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CHAP. place, and the cross-cuts and roads as far as Bruns

Jan.

2.

XIV. wick. He first ascertained by an exploring party 1777. that the path to Princeton on the south side of the Assanpink was unguarded.' He saw the need of avoiding a battle the next morning with Cornwallis; he also saw the need of avoiding it in a way to mark courage and hope. He knew that there were but few troops at Princeton; and he reasoned that Brunswick could have retained but a very small guard for its rich magazines. He therefore developed the plan which had existed in germ from the time of his deciding to reënter New Jersey, and prepared to turn the left of Cornwallis, overwhelm the party at Princeton, and push on if possible to Brunswick, or, if there were danger of pursuit, to seek the high ground at Morristown. Soon after dark he ordered all the baggage of his army to be removed noiselessly to Burlington. To the council of officers whom he convened, he proposed the circuitous march to Princeton. Mercer forcibly pointed out the advantages of the proposal; Saint Clair liked it so well, that in the failing memory of old age he took it to have been his own; 2 the adhesion of the council was unanimous.

1 Ewald's Beyspiele grosser Helden. Ewald, who was a man of uprightness, vigilance, and judgment, is a great authority, as he was present. It does not impair the value of his statement, that, like many writers of the British army of that day, he misplaced Allentown. Many officers thought it lay on the roundabout road to Princeton, and were driven from the country too soon to rectify their mistake. Compare Howe to Germain, Jan. 5, 1777; Annual Register, 18; Stedman, i. 236.

2 Saint Clair's Narrative, 242, 243: "No one general officer except myself knew anything of the upper country." Now, Sullivan knew it better; as did all the officers of Lee's division, and Stark, Poor, Patterson, the New England Reed, and all the officers of their four regiments. Another writer, Reed's Mercer Oration, 34, 35, is out of the way in the advice he attributes to Mercer: "One course had not yet been thought of, and this was to order up the Philadel

t;

XIV.

1777.

Jan.

3.

Soon after midnight, sending word to Putnam to CHAP. occupy Crosswicks, Washington began to move his troops in detachments by the roundabout road to Princeton. The wind veered to the northwest the weather suddenly became cold; and the byroad, lately impracticable for artillery, was soon frozen hard. To conceal the movement, guards were left to replenish the American camp-fires. The night had as yet no light in the unmeasured firmament but the stars as they sparkled through the openings in the clouds; the fires of the British blazed round the hills on which they slumbered; the beaming fires of the Americans rose in a wall of flame along the Assanpink for more than half a mile, impervious to the eye, throwing a glare on the town, the rivulet, the tree-tops, the river, and the background. The drowsy British officer1 who had charge of the night-watch let the flames blaze up and subside under fresh heaps of fuel, and saw nothing and surmised nothing.

Arriving about sunrise in the southeast outskirts of Princeton, Washington and the main body of the army wheeled to the right by a back road to the colleges; while Mercer was detached towards the west with about three hundred and fifty men, to break down the bridge over Stony brook, on the main road to Trenton.

phia militia," &c. &c. Washington had long before ordered up the Philadelphia militia, and they were at Trenton on the first of January. Sparks's Washington, iv. 258. Washington, always modest, claims the measure as his own. Ibid. 259. The statement in Ewald of Washington's having sent a party to recon

Two English regiments

noitre the roundabout road is in har-
mony with this. Marshall, i. 131, as-
signs the bold design to Washington;
so do Gordon, Ramsay, Hull, who
had a special command, and I be-
lieve every one till Saint Clair, whom
Wilkinson followed.

1 Ewald's Abhandlung von dem
Dienst der leichten Truppen, 121.

Jan.

CHAP. were already on their march to join Cornwallis; XIV. the seventeenth with three companies of horse, 1777. under Mawhood, was more than a mile in advance 3. of the fifty-fifth, and had already passed Stony brook. On discovering in his rear a small body of Americans, apparently not larger than his own, he recrossed the rivulet, and forming a junction with a part of the fifty-fifth and other detachments on their march, hazarded an engagement with Mercer. The parties were nearly equal in numbers; each had two pieces of artillery; but the English were fresh, while the Americans were weary from hunger and cold, the fatigues of the preceding day, their long night-march of eighteen miles, and the want of sleep. Both parties rushed toward the high ground that lay north of them, on the right of the Americans. A heavy discharge from the English artillery was returned by Neal from the American field-pieces. After a short but brisk cannonade, the Americans, climbing over a fence to confront the British, were the first to use their guns; Mawhood's infantry returned the volley, and soon charged with their bayonets; the Americans, for the most part riflemen without bayonets, gave way, abandoning their cannon. Their gallant officers, loath to fly, were left in their rear, endeavoring to call back the fugitives. In this way fell Haslet, the brave colonel of the Delaware regiment; Neal, who had charge of the artillery; Fleming, the gallant leader of all that was left of the first Virginia regiment; and other officers of promise; Mercer himself, whose horse had been disabled under him, was wounded, knocked down, and

XIV.

1777.

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3.

then stabbed many times with the bayonet. Just CHAP. then, Washington, who had turned at the sound of the cannon, came upon the ground by a movement which intercepted the main body of the British fifty-fifth regiment. The Pennsylvania militia, supported by two pieces of artillery, were the first to form their line. "With admirable coolness and address," Mawhood attempted to carry their battery; the way-worn novices began to waver; on the instant, Washington, from "his desire to animate his troops by example," rode into the very front of danger, and when within less than thirty yards of the British, he reined in his horse with its head towards them, as both parties were about to fire; seeming to tell his faltering forces that they must stand firm, or leave him to confront the enemy alone. The two sides gave a volley at the same moment; when the smoke cleared away, it was thought a miracle that Washington was untouched. By this time Hitchcock, for whom a raging hectic made this day nearly his last, came up with his brigade; and Hand's riflemen began to turn the left of the English; these, after repeated exertions of the greatest courage and discipline, retreated before they were wholly surrounded, and fled over fields and fences up Stony brook. The action, from the first conflict with Mercer, did not last more than twenty minutes. Washington on the battle-ground took Hitchcock by the hand, and, before his army, thanked him for his service.

Mawhood left on the ground two brass fieldpieces, which, from want of horses, the Americans could not carry off. He was chased three or four

XIV.

CHAP. miles, and many of his men were taken prisoners; the rest joined Leslie when his brigade came up 1777. from Maidenhead.

Jan.

3.

While the larger part of the army was engaged with the troops under Mawhood, the New England regiments of Stark, Poor, Patterson, Reed, and others, drove back the fifty-fifth, which, after a gallant resistance and some loss, retreated with the fortieth to the college. Pieces of artillery were brought up to play upon them; but to escape certain capture they fled in disorder across the fields into a back road towards Brunswick. Had there been cavalry to pursue, they might nearly all have been

taken.

The British lost on that day about two hundred killed and wounded, and two hundred and thirty prisoners, of whom fourteen were British officers. The American loss was small, except of officers; but Mercer, who was mortally wounded, stood in merit next to Greene, and by his education, abilities, willing disposition, and love for his adopted country, was fitted for high trusts.

At Trenton, on the return of day, the generals were astonished at not seeing the American army; and the noise of the cannon at Princeton first revealed whither it was gone. In consternation for the safety of the magazines at Brunswick, Cornwallis roused his army, and began a swift pursuit. His advanced party from Maidenhead reached Princeton, just as the town was left by the American rear. It had been a part of Washington's original plan to seize Brunswick, which was eighteen miles distant; but many of his brave soldiers, such

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