its dead. While Arnold personally led the assault on New London, ordering the burning of warehouses, ships, and homes that sent massive columns of smoke into the September sky, a second British column crossed the Thames River to attack Fort Griswold on Groton Heights. The fort was defended by a garrison of around 150 men — not professional soldiers, but local militia drawn from the farms, fishing wharves, and workshops of Groton and the surrounding towns. These were men who had answered the alarm bells and cannon signals that morning, grabbing muskets and rushing to the fort under the command of Colonel William Ledyard. They were neighbors, relatives, and friends, and many of them would never return home. The British forces, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Eyre, demanded the fort's surrender, but Ledyard and his men refused to yield. The ensuing assault was fierce and bloody. The militia defenders fought valiantly, inflicting significant casualties on the attacking force — Eyre himself was mortally wounded during the charge. But the British ultimately overwhelmed the garrison, pouring over the walls and into the fort. What happened next became one of the most notorious episodes of the entire war. According to survivors' accounts, after Colonel Ledyard surrendered his sword to a British officer, he was run through with his own blade. The killing did not stop with his death. British soldiers, enraged by their own heavy losses, carried out a massacre of the garrison, cutting down men who had already laid down their arms. By the time the violence ended, approximately 88 American defenders lay dead and many more were grievously wounded. In the days that followed, the people of Groton confronted a grief almost impossible to fathom. Eighty-eight men lost from a single small community in a single afternoon meant that nearly every household was touched by death. Fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands — men who had been tending fields, mending nets, and working trades just hours before — now had to be identified, recovered from the blood-soaked grounds of Fort Griswold, and laid to rest. The dead were gathered and buried together in a mass grave near the fort, a communal resting place that reflected the communal nature of their sacrifice. Families who came to claim knowledge of their loved ones did so while gazing across the Thames River at the smoldering ruins of New London, where homes and livelihoods had been reduced to ash. The massacre at Fort Griswold and the burning of New London rank among the most brutal episodes of the Revolutionary War, and they carried profound significance beyond their immediate horror. The attacks occurred just weeks before the decisive American and French victory at Yorktown in October 1781, which effectively ended major combat operations in the war. That the British were still capable of — and willing to carry out — such devastating raids on civilian communities so close to the war's conclusion underscored the conflict's relentless cruelty. The fact that these raids were led by Benedict Arnold, an American-born officer who had once fought heroically for the patriot cause, added a layer of bitter betrayal that the people of southeastern Connecticut never forgot. The mass grave near Fort Griswold became a site of remembrance and mourning, and in 1830 a granite monument was erected on Groton Heights to honor the fallen defenders. Their sacrifice reminded future generations that the costs of American independence were paid not only on famous battlefields but also in small communities where ordinary people gave everything they had for a cause they believed was just.

Groton Community Mourns and Recovers

The day after the battle, the people of Groton began the grim task of recovering their dead and caring for the wounded. In a small community where nearly every family was connected to the militia, the casualties represented an almost unbearable loss. Approximately 85 men were dead and 60 wounded — from a garrison of roughly 150. The community's recovery was slow and shaped by grief. Widows and orphans of the fallen defenders petitioned for assistance. The memory of the massacre became a binding element of community identity, retold at commemorations and passed down through families for generations. Fort Griswold became sacred ground — a place where the cost of resistance was measured in names etched in granite.

Groton Monument Erected

The Groton Monument, a 134-foot granite obelisk, was dedicated on the site of Fort Griswold on September 6, 1830 — the forty-ninth anniversary of the battle. It was one of the first monuments in the United States dedicated to Revolutionary War dead and bore the names of the defenders killed in the battle and massacre. The monument's construction reflected decades of community effort to memorialize the event. Its height and permanence were deliberate statements about the significance of the sacrifice. The monument remains a central feature of the Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park and continues to serve as a memorial for ceremonies honoring the fallen defenders.