Clinton decides to launch a raid into…
September 1781 CE
He only plans it as a raid, but he also believes that New London can be used as a base for further operations into the interior of New England if a permanent British occupation could be established.
He gives Brigadier General Benedict Arnold command of the forces for the raid.
Arnold is an American, a native of Norwich, Connecticut just up the river from New London, who had betrayed his compatriots to join the British the previous September.
The forces assembled by the British are divided into two battalions, numbering about seventeen hundred men.
The first is under Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Eyre, composed of the 40th and 54th Regiments of Foot and a Loyalist provincial regiment of Cortlandt Skinner's New Jersey Volunteers.
The second battalion is under Arnold's command and consists of the 38th Foot and a variety of Loyalist units, including the Loyal American Regiment and Arnold's provincial regiment, known as the American Legion.
The expedition also includes about one hundred Hessian jägers, a small number of artillerymen, three six-pound guns, and a howitzer, all of which are divided among the battalions.
These troops are embarked on transports and sail on September 4 in the company of a fleet of smaller armed ships, led by Commodore John Bazely in the fifth-rate HMS Amphion.
The fleet anchors about thirty miles (forty-eight kilometers) west of New London to make final preparations, and...