The Affair at Little Egg Harbor

Little Egg Harbor massacre Part of the American Revolutionary War Date October 15, 1778 Location near Little Egg Harbor, present-day Tuckerton, New Jersey Result British victory Belligerents United States Great Britain Commanders and leaders Kazimierz Pułaski Patrick Ferguson Strength 50 250 Casualties and losses 30-50 killed 5 captured 3 killed 3 wounded

The Affair at Little Egg Harbor took place on October 15, 1778, place in New Jersey, USA, during the American Revolution. The massacre took place about one week after the Battle of Chestnut Neck, a British raid aimed at suppressing privateers who used the area as a base to harass and seize British ships and their cargoes.

Background

Main articles: New Jersey during the American Revolution and Battle of Chestnut Neck

At the time that Captain Patrick Ferguson was wreaking havoc on Colonial shipping in the Mullica River, Kazimierz Pułaski and his newly raised forces were ordered to oppose his actions. Pulaski's Legion, along with three companies of light infantry, three troops of light horse, and one artillery detachment, came too late to be of great use against Ferguson's operations. But their arrival did stop Ferguson from raiding the iron works at Batsto, and stemmed their attacks on privateers at The Forks of the Mullica River.

Attack

Massacre plaque

Pulaski's troops were deserters, mainly, as well as a number of foreign adventurers. They reached the Little Egg Harbor district (near present-day Tuckerton), and immediately set up camp on a farm. A deserter, Lt. Gustav Juliet, found Ferguson and told him of Pulaski's encampment; he mentioned that morale was fairly low, and security almost nonexistent, so that a surprise attack would be devastating. Ferguson promptly loaded 250 of his best men onto boats and rowed them, in the dark, some ten miles to what is now Osborne Island. He then marched them a further two miles to the site of the infantry outpost, which comprised fifty men a short distance from the main encampment. At first light, Ferguson ordered the attack; only five of his quarry were taken alive. Pulaski eventually led his mounted troops up, causing Ferguson to retreat to his boats minus a few men that had fallen into the colonists' hands.

The land formerly home to the farm is now the Country Club Estates development, a small parcel of the farm was preserved on a plot of land between Hollybrook Drive and Cedarbrook Lane. The Pulaski Monument is located on Pulaski Blvd in the Mystic Island section of Little Egg Harbor.

References

History of New Jersey
Colonial period
American Revolution
Nineteenth century
Twentieth Century
Twenty-first Century

• Information adapted from Boatner's Landmarks of the American Revolution, 1992 ed.
• Stryker, William Scudder (1894). The affair at Egg Harbor, New Jersey, October 15, 1778. Trenton, NJ: Naar, Day & Naar. http://books.google.com/books?id=JQIrAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22little%20egg%20harbor%22%20october%201778&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q=%22little%20egg%20harbor%22%20october%201778&f=false.