Battle of Cobleskill
The Battle of Cobleskill (also known as the Cobleskill massacre) was an American Revolutionary War raid on the frontier settlement of Cobleskill, New York on May 30, 1778. The battle, having taken place in the modern-day hamlet of Warnerville, New York, near the modern (2019) Cobleskill-Richmondville High School, marked the beginning of a phase in which Loyalists and Iroquois, encouraged and supplied by British authorities in the Province of Quebec, raided and destroyed numerous villages on what was then the United States western frontier of New York and Pennsylvania.
| Battle of Cobleskill | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Revolutionary War | |||||||
Map detail showing the western frontier of New York. Cobleskill and Cherry Valley are marked in red, Unadilla and Onaquaga (spelled "Oghwaga" on the map) are marked in blue. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
|
Great Britain Iroquois | United States | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Joseph Brant |
William Patrick † Christian Brown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 200–300 Loyalists and Iroquois |
30–40 regulars 15–20 militia | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 25 killed |
22 killed 8 wounded 5 captured | ||||||
A small party of Iroquois entered Cobleskill and drew the local defenders into a trap set by a much larger party of Iroquois and Loyalists under the command of Joseph Brant. After killing a number of the militia and driving off the remainder, Brant's forces destroyed much of the settlement. New York's defenders retaliated against Brant's actions against Cobleskill and other communities by destroying Iroquois villages later in the year, and Continental Army forces destroyed more Iroquois villages in the Sullivan Expedition of 1779.