Newport

Newport, Rhode Island: Crossroads of Revolution

Long before the first shots of the American Revolution echoed at Lexington and Concord, Newport, Rhode Island, stood as one of the most prosperous and cosmopolitan seaports in British North America. The fifth-largest city in the colonies, with a population of about 9,500 and the third-busiest port , Newport owed its rise to its deep harbor— big, wide, deep, and situated such that a sailing vessel could enter or depart regardless of wind direction, and not prone to freezing in winter . Newport's seventeen manufacturers of oil and candles gave the town a practical monopoly of the spermaceti trade until the Revolution , and over 150 separate wharves and hundreds of shops crowded along the harbor . Its merchant wealth, its diverse religious communities, and its strategic position at the mouth of Narragansett Bay made it a prize that both sides in the coming conflict understood they could not afford to ignore.

Newport's revolutionary temper had been on display long before open war. Protests against the Stamp Act of 1765 took a variety of forms, including massive riots in a number of cities, Newport among them.

On August 26, 1765, effigies of three Stamp Act defenders were hung from a gallows erected in Queen Anne Square, guarded by William Ellery—who would later sign the Declaration of Independence—Samuel Vernon, and Robert Crook. The homes of the Loyalist pamphleteers Martin Howard, Dr. Thomas Moffat, and stamp distributor Augustus Johnston were ransacked by the mob. In 1769, defiance escalated further when Newport citizens confronted the captain of His Majesty's armed sloop Liberty, then boarded, dismantled, and burned the ship on the north end of Goat Island in Newport Harbor—one of the first acts of open defiance against the British crown leading up to the Revolutionary War . Because the city was such a well-known hotbed of revolutionary fervor, and because of its long history of disdain for royal and parliamentary efforts to control its trade, the British targeted Newport for occupation.

Newport's ordeal began in earnest on December 8, 1776, when a powerful British naval and land force under Sir Peter Parker and Sir Henry Clinton swept into Narragansett Bay and seized the town without significant resistance. The fleet numbered 71 ships carrying 7,100 British and Hessian soldiers , and both Admiral Richard Howe and his brother General William Howe agreed on the need for a base of operations in New England; strategically, with Narragansett Bay as a base, British forces could launch operations to other parts of New England and defend New York City merchant ships from revolutionary privateers . Lord Richard Howe wanted an ice-free port in which his large navy could spend the winter . The occupation that followed was devastating. The British garrison, eventually placed under the command of Major General Richard Prescott, transformed Newport into a fortified naval base and garrison town. Soldiers were quartered in private homes, churches were converted into barracks and hospitals, and much of the town's famous architectural heritage was stripped for firewood during the harsh New England winters. The need to have some 300 cords of wood per week just for the troops caused the island to be largely denuded.

Ezra Stiles, Newport minister, intellectual, and avid diarist, estimated that some 300 houses were destroyed for firewood or through the depredations of troops billeted therein.

Many wharves were torn up for firewood as well. The once-thriving merchant economy collapsed. The population of the town shrank to about 4,500 , as residents fled to the mainland. The remaining population, mostly Loyalists and Quakers, had to live under strict martial law.

About 1,700 captive American seamen were forced onto prison ships in Newport Harbor. Newport's famed religious diversity—its Quaker meetinghouses, its Anglican churches, its Congregational halls, and the Touro Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue in North America—all suffered under the weight of military occupation. The British presence in Newport was not merely punitive; it was strategic. Control of Narragansett Bay allowed the Royal Navy to dominate the southern New England coastline, threaten American supply lines, and project power deep into the region.

The Americans, unable to dislodge the British by conventional means, turned to unconventional warfare. Prescott had earned a reputation for harsh treatment: he verbally abused patriot prisoners, struck civilians who did not doff their hats to him, sent people to filthy jails, and allowed the destruction of unoccupied houses in Newport. On the night of July 10, 1777, Lieutenant Colonel William Barton led a small raiding party of approximately forty men across Narragansett Bay in whaleboats, slipped past British naval patrols, and descended on a farmhouse near Portsmouth where General Prescott was quartered. Barton had received intelligence from a slave who had escaped from Aquidneck Island that Prescott slept at the Overing House each night. In a feat of astonishing audacity, Barton's men surprised and captured the British commander in his nightclothes, spiriting him back across the bay before the garrison could respond. The capture of Prescott was a propaganda triumph. George Washington wrote that the conduct of Barton and his raiding party "cannot be too highly applauded" and called it "among the finest partisan exploits that has taken place in the course of the war on either side." Finally, in April 1778, after many months of negotiation, Prescott was exchanged for American Major General Charles Lee , who had been captured by British dragoons in New Jersey in December 1776. Prescott would eventually return to active service, playing a subordinate role at Newport under General Robert Pigot , who had replaced him as garrison commander.

The failed attempt to retake Newport in the summer of 1778 became one of the most consequential episodes of the war—not for its military outcome, but for what it set in motion. France formally recognized the United States in February 1778 following the British surrender at Saratoga, and war was declared between France and Great Britain in March 1778.

The French dispatched a fleet of 16 warships to North America, led by Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing; General George Washington suggested that the French assist Major General John Sullivan in capturing Newport, and d'Estaing agreed, arriving in Narragansett Bay on July 29, 1778.

While the British commander, Major General Robert Pigot, had more than 5,000 troops—including British