Bay as an anchorage while patrolling the eastern end of Long Island Sound. The forage expedition consisted of 12 smaller boats protected by a schooner mounting 12 guns; the small boats were manned by crews totaling about 40 men. Sag Harbor was at the time garrisoned by 70 men from the Loyalist battalion of Lieutenant Colonel Stephen De Lancey. The detachment was under the command of Captain James Raymond. Raid Parsons gave command of the expedition to Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs. According to Parsons' report to General Washington, they assembled a force totalling 234 men at New Haven from several regiments, and rowed in 13 whaleboats from New Haven to Guilford on May 21. Rough seas and high winds prevented them from crossing for two days; when they finally left Guilford on the afternoon of May 23, they were accompanied on the crossing by two armed sloops and one that was unarmed. Only 170 made the crossing to the vicinity of Southold, New York, where they arrived around 6 pm. Meigs learned that most of the British forces in the area had been ordered to march to New York City, and that only the small force of Loyalists was left at Sag Harbor. He had his men portage 11 of the whaleboats across the North Fork to the bay, and launched those boats with 130 men to cross the bay to Sag Harbor. By midnight they had crossed the bay and landed about from the harbor. Meigs formed his men up and marched to the harbor, arriving about 2 am. Meigs divided his force in two. One detachment stormed the earthworks, while the other went to the harbor, where they destroyed British boats and collected provisions. The land attack was conducted in silence with fixed bayonets and only one shot was said to have been fired. The schooner opened fire on the attackers as they burned the boats, but sources are unclear if the schooner itself was taken and destroyed. Twelve boats were destroyed, and the raiders took 53 prisoners at the earth works and another 37 at the wharf, suffering no casualties in the process. The prisoners were taken back to Connecticut. Aftermath Long Island's Loyalist communities organized their own response to the raid. In May 1779, nine Loyalists crossed the sound and captured Connecticut militia general Gold Selleck Silliman at his home, and took him back to Long