Accordingly, beginning on June 27, Clinton commenced withdrawing the majority of his troops from the two captured posts to support a raid targeting the Connecticut coast, undertaken by Maj. Gen. William Tryon. Left behind at Stony Point was a garrison of some six hundred men consisting, as Clinton later reported, of the 17th Regiment of Foot, the Grenadier Company of the 71st Regiment, a Company of the loyal Americans, and a small Detachment of the Royal Artillery, [all] under the command of Lieut. Colonel [Henry] Johnson of the 17th Regiment. Stony Point was a natural fortress and with these trustworthy troops improving their position on a daily basis, Clinton had no fear for the post’s safety. He did not, as he later wrote, entertain the smallest apprehension that any attack the enemy could make against that place…could possibly be attended with mischief before I should be able to afford them assistance.

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A month earlier Washington would have seconded this assessment. Soon after the loss of Stony Point and Verplancks Point, he noted that an attempt to dislodge them, from the natural strength of the positions, would require a greater force and apparatus than we are master of. All we can do is to lament what we cannot remedy. As time passed with no further offensive moves on Clinton’s part, Washington began to reconsider. A concentrated intelligence gathering was ordered. Cavalry, under the capable Major Henry Lee, began collecting information along both sides of the river. Some was obtained through direct observation, while other bits came from the interrogation of civilians who supplied the British with provisions. There was even a spy named Allan McLane who took the part of a local farmer and in this guise entered the Stony Point fortifications to observe their location and development.

This process was well underway when Anthony Wayne arrived in response to Washington’s summons. On July 1, Wayne took charge of an elite strike force styled the Light Corps. Patterned after similar units in the European armies, this command had been personally drilled by Washington’s chief disciplinarian, Baron Friedrich von Steuben. Consisting of veteran troops taken from the Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia Lines, its first assignment was to shield West Point, probe the enemy dispositions and intentions, and look for an opening to strike back. To this end, the Light Corps was split between the eastern and western sides of the Hudson, and continued to train, especially on Wayne’s weapon of choice, the bayonet. There was one more item that Washington saved for Wayne’s eyes alone. It is a matter I have much at heart to make some attempt upon these [enemy-occupied] Posts…if warranted by the probability of success, he informed his aggressive, ambitious subordinate.

It was Stony Point that drew Washington’s greatest attention. While the disruption of Kings Ferry is often cited as a prime motivation for this interest, Washington saw its closure more as an inconvenience than a catastrophe. He understood, perhaps better than most, the symbolic gesture that Clinton was making by maintaining such an advanced position and the morale-boosting value for the Colonial cause if it could be retaken. The Virginian also appreciated that Clinton was stretched thin and such a dramatic blow to one of his forward positions could add even more caution to his increasingly conservative strategy. So, well before Wayne arrived, Washington was scrutinizing every scrap of information gathered about the Stony Point defenses, hoping to unlock their mysteries.

What he learned was initially disheartening. Gone were the days when the British military treated the American soldiery with disdain. Colonel Johnson, the Stony Point commander, worked diligently to improve its natural advantages. The promontory was scraped bare of trees, leaving a stark landscape of earth, rocks, stumps, brushwoods, and defensive works. The main position had been established on the 150-foot-high plateaulike summit set against the point’s eastern tip, called by the British the Table of the Hill. It encompassed the most powerful cannons and all administrative and command stations. Unconnected strongpoints were at the corners of the Table, the most significant of which was known as the Flagstaff Battery. The principal defensive line for this core citadel was indicated by an abatis (tightly packed felled trees with their interlocked branches pointing toward the enemy), which ran from the southern shore to an especially steep escarpment bordering the north side. There was one artillery position along this line, the Howitzer Battery. Several engineers thought that this main position was the only one worth defending.

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