Notes On Little Compton

The Battle of Rhode Island

Washington had planned to make a combined attack of the American and
French fleet on the British. General Sullivan was in command of the American
troops many of the men where from Tiverton and Little Compton. The plan
was while the French cannonaded the town of Newport, General Sullivan
would attack by land.
The plan was for Colonel Greene to cross Tiverton into Portsmouth and Gen.
Lafayette at the same time cross from the island of Conanicut to Portsmouth
with French Marines and Continental troops. On August 6th Gen. Lafayette
with Gen. Varnums and Gen. Glovers brigades left Providence for Tiverton.
Gen. Sullivan transferred his headquarters to Tiverton on the 7th the attack
was to take place the following Monday. British evacuated the fort at Butte
Hill and withdrew their troops to Newport. Sullivan had no idea of this till the
next morning.
On the 10th, the commander of French fleet notified Sullivan that he was
about to attack. But as the French fleet came out the British fleet
disappeared in the distance, the French pursued them, leaving Americans
with no support.
The day after the French fleet disappeared, a northeastern storm with high
wind and rain discommoded the troops. The next day, August 12th, the storm
increased so violently as to prevent the movement of the army. Many troops
were absolutely without shelter. Later called the French storm.
On the 15th of august Americans moved forward, extended across the island
from water to water. The morning of the 19th 1st American battery opened; by
10 oclock 300 cannons had been fired and before 1 oclock British
evacuated. Tuesday 21st, army cheered at the sight of the French anchor off
Beaver Tail light. However the storm had distressed the fleet soldiers even
more than Sullivans soldiers, they were unfit to fight and French went to
Boston for repairs.
On January 4, 1777, the British frigate Cerberus, laying at Fogland Ferry, in
the east passage, was driven from her moorings by the troops at Little
Compton who brought two pieces of artillery to bear upon her. They
damaged the hull, killed six of the crew and wounded many others. The
Americans only had one wounded man.i
The Hurricane of 1778 and struck on August 11 of that year as British and
French warships were circling each other preparing for battle off Newport.
The French, under command of Gen. D'Estaing, had entered the
Revolutionary War on the American side about a month earlier. The British,
as I'm sure you're aware, had been occupying Newport and Aquidneck Island
since 1776 and blockading Providence with frigates stationed in Narragansett
Bay and the Sakonnet River. The storm raged for two days, badly damaging
ships on both sides. Mary Almy's journal (can be found online under her
name) describes the storm as a violent wind that blew "all day" with thunder
and lightning. "It never rained harder since the flood," she wrote. The

warships retreated, the French to Boston for repair, the British back to New
York. An attempted invasion of Aquidneck Island by Patriot militias at the
same time was affected by the storm, and the troops under American Gen.
Sullivan eventually retreated back to Tiverton. The British went on occupying
Newport and blockading Providence but the center of the war moved down
the coast, and the British withdrew from Rhode Island in Dec. 1779 leaving
the city Newport and its island in such wreckage that it didn't fully recover
for a century. Newport would never again be the vibrant center of trade it
had been before the war.ii

i Wilbour, Benjamin Franklin, comp. Notes on Little Compton. Edited by Carlton C.

Brownell. Little Compton, RI: Little Compton Historical Society, 1970.
ii Lisle, Janet