The Campaign of Princeton, 1776-1777 9781400867363

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The Campaign of Princeton 1776-1777

The Campaign

of Princeton 1776-1777 ΈΥ A L F R E D H O Y T 2/LZ,

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright 1948 by Princeton University Press Copyright © renewed 1975 by Princeton University Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Library of Congress Card: 75-7660 ISBN 0-691-00582-6 (paperback edn.) ISBN 0-691-04510-0 (hardcover edn.) First PRINCETON PAPERBACK Printing, 1975

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS AT PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

To

Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker in grateful remembrance of many kindnesses

PREFACE the reputation of certain books is so thoroughly established that nobody feels obliged to read them, so there are certain events in history that are relegated to the convenient category of "what every schoolboy knows" and, it might be added, every­ body else is willing to take for granted. Washington's descent upon the Hessians at Trenton in the sleety dawn of the day after Christmas in 1776, his skillful strategic retirement thence a week later, and the battle at Prince­ ton the following morning persist more or less vaguely in the memories of most Americans. But of the circum­ stances of these events—the British conviction that by overrunning New Jersey they had crushed the rebellion, a conviction shared by all but the most resolute of the patriots; the expedients and makeshifts by which Wash­ ington contrived to hold together his dilapidated and discouraged forces; the movement by which he so placed his army that by his second retirement from Trenton he regained the initiative which the swollen river and the doubtful support of his troops had cost him—of all these little is known generally and still less is generally understood. Trenton, or, at best, Trenton-Princeton is the common designation of the campaign. But picturesque and dra­ matic as the victory of the morning of December 26 was, it could have counted for little more than a brilliant raid had it not been followed by the operations of the next ten days, of which the victory at Princeton was the culmination. It was these that set the smoldering embers of the Revolution flaming afresh throughout the Colo­ nies and drove the enemy from the complacent occupa[

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TREFACE

tion of almost the whole of New Jersey to precarious and costly concentrations at New Brunswick and South Amboy, where they controlled little more than the ground they stood on. For the rest of the winter, with the mere shadow of an army, Washington at Morristown was able to prohibit a second advance by land upon Philadelphia. Forgotten is the part played by the Pennsylvania naval squadron on the Delaware and Putnam's troops about Moorestown and Mount Holly, which resulted in the paralysis of a whole Hessian brigade and a crack regiment of Highlanders for seven priceless days. The night march of Cadwalader and Mifflin to a concentra­ tion on the battlefield foreshadows the strategy of Na­ poleon, but it is unknown, except to students of the war; and few have heard of the day-long delaying action which prevented Cornwallis from reaching Trenton in time to accept the battle Washington appeared to have been waiting to offer him, or of the hot fighting, the "second battle of Trenton," that sputtered and sparkled along the Assanpink in the dusk of that evening. It is with the purpose of placing the chief events of the cam­ paign in the frame of these circumstances, without which they cannot be truly appreciated, that this book has been written. I am indebted to Professor Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker's "The Battle of Princeton" for his interpretation of the conflicting testimony of eye-witnesses as to the order of march of certain units of Washington's army on the night of January 2 and certain details of the ensuing action. My hearty thanks are given to Dr. Randolph G. Adams and Mr. Colton Storm of the Clements Memo­ rial Library at the University of Michigan, and to the

TREFACE

other members of the Library staff, for cordial hospital­ ity and friendly assistance; to Colonel Arthur Poillon of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, Mr. Edward R. Barnsley of Newtown, Pennsylvania, Mr. Edward L. Pierce and Mr. Howard Russell Butler of Princeton, New Jersey, and Mr. Thomas S. Matthews of New York for much valuable information and many useful suggestions. And again I take pleasure in making grateful acknowledg­ ment of the kindness and untiring assistance of the offi­ cers and members of the staff of the Princeton Univer­ sity Library. ALFRED HOYT BILL

Princeton, New Jersey October ιγ, IQ47

CONTENTS PREFACE

page vii CHAPTER

I

General Washington Gives a Dinner page 3 CHAPTER

II

Fröhliche Weihnachten—Der

Feind! Heraus!

page 30 CHAPTER

III

Lord Qornwallis Fails to "Bag the Fox" page 63 CHAPTER

IV

"A Fine Fox Chase, Boys!" page 100 CHAPTER

V

"These Feats Have Turned the Scale" page 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY

page 138 INDEX

page 141

MAPS Theater of Operations page 8

Trenton in 1776 page 55

The Trenton-Trinceton

Campaign

page 91

The "Spy" Map of Princeton facing page 100

The Battle of Princeton page 102

The Campaign of Princeton 1776- 1777

CHAPTER I

General Washington Gives a Dinner • o n e · OR those who called themselves patriots in the Independent States of America, the year 1776 had been drawing to a close in unmitigated gloom. Brilliant successes at its beginning—the British compelled to evacuate Boston, Sir Henry Clinton and a British fleet repulsed at Charleston—had been fol­ lowed by an unbroken series of defeats and disasters. The American forces had been driven out of Canada; Arnold's flotilla had lost its battle on Lake Champlain. Washington's army had barely escaped capture on Long Island. New York had been abandoned, Manhattan Island traversed in a retreat that Washington called "disgraceful and dastardly." Fort Washington had been stormed, Fort Lee given up, the Hudson opened to the enemy as far as the Highlands. The Jerseys had been overrun, and only by the grace of God and the dilatory movements of General Howe had Washington succeeded in placing the Delaware between his army and its pursuers. From Philadelphia the Continental Congress had de­ parted in haste to the safer refuge of Baltimore, and each day saw increasing numbers of the more prudent citizens filling their carriages with wives and children, loading wagons with the most precious of their belong­ ings, and driving off through the mud and frozen slush to seek asylum in the country. For so soon as the Dela­ ware was frozen—and that was almost sure to happen on one of these late December nights—the British

F

[ 3 1

QENERAL WASHINGTON QIVES

Λ DINNER

would cross it on the ice, and there would be nothing between them and the city but the half-starved, ragged, and barefoot remnants of what had been called, to dis­ tinguish it from other American forces, "the Grand Army." It is small wonder that Robert Morris, one of the Committee of Three that the Congress had left in Philadelphia to keep in close touch with the Commander-in-Chief, wrote to him on the first day of the New Year: "The year 1776 is over. I am heartily glad of it, and hope you nor America will ever be plagued with such another." At its very end, however, it had brought a sudden gleam of hope, a victory that shone amid the encircling gloom like the first beam of the sunrise of a new and better day. On December 27th Washington had been able to write to the President of the Congress: "I have the pleasure of congratulating you on the success of an enterprise, which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning." With only twenty-four hundred of his tattered ill-armed soldiers he had recrossed the Delaware and smashed a brigade of Hessian merce­ naries who were reputed to be among the finest troops in Europe, killing twenty or thirty of them, mortally wounding their commander and the officer acting as second-in-command, capturing more than half of them, and putting the rest to ignominious flight. Two days later he was entertaining his captives of the higher ranks at dinner at his headquarters. Those who wished to minimize the exploit—and the British dearly wished to do so—by calling it a mere raid might do so. But its consequences, the prisoners, and the booty belied the imputation of that phrase.

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Q E N E R A L W A S H I N G T O N Q I V E S