THE BATTLE OF PRINCETON

1/3/1777 - Concluding a wonderous ten days of combat and endurance stretching from Christmas night of 1776 to 1777 that historians will one day dub the "Ten Crucial Days, American fortunes that see General George Washington and his Continental Army chased out of New York and the government moving from Philadelphia to the safer climes of Maryland completely do a turnaround.  Genius on display, Washington and his army will cross the semi-frozen Delaware River three times during the period, surprise and best a a hungover force of 1,500 mercenary Hessians under the command of German Colonel Johann Rall (struck twice by rebel bullets, Rall will not survive the encounter) at the day-after-Christmas Battle of Trenton, talk most of the Continental Army into reenlisting after their service time expires after the victory, stop three assaults on a bridge over Assunpink Creek by 5,000 British regulars (under the command of Lt. General Charles Cornwallis who had been about to board ship to return to Great Britain before General William Howe orders him to restore order in New Jersey) trying to retake Trenton, and slipping away from Cornwallis, take the town of Princeton (and its supplies and victuals) from a British rearguard force of 1,400 troops under the command of Lt. Colonel Charles Mawhood at the Battle of Princeton.

Washington Rallying His Men At Princeton

After a day of fighting at Assunpink Creek, on Thursday evening Washington calls a war council with a dozen of his senior officers at the home of army quartermaster Alexander Douglas.  Stay in Trenton, retreat, or attack, looking at a map of the area (with alternate routes and back roads documented by a Princeton spy two days before) and knowing Cornwallis will attack in full force the next day, Washington sees opportunity in the peril his men finds themselves in, and formulates a plan to slip away from Cornwallis, use a group of back roads, and fall on the lightly defended town of Princeton.  Explaining what he wants done, the other men at the council soon see the chance too and orders go out that will result in the colonials turning the left flank of the British in the night.  Ground frozen that only the day before had been mud, excess baggage is sent off to the town of Burlington and cloth is wrapped around the wheels of the artillery to muffle the sound of the gun's wheels, while 500 men and two cannons march back and forth and potshot at the British to prevent Cornwallis from knowing Washington has left.  By 2:00 in the morning the entire army, including the actors of the rearguard, are in motion towards Princeton along Quaker Bridge Road (roughly 4,500 men and 35 guns).

Assunpink

Cornwallis

A hard march through frozen woods and icy roads that cause horses to slip and fall and men to break through icy ponds, at Friday's dawn, when Washington wanted to attack, the army is behind schedule (they have covered nine miles in six hours) and still two miles from Princeton (it is roughly 21 degrees at 8:00 in the morning).  Sending off 350 soldiers under Brigadier General Hugh Mercer to the right to destroy a bridge into town that Cornwallis will need to mount a counterattack once he discovers Washington's true intent, the men instead blunder into a British force (the 17th and 55th regiments, fifty horsemen, and two cannons) commanded by Lt. Colonel Charles Mawhood, marching to Trenton to support the Cornwallis offensive.  Sudden confrontation outside a small apple orchard, at only about fifty paces from each other the battle for Princeton begins.  During the intense firing from both sides that results, Mercer's grey horse is hit and spills the general to the ground, where thinking they have unhorsed Washington, Mercer is brained by a British musket butt and then bayoneted repeatedly.  Bayonets bloodied, as the rate of American rifle fire falls off, Mawhood orders a bayonet charge that sends Mercer's command scurrying and also causes the support Washington has sent the mortally wounded commander (Colonel John Cadwalader's brigade of of 1,100) to flee the clash.  Disaster apparent as the two French-made 4-pound guns open fire on the Americans, the clash instead turns into a British defeat when Washington arrives on the scene and rallies Mercer's and Cadwalader's men into first stopping their flight (leadership by actually leading, at one point with bullets flying all about, Washington is only thirty yards away from the Redcoat line), and then going over to the attack.  Ten gunners killed, the artillery horses down, and gun carriages on fire, Mowhood's cannons go silent and the rout is soon on, with the lieutenant colonel fleeing into the woods with his two Springer spaniel dogs in close pursuit (still leading British troops, Mowhood will survive the battle and die in 1780 during a siege of Gibraltar at the age of 50).  Ecstatic at the turnaround in fortunes, Cadwalader will call to his troops, "They fly.  The day is our own!"  Indeed, but not quite yet.

Mawhood

The Death Of Mercer

Bayonet Charge

Cadwalader & Family

The majority of the British forces in the area dead, in flight, or captured (WASHINGTON IS REPORTED TO HAVE CALLED OUT, "It's a fine fox chase my boys!", the fighting then turned to the town of Princeton, at the time a village of about sixty houses scattered about a single street, dominated by a the large stone college building known as Nassau House (now the center of Princeton University, at the time the campus is known as the College of New Jersey).  Pushing through British forces at a ravine just outside of town, and then a breastwork (a flanking attack by the British is cut to pieces), the men of Brigadier General John Sullivan and Brigadier General Arthur St. Clair flow into town, quickly surrounding Princeton's remaining Redcoats in Nassau Hall.  Firing on their tormentors from the upper broken windows of the stone stronghold, the British resistance is ended when Captain Alexander Hamilton (the gentleman who will one day become the first United States Secretary of the Treasury and be killed in 1804 during a duel with Aaron Burr) moves a battery of 6-pound cannons forward and begins peppering the building with rebel balls (kismet, Hamilton shoots up the college that had denied him accelerated studies before the war, and one of his cannonballs, takes off the head of an oil portrait of King George III that hung on one of the hall's walls).  Enough, an officer soon puts a white handkerchief on the point of a sword and waves it out a window in surrender.  Arms dropped, about two hundred soldiers walk out of Nassau House and into captivity.  Plundering the village of anything that will help support the army during winter quarters, fearing retribution from Cornwallis' still potent force at Trenton, a drum roll sounding assembly signals the army to assemble and then move out and at 11:00 in the morning, an hour after the fighting stops, the men are on the march again ... a march that will take them to the relative safety of their winter camp of 1777 near the town of Morristown, New Jersey (Washington at first wants to go on and attack the British supply depot at New Brunswick for its British pay chest of 70,000 pounds, but is talked out of the gamble by trusted lieutenants, Major General Henry Knox and Major General Nathanael Greene)  .   

The Battle Of Princeton

Fighting In Princeton

Victory instead of defeat, the ten days and victory at Princeton reverse the situation in New Jersey ... troops and fodder expected by General Howe will not be forthcoming, the American army once again discovers it can fight and beat trained European troops, the British presence in New Jersey basically comes to an end, overseas, the French are now interested in an alliance with the American government, the Continental Congress grants General Washington dictatorial powers to fight on against the British, and the Continental Army wins a brief period of respite in which to prepare itself for the coming battles of 1777.  Consider nothing more than a problematic minor skirmish at the time by the English, a century later British historian Sir George Otto Trevelyan will put the clash (and the Battle of Trenton) in their proper prospective, writing, "It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a span of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world."  Or as the orderly book of the 2nd New York Regiment reads, "The rising world shall sing of us a thousand years to come, and tell our children's children the wonders we have done."  Amen to that!

Washington At Princeton

1784 Portrait By

Charles Wilson Peale