Loyalist Raid of 1778
Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On Feb. 19, 1778, while the British occupied Philadelphia, some 40 armed Loyalists raided the tavern here. The fighting left 5 American soldiers dead, 4 wounded, 11 captured. Tailors here were making uniforms for use at Valley Forge, and 2000 yards of cloth were lost.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On February 19, 1778, with the British holding Philadelphia and Washington's army wintering at Valley Forge, roughly 40 armed Loyalists raided the tavern that stood here. The fighting left five American soldiers dead, four wounded, and eleven captured. Tailors working at the site had been sewing uniforms for the troops at Valley Forge, and some 2,000 yards of cloth were carried off.
Why it matters
The raid is a vivid reminder that the Revolution was also a civil war among neighbors, and that the suffering army at Valley Forge depended on vulnerable supply lines in the surrounding countryside.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the winter of 1778, the American Revolution was at one of its lowest and most desperate points. The British held Philadelphia, then the largest city in the colonies and the seat of the Continental Congress, and George Washington's battered army was enduring the brutal winter encampment at Valley Forge not far away.
The countryside of Bucks County lay in a dangerous middle ground. It was close enough to occupied Philadelphia to be within reach of British and Loyalist forces, yet it was also part of the network of farms, mills, and workshops that the struggling Continental Army leaned on for food, clothing, and supplies. Every barn and tavern in this landscape could become a target.
It is easy, centuries later, to picture the Revolution as neat lines of soldiers on distant battlefields. The reality here was closer and more intimate — a war fought among neighbors, in familiar buildings, in the dead of a hard winter.
People & events
On February 19, 1778, that danger became violent. According to the marker, a force of roughly forty armed Loyalists — Americans loyal to the Crown — raided the tavern that stood on this site. The fighting was sharp and costly: five American soldiers were killed, four were wounded, and eleven were taken prisoner.
What gives the raid its particular sting is what was being done here. Tailors at this site were sewing uniforms bound for the soldiers freezing at Valley Forge. In the course of the attack, some two thousand yards of cloth were lost — material that would have clothed men who badly needed it.
That detail turns a small skirmish into something more pointed. This was not a random clash but a strike against the fragile supply system keeping Washington's army alive. The Loyalists knew that a war could be waged with needle and thread as surely as with musket and bayonet.
Its place in the American story
The Revolution is often told as a contest between Americans and the British. Episodes like this one reveal a harder truth: it was also a civil war, dividing communities, families, and neighbors between Patriot and Loyalist causes. The forty men who raided this tavern were not foreign troops but fellow colonists who had chosen the other side.
The raid also underscores how much the celebrated endurance at Valley Forge depended on the vulnerable countryside around it. The army's survival rested not only on its own discipline but on the quiet, exposed labor of tailors, farmers, and suppliers who could be attacked at any moment. Cloth lost here meant cold felt there.
Remembering this site means remembering that the price of the Revolution was paid in many small places, by people whose names rarely reach the history books — and that the line between the home front and the battlefield often did not exist at all.
If you visit
Newtown has kept much of its historic character, and a visit here invites you to slow down and imagine the town as it was in that fearful winter. Picture a working tavern — part inn, part gathering place, part improvised workshop — suddenly caught in an armed raid before dawn.
As you stand at the marker, think about scale. This was not a grand battle but a close, personal act of violence, the kind that could happen to any community caught in a divided war. That intimacy is exactly what makes it worth pausing over.
The site fits naturally into a wider Revolutionary road trip through the region, connecting the famous story of Valley Forge to the ordinary places that sustained it. Let it remind you that the war's outcome depended on countless vulnerable, unglamorous spots like this one, where neighbors met as enemies and the cost was measured in lives and in cloth.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · Loyalist Raid of 1778
- · Valley Forge encampment
Themes & tags
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