Editor’s note: This article is the fourth in a four-part series of excerpts from an upcoming book, “Lewes During The Revolution: 1774-1783,” that will appear monthly leading up to the semiquincentennial celebrations on the Fourth of July to highlight Lewes' role in America’s fight for independence.

The harsh winter of 1777-78 was one of waiting for both sides.

The British held Philadelphia, and Congress had moved to Baltimore, the first of many transient locations.

Washington’s army was suffering at Valley Forge, but would survive the winter with the help of patriot Henry Fisher. No longer needed as an advance scout, Fisher lent Congress several thousand dollars of his own money to sustain the troops, to the dismay of his wife and seven daughters.

Then, in May 1778, the British learned the French had allied themselves with the revolutionaries, and its powerful Mediterranean Fleet was on its way. Recent efforts to arrange a truce were abandoned, and so was Philadelphia.

Some 20,000 British, Hessian and Loyalist soldiers and camp followers began the long march across New Jersey to New York, and up to 400 ships carrying supplies and senior officers streamed down the bay as citizens of Lewes waved, jeered and laughed. One of the most pleasant sights for the pilots of Lewes was to watch HMS Roebuck sail out of sight.

On July 8, an impressive fleet of twelve French ships-of-the-line and four frigates arrived off Cape Henlopen. Admiral D’Estaing sent his aide ashore to gain information, and Henry Fisher went aboard the flagship and stayed overnight, informing the French they had missed the British evacuation by three weeks. The French fleet then sailed on to New York, and then to Newport, RI.

As Philadelphia became open to shipping, and the Continental Navy resumed its operations there, the Lewes port again became an active supply point for Tory ships. Henry Fisher resumed his duties to coordinate communications and manage the pilots’ activities, while protecting them from British privateers who continued to sail the bay and attack smaller ships.

Final acts

Fisher played an important role as a trusted envoy when, on October 2, 1779, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, aide de camp to General George Washington, arrived in Lewes. Hamilton and his delegation hoped to meet Admiral d’Estaing when he brought his French fleet to Cape May to reprovision.

Henry Fisher took Hamilton and his party across the bay for the meeting that helped coordinate French support that led to the decisive battle of Yorktown, resulting in Cornwallis’s surrender and the destruction of his 8,000-man army.

Although the war was essentially decided by Yorktown, battles with the British continued on land and at sea for the next three years. There was a hard freeze the winter of 1779-80 during which the Delaware River and Bay iced over to a depth of three feet.

That spring, the Delaware Assembly was seated for several weeks in Lewes by its president, Caesar Rodney, resulting in a financial boom for local businesses, which continued to flourish depending largely on how often the British decided to blockade the bay.

All news wasn’t good, however. In August 1780, General Gates and his Continental Army fled the scene of a battle in South Carolina, leaving the Delaware Regiment abandoned as it tried to cover Gates’ retreat. Some 275 Delaware Regiment members were killed, wounded or captured, including a number from Lewes. The regiment would go on to serve the longest of any from the 13 states during the Revolutionary War.

A census of Lewes taken in 1782 showed 366 men (201 under the age of 18) and 380 women, about half of those juvenile. It also described a moderate Lewes, with former Tories John Wiltbank and Jacob Moore living side-by-side with ardent patriots Henry Fisher and David Hall. Despite the war and its man tensions, Lewes had come through undivided.

Even the treasonous pilot Luke Shield was forgiven. After being taken prisoner by the French, Shield ran their ship aground south of Dover where it was captured by the British. Nonetheless, Shield was later pardoned at the recommendation of the French.

Back in Lewes, Shield worked hard at redemption, helping to remove underwater defenses from the river and becoming a founding member of the Society for the Relief of Distressed or Decayed Pilots, their Wives and Children, whose monument remains on Pilottown Road.

In January, the last men of the Delaware Regiment were released in Wilmington, and on January 20, the war ended, with the peace treaty officially signed September 3, 1783.

Thanks to news delivered by a French sloop, Triomphe, the people of Lewes were among the first to learn of the war ending, just as they had been among the first to learn it was about to begin, eight years earlier.