Paulus Hook was a naturally defensible spit of land jutting into the Hudson River, roughly where Exchange Place stands in downtown Jersey City today. In 1776, George Washington had ordered forts built along the Hudson's western bank to keep the British from controlling the river. Paulus Hook was one of them. It guarded the river channel and the gateway into New Jersey. But after Washington's devastating defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn, the British landed at Kip's Bay and seized New York City on September 15, 1776. That same day, they turned their warships toward Paulus Hook. By September 23, the American garrison had abandoned the fort, making it the first piece of New Jersey territory the British invaded and occupied.

Three years into the British occupation, a young cavalry officer with a talent for unconventional warfare proposed a bold strike. Henry Lee had graduated from Princeton at seventeen and earned his nickname -- Light Horse Harry -- leading swift mounted raids that infuriated the British. His plan was audacious: march 400 infantry and dismounted dragoons fourteen miles through the woods and swamps of northern New Jersey, ford a tidal canal under cover of darkness, and storm the fort before dawn. Washington approved. At four o'clock on the afternoon of August 18, 1779, Lee's force set out from New Bridge, near present-day River Edge, New Jersey. Almost immediately, things went sideways. Their guide -- through either incompetence or treachery -- led them off the correct road, adding three hours to the march.

Lee's men reached Prior's Mill at three in the morning. By 3:30 they were at the edge of the ditch surrounding the fort, roughly where Newark Avenue meets Warren Street today. The tide was rising. Lieutenant Rudolph waded in and found the canal still fordable. Led by Lieutenants McCallister and Rudolph, the troops pushed through the water and quickly took the outer fortifications. Major Sutherland, the British commander, retreated with a handful of officers and forty Hessians into a small inner redoubt. Dawn was approaching. Lee had no time to dig them out, and he made a decision that Congress would later praise as an act of honor: finding sick soldiers, women, and children inside the barracks, he chose not to burn them as he had planned. He gathered 158 prisoners and withdrew, having lost only two men killed and three wounded.

The retreat should have been straightforward. Lee had arranged for boats at Dow's Ferry to carry his men across the Hackensack River. But the boats were gone -- moved to Newark without his knowledge. With dawn breaking and British reinforcements certain to come from New York, Lee faced a dilemma: his ammunition was soaked, his troops had been marching and fighting all night, and he was burdened with more prisoners than he had soldiers to guard them. He chose to march the full fourteen miles back to New Bridge by land, a route exposed to British interception the entire way. Near present-day Weehawken, Captain Catlett met him with fifty fresh men and dry ammunition. At the Fort Lee road, Colonel Ball appeared with two hundred more troops. By one o'clock in the afternoon, Lee and his men were safely back at New Bridge. The British were furious. The Americans were jubilant.

Washington wrote to Congress that Lee had displayed "a remarkable degree of prudence, address and bravery" and that "the situation of the fort rendered the attempt critical and the success brilliant." Congress awarded Lee a gold medal -- the only one given to a non-general during the entire war -- inscribed in Latin: "Notwithstanding rivers and entrenchments, he with a small band conquered the foe by warlike skill and prowess and firmly bound by his humanity those who had been conquered by his arms." Congress also gave Lee $15,000 to distribute among his soldiers. The young major went on to serve as Governor of Virginia and to deliver the famous eulogy for George Washington: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." His son, Robert E. Lee, would become the most consequential general of the Civil War. Today, a small park in Jersey City's Paulus Hook neighborhood bears a historical marker for a battle that most Americans have never heard of -- a midnight raid that cracked British control of New Jersey wide open.