Was a war crime committed in CT during the Revolutionary War?

Jim Streeter would like to know what really happened at the Battle of Groton Heights, aka the Fort Griswold Massacre. Did more than 80 men die in bloody-but-fair combat while defending Fort Griswold on Sept. 6, 1781, during the American War for Independence, or were the majority of these American troops massacred after they surrendered in an unforgivable war crime?

Streeter is Groton’s town historian and a retired state police forensics examiner who still runs a forensics consulting firm. The remains of the fort are part of a park today that is dominated by a 127-foot monument to the slain that is one of the most striking war memorials in the state. In many ways the park is also a historic crime scene.

The buildup up to the battle isn’t in dispute. As ConnecticutHistory.org recounts, Connecticut native Benedict Arnold, once a hero of the Revolution who had infamously switched sides in 1780, was ordered to lead a British attack on the port of New London. The British hoped the attack would divert some of Gen. George Washington’s army away from the Virginia campaign, and would also punish the region for its privateering operations against the British. Arnold led about 1,700 men into the region and commanded a contingent on New London across from Fort Griswold on the west side of the Thames River. Acting on intelligence that Fort Griswold was poorly defended, Arnold also dispatched troops to take the fort on the other side of the river. When the British advanced on the fort, which was led by Col. William Ledyard, they suffered severe casualties, but breached the fort’s defenses due to their superior numbers.

What happens next is a real-world Rashomon.

According to American accounts, seeing the battle was lost, Ledyard

ordered a surrender, and handed over his sword to a British officer. This never-identified-officer took it, stabbed Ledyard with it, and a massacre of other surrendered Americans commenced. The Maryland Gazette reported that Ledyard and “70 other officers and men, were murdered.” However, the numbers associated with the battle are difficult to tally conclusively.

The book The Battle of Groton Heights, published in 1882, features several firsthand accounts from American veterans of the battle who spoke of a large massacre and of Ledyard’s murder at the hands of the British after surrendering his own sword. However, many of these accounts were gathered years after the event and, curiously, none of the witnesses claimed to have seen Ledyard stabbed.

Instead, they say they saw him surrender and then saw his body and deduced what happened.

British accounts make no mention of a massacre. “The attack was judicious and spirited and reflects the highest honor of the officers and troops engaged,” Arnold wrote in his report of the action.

Streeter believes the accounts given by the Connecticut soldiers. However, as a former investigator, he’d like the physical evidence to be more thoroughly examined. The tunic Ledyard wore as he was slain is in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Some who have studied the garment say the gashes in it are inconsistent with a sword stab and suggest Ledyard was killed by a bayonet. Ledyard’s sword is held by

the Bill Memorial Library in Groton.

While working with the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory in the ’90s, Streeter asked Dr. Henry Lee if comparing the tunic to the sword might establish if the weapon had been used to kill Ledyard. Dr. Lee felt it was possible. In addition, Streeter asked DNA experts at the lab if there might be DNA recoverable from the blade. “They felt that there is a possibility that remnants might remain on the sword because with DNA you don’t need much,” Streeter says. “So we were going to see if, indeed, the sword had any blood residue, which can be traced through relatives as being that of Col. Ledyard.”

However, Streeter’s efforts to test these objects never gained traction, and we’re left with the competing accounts of the events.

Michael D. Hattem, associate director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution, notes the American accounts of the battle are consistent. However, by the time the British entered the fort, the fog of war was thick. At one point in the battle, Fort Griswold’s flag was apparently shot down. There is some indication the British took this as a sign of surrender and were incensed when fighting continued, and perhaps distrustful of the true surrender that followed.

“You can come to a conclusion that this was not intended to be a quoteunquote massacre and still accept the American accounts,” Hattem says. “Because of the sort of series of miscommunications that were occurring throughout the siege of the fort, you can have a scene where Ledyard has said, ‘We are surrendering,’ and you might still have American soldiers who have not yet received word of that who continue on fighting. Then that’s perceived as having been a false surrender or trap.”

David Ross, a founding member of the Friends of Fort Griswold and a tour guide at the fort, is convinced by the many consistent American accounts that a massacre did indeed take place. He wants more people to learn about the battle and the men who died defending their new country. He lives near the fort, and while walking there, he’ll often give impromptu tours. “If I see people reading the signs, I’ll ask them if they know what happened here. And they’ll say, ‘No.’ I’ll ask them, ‘Would you like to hear about it? I can tell you about it.’ ”

The story is often much more dramatic — and marked by mystery — than these parkgoers suspect.

Courtesy of the Friends of Fort Griswold The death of Col. William Ledyard at the hands of the British during the Battle of Groton Heights is depicted in the David Wagner mural in the lobby of the City of Groton Municipal Building. But did it really happen this way?