Princeton

Princeton in the Revolution: Battlefield, Capital, and Crucible of a Nation

On the cold morning of January 3, 1777, George Washington rode into the smoke and chaos of a desperate fight on the frozen fields south of Princeton, New Jersey, and personally rallied his faltering troops with a cry that witnesses remembered for the rest of their lives. "Parade with us, my brave fellows!" he shouted, pressing his horse forward to within thirty yards of a British volley. An aide covered his eyes, certain the general would fall. When the smoke cleared, Washington was still in the saddle, and the redcoats were running. That single moment — reckless, theatrical, and decisive — captures something essential about Princeton's place in the American Revolution. This small college town, home to barely a few hundred residents at the war's outbreak, became the site of a battle that saved the Revolution, and then, six years later, the temporary capital of the United States, where the war's final chapter was written. No community of its size played a larger role at both the beginning and end of the struggle for independence.

Princeton was, even before the war, a place saturated in the ideas that would fuel the Revolution. The College of New Jersey — as Princeton University was then known — was led from 1768 by John Witherspoon, a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister who became an influential figure in the development of the nation's character.

Witherspoon was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress and a signatory to the Declaration of Independence — the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign it.

The British considered his college to be a "seminary of sedition."

The graduates of the College of New Jersey during Witherspoon's tenure included a president of the United States (James Madison), a vice president, twenty-eight U.S. senators, forty-nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives, twelve governors, and three Supreme Court justices. When the British army pressed through New Jersey in late 1776, Witherspoon closed the college, sent the students home, and fled to safety in Pennsylvania.

When the redcoats arrived on December 7, they occupied Nassau Hall and ravaged the community.

To understand what happened at Princeton, one must begin a week earlier and ten miles to the south, on the banks of the Delaware River. By late December 1776, the American cause was in freefall. Washington's army had been chased out of New York, across New Jersey, and over the Delaware into Pennsylvania. Enlistments were expiring. Congress had fled Philadelphia. Thomas Paine had just published The American Crisis, declaring that "these are the times that try men's souls," but words alone could not stop the hemorrhaging of morale and manpower. Washington understood that without a dramatic stroke, the army — and the Revolution itself — might simply dissolve. On the night of December 25–26, he led roughly 2,400 men back across the ice-choked Delaware and struck the Hessian garrison at Trenton at dawn, killing or capturing nearly a thousand soldiers in a swift and stunning victory.

But Trenton, for all its psychological impact, was a raid, not a campaign. The British reacted quickly. Lord Cornwallis marched south from New Brunswick with a substantial force, intent on pinning Washington against the Delaware and ending the rebellion in a single blow. On January 2, 1777, the two armies clashed at Assunpink Creek, just south of Trenton, in what is sometimes called the Second Battle of Trenton. Washington's men held the creek crossing through repeated British assaults, but the position was precarious. Cornwallis, confident, reportedly told his officers they would "bag the fox" in the morning. Washington had other plans.

What followed was one of the most audacious maneuvers of the entire war. Under cover of darkness on the night of January 2–3, Washington left his campfires burning to deceive Cornwallis and marched his entire army southeast along back roads toward Princeton. The route, roughly twelve miles of frozen, rutted terrain, was grueling. In Princeton, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood commanded a 1,200-man garrison consisting primarily of a detachment of light dragoons and the 17th, 40th, and 55th Regiments of Foot, tasked with keeping Princeton secure as Cornwallis's primary route of communication to British-occupied New York City.

Mawhood had been ordered by Cornwallis to depart Princeton on January 3 and rejoin the main body at Trenton — an order that would change everything.

Washington was running behind schedule; he had planned to attack before dawn, but by the time dawn broke, he was still two miles from the town.

Even as the American columns advanced, Mawhood's men were marching down the Post Road, and the result was a moment of sudden surprise for everyone when the two forces spotted each other. Mawhood quickly decided to split his command, sending most of the 55th Regiment back to town while he led the 17th Regiment in an attack.

According to the standard account, Washington sent 350 men under Brigadier General Hugh Mercer to destroy the bridge over Stony Brook in order to delay Cornwallis's pursuit.

Mercer was a man forged by war on two continents. Born in Scotland, where he earned a medical degree at the University of Aberdeen, he had taken up arms on behalf of the Stuart claim to the English throne; after the disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746, he fled to America. During the French and Indian War, he fought with the 1st Pennsylvania and became the first commandant of Fort Pitt.

By 1761, Mercer had moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he opened an apothecary shop and befriended George Washington. Now, on the frozen fields outside Princeton, his friendship with the commanding general would be repaid in blood.

The men of the 17th Regiment dropped their knapsacks and posted along a fence in an orchard belonging to William Clarke. In a see-sawing action across the William and Thomas Clarke farms, 246 men of the 17th, along with about 100 men of the 16th Light Dragoons, received, repulsed, and were finally overwhelmed by nearly 2,000 American troops.

Mercer led his troops to secure Stony Brook Bridge. During the British counterattack, his horse was shot out from under him and he was clubbed in the head with a musket butt. Badly dazed, Mercer fought back with his sword but still received seven serious bayonet wounds.

British troops had surrounded him, mistaking him for Washington, and ordered him to surrender; outnumbered, he drew his saber and began an unequal contest. He was left for dead on the field.

Washington sent a brigade of militia under Brigadier General John Cadwalader to help, but the militia, seeing the flight of Mercer's men, also began to flee. Washington rode up with reinforcements and rallied the fleeing militia. It was here that Washington made his legendary charge, placing himself directly in the field of fire. Intoxicated by the sight of redcoats in retreat, Washington himself led the pursuit, hallooing exuberantly: "It's a fine fox chase, my boys!" as he galloped out of sight.

At the Battle of Princeton, the United States Marine Corps met the enemy on land for the first time. The Marines were in the thick of the fighting, participating in Washington's decisive counterattack.

Roughly 600 marines from the Philadelphia area had been among the first contingents to respond to Washington's urgent plea for reinforcements. This force had been recruited for duty aboard Continental warships and were generally considered to be excellent fighters.

The Battle of Princeton was the first land battle where the Continental Marines fought.

Clark's quiet orchard and wheat field, left in possession of the Americans, had been transformed within forty-five minutes into a charnel house. Meanwhile, the battle's final act played out a mile to the north. Nassau Hall, completed in 1756, was the oldest building at Princeton University and one of the most historically significant academic structures in the United States — originally constructed to house the entire College of New Jersey, it served as library,