Tappan Massacre, New Jersey

TAPPAN MASSACRE, NEW JERSEY. 28 September 1778. Once Admiral Howe's fleet returned from ending the threat from d'Estaing's squadron, Major General Henry Clinton could risk sending large foraging parties to sweep through Westchester County and northern New Jersey. On the night of 21-22 September Major General Charles Cornwallis crossed to Bergen on the west side of the Hudson with some 5,000 men (Wilhelm Knyphausen would start a similar operation on the east side with 3,000 on 30 September). As Cornwallis established a forward base on the site of Fort Lee, Washington augmented the screening forces and told Major General Anthony Wayne to try and limit the depredations. Wayne posted the New Jersey militia of General William Winds at New Tappan while the Third Continental Light Dragoons of Colonel George Baylor occupied Old Tappan, two and a half miles away. Cornwallis aggressively sought ways to cut off and annihilate small parties and focused on Tappan, where he thought about seven hundred militia lay. During the night of 27-28 September he sent out two columns. Cornwallis himself led the right; Major General Charles "No-flint" Grey of Paoli the left. Deserters warned Winds in time to pull back, but Grey learned that Baylor was nearby and switched objectives. After a successful approach under cover of darkness, undoubtedly with the assistance of Loyalist guides, Grey's men silenced a twelve-man guard and surrounded three barns in which about 120 troopers slept. The Second Light Infantry Battalion charged in with the bayonet and smashed the regiment as a fighting force without firing a shot. Even Kemble felt that the British troops got out of control and killed men trying to surrender.

NUMBERS AND LOSSES

Baylor lost about 120 men, of whom Grey killed about 50 and captured about 50. Baylor was among the prisoners. Major Alexander Clough and seven other officers were mortally wounded.

SIGNIFICANCE

The operation had no impact on operations other than forcing Washington to send the survivors back to Virginia under Lieutenant Colonel William Washington to recover, and thus made a key player available for later campaigns in the south. But the "massacre" did inflame the Patriots. More important, Baylor's failure to provide adequate security did not obscure a fundamental weakness in using mounted units in such missions without giving them infantry support. Washington learned this lesson: in January 1781 the light dragoon regiments converted into combined arms legions.

SEE ALSO Paoli, Pennsylvania.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leiby, Adrian C. The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground, 1775–1783. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980.

Mazur, D. Bennett, and Wayne Daniels. Baylor's Dragoons Massacre, September 28, 1778. N.p. 1968.

Weskerna, Eleanor, and F. W. William Maurer. "The Flower of the Virginian" and the Massacre Near Old Tappan, September 28, 1778. River Vale, N.J.: Baylor's Dragoons Memorial Committee, 1978.

                          revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.