The McDonald Papers, Part I, Chapter 4: The Danbury Expedition
A large corps of guides, natives of the western parts of Connecticut, well acquainted with the country about to be passed over, also accompanied the expedition; together with a subaltern's command, carefully selected from the Seventeenth regiment of light dragoons and superbly mounted. In numerical strength, the invaders amounted to consider-ably upward of two thousand men. Besides these, the expe-ditionary army was joined and supported by a detachment of the Royal artillery and six light field-pieces. Sir William Howe, while he gratified the zeal and ambition of Tryon, was not unmindful of his inexperience, and sent with him as lieu-tenants, two of the most accomplished officers in the British service,--the Brigadiers Agnew and Sir William Erskine, a precaution, the wisdom of which was abundantly justified by the sequel. The Royal forces sailed from New York on the 23d of April in twenty-four transports, conveyed by the ship Eagle of sixty-four guns, and by the Senegal and Swan, sloops of war: the whole naval department being under the command of Captain Duncan. The fleet was three days on the water before it gained the point of debarkation. When they beheld the approach of a squadron apparently so formidable, the inhabitants of every accessible place on the Connecticut shore supposed themselves in particular to be objects of
100 THE MCDONALD PAPERS
attack. Women and children in consternation fled for safety to the interior. On Friday the 25th, the British vessels appeared off Nor-walk Islands, standing in for Cedar Point. Near this last place, situate on the easterly side of Saugatuck river, they anchored about four o'clock in the afternoon, soon after which the troops commenced landing. The debarkation was effected for the most part under cover of a thick fog. It was completed soon after nine o'clock. The enemy's forces thereupon moved forward about a mile, and formed by torch-light on Compo-Hill.