The Historic map of the center of Battle of Rhode Island
(The western third of the engagement lies largely on the monastery grounds)Monastic places, military traces. Several places on the monastery grounds offer traces of the military conflict that transpired here in 1778. Seen through a military lens, we must consider the strategic significance of a location and not simply its natural beauty or its significance politically or as property. Topography is critical to visibility and defensibility. It is jarring to consider that the hills that delineate the grounds of this contemplative Abbey, on August 29, 1778, also served critical roles in the military strategies and tactics of the British, Hessian, and American troops involved in a significant battle of the American Revolution. Today, the town’s two most prominent wind turbines offer landmarks for two of the principal elevations of the battle. Topography, it seems, is as important to turbines as to troops. The turbine of the town of Portsmouth, adjacent to its high school, points out Butts Hill. The American forces had occupied this area, in fortifications previously constructed by British troops, in the early stages of the battle, after the British pulled their troops back towards Newport in anticipation of a defensive engagement. The American General Sullivan had seized the fortification when he saw the opportunity, transporting his army of 10,000 men over from Tiverton. This proactive decision had not been part of the plans made together with the French and Comte d’Estaing and it added friction to the difficult relationship between these two allies in the battle. But it meant that Butts Hill would serve as the American headquarters for the battle that would unfold over the next three weeks. A smaller turbine, that of the Portsmouth Abbey community, is situated near a smaller peak called Almy Hill (or Cross Hill). This rise would come to mark much of the southern perimeter of some of the bloodiest fighting in the engagement, with Lehigh Hill (or Durfee Hill) delineating its border to the north and east, now marking the eastern edge of the Aquidneck Golf Club.