Background
In the first two years of the American Revolutionary War, the state of Connecticut had not been the scene of conflict, even though the war had begun in neighboring Massachusetts in April 1775, and New York City had been taken by the British in a campaign in the fall of 1776. Major General William Howe, commanding the British forces in New York, drafted a plan for 1777 in which the primary goal was the taking of the rebel capital, Philadelphia. Troops left to defend New York were to include a brigade of 3,000 provincial troops under the command of the former royal governor of New York, William Tryon, who was given a temporary promotion as "major general of the provincials" in spring 1777. Howe's plan included authorization for Tryon to "operate on Hudson's River, or ... enter Connecticut as circumstances may point out." Tryon was given one of the early operations of the season, a raid against a Continental Army depot at Danbury, Connecticut. Howe had learned of the depot's existence through the efforts of a spy working for British Indian agent Guy Johnson, and had also met with some success in an earlier raid against the Continental Army outpost at Peekskill, New York.
A fleet consisting of 12 transports, a hospital ship, and some small craft was assembled and placed under the command of Captain Henry Duncan. The landing force consisted of 1,500 regulars drawn from the 4th, 15th, 23rd, 27th, 44th and 64th regiments, 300 Loyalists from the Prince of Wales American Regiment led by Montfort Browne, and a small contingent of the 17th Light Dragoons, all led by Generals Sir William Erskine and James Agnew. Command of the entire operation was given to General Tryon, and the fleet sailed from New York on April 22, 1777.
The Danbury depot had been established by order of the Second Continental Congress in 1776, and primarily served forces located in the Hudson River valley. In April 1777 the army began mustering regiments for that year's campaigns. When Tryon's expedition landed in Connecticut, there were about 50 Continental Army soldiers and 100 local militia at Danbury under the command of Joseph Platt Cooke, a local resident and a colonel in the state militia.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Ridgefield
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