page_title: Battle of Bull's Ferry
section_title: Result
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Bull's Ferry / Result
caption_attribution_description: General William Irvine
context_page_description: The Battle of Bull's Ferry on 20 and 21 July 1780 saw two American brigades under Brigadier General Anthony Wayne attack a party of Loyalist Americans led by Thomas Ward. The Loyalists successfully defended a blockhouse against an ineffective bombardment by four American artillery pieces and a failed attempt to storm the position by Wayne's infantry. During the action, American light dragoons under Major Light Horse Harry Lee drove off a large number of cattle that were kept in the area for the use of the British army in New York City. The clash inspired British Major John André to write a satirical ballad entitled The Cow Chace. The skirmish was fought at Bulls Ferry, New Jersey in the Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga. At this stage of the conflict only raids and minor actions occurred in the north.
context_section_description: Aside from John André's ballad, the consequences of the skirmish were the loss of lives and the seizure of cattle. Wayne reported losses of 15 enlisted men killed, plus three officers and 46 enlisted men wounded. Clinton estimated that Wayne had almost 2,000 troops available. He admitted the loss of 21 casualties and reported that 50 round shot penetrated the blockhouse. In a poetical note at the end of The Cow Chace, André suggested that five Loyalists were killed.
  Five refugees ('tis true) were found,
  Stiff on the blockhouse floor;
  But then 'tis thought the shot went round,
  And in at the back door.
  In one stanza, the British major poked fun at American claims that their cannonballs could not damage the blockhouse.
  No shot could pass, if you will take
  The General's word for true;
  But 'tis a d(amna)ble mistake,
  For every shot went through.
  Lee rounded up a substantial number of cattle and returned them to Washington's camp. Wayne burned the wood-cutters' boats and captured some of the boatmen. From André's fifth stanza, it is clear that Colonel Thomas Proctor commanded Wayne's artillery. Proctor was born in Ireland ("remoter Shannon").
  And sons of distant Delaware,
  And still remoter Shannon,
  And Major Lee with horses rare,
  And Procter with his cannon.
  André mocked Wayne's subordinate Brigadier General William Irvine, who fought at Bull's Ferry. The British major credited Irvine, misspelled "Irving", with command of the attack on the blockhouse while Wayne and Lee had the easy work of cattle rustling.
  At Irving's nod 'twas fine to see,
  The left prepare to fight;
  The while, the drovers, Wayne and Lee,
  Drew off upon the right.
  Two later stanzas made fun of the retreat of Irvine's column.
  Irving and terror in the van,
  Came flying all abroad;
  And cannon, colors, horse, and man,
  Ran tumbling to the road.
  Still as he fled, 'twas Irving's cry,
  And his example too,
  "Run on, my merry men – For why?
  The shot will not go through."
  The British major even took a swipe at William Alexander, Lord Stirling who was not even involved in the operation. Alexander had made an unsuccessful attempt to claim a Scottish earldom between 1756 and 1762. His hard-drinking ways were well-known to British officers.
  Let none candidly infer,
  That Stirling wanted spunk;
  The self-made peer had sure been there,
  But that the peer was drunk.
  Alluding to his pre-war career as a tanner, André poked fun at Wayne in the first and last stanzas.
  To drive the kine one summer's morn,
  The tanner took his way;
  The calf shall rue that is unborn,
  The jumbling of that day.
  And now I've clos'd my epic strain,
  I tremble as I show it,
  Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne,
  Should ever catch the poet.
caption: William Irvine was viciously lampooned by André.
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