season for a period of rest, although engaging more or less in marauding
expeditions. On February 25, 1779, Colonel Stirling, with a detachment
consisting of the light infantry of the Guards and the 42nd, was ordered
to attack a post at Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, which was taken
without opposition. In April following the Highland regiment was
employed on an expedition to the Chesapeake, to destroy the stores and
merchandise at Portsmouth, in Virginia. They were again employed with
the Guards and a corps of Hessians in another expedition under General
Mathews, which sailed on the 30th, under the convoy of Sir George
Collier, in the Reasonable, and several ships of war, and reached their
destination on May 10th, when the troops landed on the glebe on the
western bank of Elizabeth. After fulfilling the object of the expedition
they returned to New York in good time for the opening of the campaign,
which commenced by the capture, on the part of the British, of Verplanks
and Stony Point. A garrison of six hundred men, among whom were two
companies of Fraser's Highlanders, took possession of Stony Point.
Washington planned its capture which was executed by General Wayne. Soon
after General Wayne moved against Verplanks, which held out till the
approach of the light infantry and the 42nd, then withdrew his forces
and evacuated Stony Point. Shortly after, Colonel Stirling was appointed
aide-de-camp to the king, when the command of the 42nd devolved on Major
Charles Graham, to whom was entrusted the command of the posts of Stony
Point and Verplanks, together with his own regiment, and a detachment of
Fraser's Highlanders, under Major Ferguson. This duty was the more
important, as the Americans surrounded the posts in great numbers, and
desertion had become so frequent among a corps of provincials, sent as a
reinforcement, that they could not be trusted on any military duty,
particularly on those duties which were most harassing. In the month of
October these posts were withdrawn and the regiment sent to Greenwich,
near New York.

The winter of 1779 was the coldest that had been known for forty years;
and the troops, although in quarters, suffered more from that
circumstance than in the preceding winter when in huts. But the
Highlanders met with a misfortune that greatly grieved them, and which
tended to deteriorate, for several years, the heretofore irreproachable
character of the Royal Highland Regiment. In the autumn of thi