New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site

The New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site, also known as New Windsor Cantonment, is located along NY 300, north one mile of Vails Gate, in the Town of New Windsor, Orange County, New York. New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site is where the Continental Army under General George Washington spent the last winter and spring of the Revolutionary War. In October 1782, General Washington moved his northern army to New Windsor to establish winter quarters. Some 7,500 soldiers and 500 women and children civilian refugees encamped here. By late December 1782, they had erected nearly 600 log huts into a "cantonment," a military enclave. It was at the New Windsor Cantonment that the cease fire orders were issued by Washington ending the eight-year War of Independence on April 19, 1783.