On this day 250 years ago the Virginia Continental Army and Militia forces under the command of Brig. Gen. Andrew Lewis occupied Gwynn’s Island, Virginia. They first drove off the remaining British ships guarding the island with artillery, and took canoes to capture the damaged sloop Lady Charlotte, its longboat and a pilot boat and their crew. The Patriots then used the canoes and captured longboat and pilot boat to ferry 250 men commanded by Lt. Col. Alexander McClanahan onto Gwynn’s Island. The Americans marched across the island just as the last British troops were rowing away. The British had left behind hundreds of escaped slaves dead and dying from smallpox, with some of the dead left unburied. One soldier wrote “such a scene of misery, distress, and cruelty my eyes never beheld.” But the Americans were able to capture a nine-pound cannon, numerous muskets and small arms, large officers tents, baggage, horses and cattle.
Continental Army Lt. Samuel Denny was one of the unsung heroes of the Battle of Gwynn’s Island 250 years ago today. The previous day he had taken command of the battery after Capt. Arundel was killed by the explosion of his experimental cannon, and then Lt. Denny effectively led his battery as it drove off the British fleet and troops. Then on this day he took command of the captured Lady Charlotte, manned it with men from his battery and other volunteers and then sailed toward the British fleet where he traded shots with the HMS Otter. According to his brother-in-law years later, Denny had enlisted in the British Army as a boy before the Revolution but “not being willing to fight against his Country he made his escape from the British Service” in Canada at the beginning of the War and made his way home to Virginia where he joined the Continental Army. He would be promoted to Captain and continue in Continental service through the siege of Yorktown serving until January 1, 1782, but died shortly thereafter without leaving children to carry on his memory. So we should honor his service today.
Sources: Wrike at 83-86; https://revwarapps.org/VAS3356.pdf
On this day 250 years ago in White Plains, New York, the Fourth Provincial Congress changed its name to the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York, and “acts as legislature without an executive” for the State. They began the task of writing a new constitution for New York.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Provincial_Congress
On this day 250 years ago, ten delegates from the St. John’s, or Maliseet, and the Mi’kmaq tribes arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Over the
next several days Ambroise Saint-Aubin of the Maliseets, the speaker of the delegation, pledged the military aid of sixty Maliseet men and more than 280 Mi’kmaq men and claimed that “all our People are all one as Boston.”
Source: https://washcollreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sce-kitri-post.pdf
On this day 250 years ago, in Skenesborough (now Whitehall), New York, Lt. Col. Thomas Williams, Jr. died of smallpox.
Source:
On This Day In The Revolution 