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The Battle of Ridgefield was a battle and a series of skirmishes between American and British forces during the American Revolutionary War. The main battle was fought in the village of Ridgefield, Connecticut on April 27, 1777 and more skirmishing occurred the next day between Ridgefield and the coastline near modern Westport, Connecticut. On April 25, 1777 a British force under the command of the Royal Governor of the Province of New York, Major General William Tryon landed between Fairfield and Norwalk (in what is now Westport), and marched from there to Danbury. There they destroyed Continental Army supplies after chasing off a small garrison of troops. When word of the British troop movements spread, Connecticut militia leaders sprang into action. Major General David Wooster, Brigadier General Gold S. Silliman, and Brigadier General Benedict Arnold raised a combined force of roughly 700 Continental Army regular and irregular local militia forces to oppose the British, but could not reach Danbury in time to prevent the destruction of the supplies. Instead, they set out to harass the British on their return to the coast. The company led by General Wooster twice attacked Tryon's rear guard during their march south on April 27. In the second encounter, Wooster was mortally wounded; he died five days later. The main encounter then took place at Ridgefield, where several hundred militia under Arnold's command confronted the British and were driven away in a running battle down the town's main street, but not before inflicting casualties on the British. Additional militia forces arrived, and the next day they continued to harass the British as they returned to Compo Beach, where the fleet awaited them. Arnold regrouped the militia and some artillery to make a stand against the British near their landing site, but his position was flanked and his force scattered by artillery fire and a bayonet charge. The expedition was a tactical success for the British forces, but their actions in pursuing the raid galvanized Patriot support in Connecticut. While the British again made raids on Connecticut's coastal communities (including a second raiding expedition by Tryon in 1779 and a 1781 raid led by Arnold after his defection to the British side), they made no more raids that penetrated far into the countryside. ==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.〔Johnston, pp. 36, 46, 126–127, 448〕〔Ward, pp. 202–253〕 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."〔Nelson (1990), p. 150〕 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,〔Burr (1906), p. 141〕 and had also met with some success in an earlier raid against the Continental Army outpost at Peekskill, New York.〔Burr (1906), p. 142〕 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.〔〔Case (1927), p. 12〕 Command of the entire operation was given to General Tryon, and the fleet sailed from New York on April 22, 1777.〔Ward (1952), p. 492〕 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.〔Ives (1900), p. 429〕 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.〔Ives (1900), p. 431〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Ridgefield」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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