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Okla-homey
9/20/2007, 06:17 AM
Sept. 20, 1777 : Redcoats kill sleeping Americans in Paoli Massacre

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230 years ago tonight, on the evening of September 20, 1777, near Paoli, Pennsylvania, General Charles Grey and nearly 5,000 British soldiers launch a surprise attack on elements of two regiments of Pennsylvania militia totalling about 2100 troops. The rebel force was commanded by General Anthony Wayne in what becomes known as the Paoli Massacre.

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Not wanting to lose the element of surprise, Grey ordered his troops to empty their muskets and to use only bayonets or swords to attack the sleeping Americans under the cover of darkness.

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Paoli is essentially a suburb of Philadelphia


I with my own Eyes, see them, cut & hack some of our poor Men to pieces after they had fallen in their hands and scarcely shew the least Mercy to any...
-- Lt. Col. Adam Hubley, 10th PA Regiment

With the help of a Loyalist spy who provided a secret password and led them to the camp, General Grey and the British launched the successful attack on the unsuspecting men of the Pennsylvania regiment, stabbing them to death as they slept.

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...more than a dozen soldiers had with fixed bayonets formed a cordon round him, and that everyone of them in sport had indulged their brutal ferocity by stabbing him in different parts of his body and limbs ... a physician ... examining him there was found ... 46 distinct bayonet wounds...
-- William Hutchinson, Pennsylvania Militiaman

It was also alleged that the British soldiers took no prisoners during the attack, bayonetting or setting fire to those who tried to surrender. Before it was over, nearly 200 Americans were killed or wounded. The Paoli Massacre became a rallying cry for the Americans against British atrocities for the rest of the Revolutionary War.

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The battlefield monument is America's second oldest. Erected in 1801, one side reads: "Sacred to the memory of the Patriots who on this spot fell a sacrifice to British barbarity. During the struggle for AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE,on the night of the 20th September 1777."

Less than two years later, Wayne became known as "Mad Anthony Wayne" for his bravery leading an impressive Patriot assault on British cliff-side fortifications at Stony Point on the Hudson River, 12 miles from West Point.

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General Wayne

Like Grey’s attack at Paoli, Wayne’s men only used bayonets in the 30-minute night attack, which resulted in 94 dead and 472 captured British soldiers. As an aside, there is no mention in any account of that action whether Wayne was heard to utter "pay back is a mofo!" (but he should have).

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SoonerStormchaser
9/20/2007, 08:36 AM
These guys had troops? I thought they just flew planes.
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