New London

Long before the first shots of the American Revolution rang out at Lexington and Concord, New London, Connecticut, was already a town defined by the sea. Situated at the mouth of the Thames River, with a deep natural harbor that opened onto Long Island Sound, the town had spent more than a century cultivating a maritime economy that made it one of the busiest ports between Boston and New York. The harbor was considered to be the best deep water harbor on Long Island Sound , and its wharves handled whale oil, rum, provisions, and the steady traffic of merchant vessels that linked the colonies to the Caribbean and beyond. As the only deep-water port between British-held Newport, Rhode Island, and British headquarters in New York, it was the perfect location from which to launch attacks on British shipping. When the imperial crisis of the 1770s forced American communities to choose between loyalty and resistance, New London's merchants, mariners, and civic leaders did not hesitate. They transformed their commercial port into one of the most aggressive centers of naval warfare in the Revolution—a decision that would ultimately bring catastrophic consequences at the hands of a man who had once called Connecticut home.