Fort Montgomery: The Chain Across the Hudson
New York
The Hudson River Highlands south of here were the strategic heart of the American Revolution, and the site of one of its bloodiest overlooked disasters.
In seventeen seventy-seven, the Americans had stretched a massive iron chain across the Hudson at this narrows, supported by log booms, to block British warships from sailing upriver and cutting New England off from the rest of the colonies. Fort Montgomery and its twin, Fort Clinton, sat on either side of the river to defend the chain. Together they were garrisoned by roughly six hundred Continental troops commanded by brothers: Governor George Clinton and Brigadier General James Clinton.
On October sixth, seventeen seventy-seven, a British force of roughly two thousand one hundred, Redcoats, Loyalists, and Hessians, crossed the Popolopen Creek and attacked both forts simultaneously from the land side. The assault was designed by General Sir Henry Clinton as a diversionary move to pull American troops away from the Saratoga campaign, where Burgoyne was struggling. The defending Americans, outnumbered better than three to one, held through a long afternoon of fighting. The British took the forts at bayonet point after nightfall. More than half the American garrison was killed, wounded, or captured. George Clinton himself escaped by sliding down the cliff face to the river.
The British destroyed the chain and sailed upriver, burning Kingston, the state capital, ten days later. But the diversion failed strategically. Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on October seventeenth, just eleven days after the fall of the forts. That surrender brought France into the war on the American side, and the Revolution turned.
Fort Montgomery today is a state historic site. The earthworks are still visible. The chain that once stretched across the river is gone, but some of its massive iron links were recovered and are on display here, each one a reminder that the fate of a continent once hinged on blocking this particular stretch of water.
