THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE FIVE MILE RIVER.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE FIVE MILE RIVER. The place where we watched the fireworks on July 2—Pinkney Park—played a role in the Revolutionary War. (It is now the place where Shakespeare on the Sound performs its plays.) Frank E. Raymond’s ROWAYTON ON THE HALF SHELL tells about the skirmishes that took place near Five Mile River. The British held Long Island and conducted raids across Long Island Sound. Neighbors had divided loyalties. There was “bitter guerilla warfare on both sides of the Sound.” For example, in June, 1777, Connecticut Loyalists seized and delivered “a large number of fatted cattle” to a British ship of war “anchored openly in Five Mile River Harbor.” The place where we watched the fireworks was the location of a store and boatyard that carried on trade with the West Indies. In March, 1777, a British raiding party captured Captain Samuel Richards, who owned the store and boatyard with his brother. They broke into his house, a little upriver from the store, and seized him and 14 other men, most of whom had been assigned to guard duty that night at Five Mile River. Conditions in prisons for American prisoners of war were harsh. Richards, who was 60 years old, died soon after he was released in a prisoner exchange after 4 months in prison.