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 Paper read before the Monmouth County, N. J., Historical Association 
 July 26, igoo, wherein is given a true account of the gallant 
 
 DEFENCE OF FORT MERCER 
 
 By Colonel Christopher Greene and his Band of 400 Patriots, against 
 an assault of 2000 Hessians, under Count Donop, on October 22, 
 
 1777 
 
 By Alfred M. Heston, of Atlantic City, member of 
 the New Jersey Historical Society 
 
 With a 
 
 Portrait of Colonel Greene, never before published, a view of the old 
 
 Whitall House at Red Bank, and a photograph 
 
 of the Monument 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST. 
 
Water Witch Clnb House, where the Monmouth County His- 
 torical Association met on July 26, 1900, is situated almost at the 
 summit of the famous Highlands of Navesink, overlooking Sandy 
 Hook Bay, Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. 
 Water Witch Park derives its name from James Fennimore Cooper's 
 novel, "Water Witch," of which many of the scenes were laid in 
 Sandy Hook Bay and upon the adjacent Navesink Highlands. 
 
 The locality has most interesting reminiscences for the student 
 of colonial and revolutionary history. The reader of Cooper's de- 
 lightful romance — the most truly imaginative that came from his 
 pen — will recall the strangely-named villa, "Lust in Rust," built by 
 the smuggling Dutch Alderman Van Beverout upon one of these 
 elevations, and the adventures of the "Water Witch," guided by the 
 mysterious sea-green lady, which glided in and out of a secret inlet 
 that existed near the Hook. Nothing now remains of the dwelling of 
 the portly alderman and Lady Barberie, his lovely ward, excepting 
 the cellar, filled with the debris of fallen walls. 
 
 Around the club house, winding in and out among the trees, are 
 pretty walks and drives, whose names are suggestive of the novel, such 
 as Coquette Lane, Fennimore Terrace, Cupid Path, Witch's Lane, 
 Gypsy Pass and Water Witch Drive. 
 
 Standing on the veranda of the club house, looking toward the 
 ocean, we see the site of the old inlet, through which the "Water 
 Witch" used to enter Shrewsbury river. In front of the club house, 
 on the eastern slope of the Highlands, is Seadrift Path, and on the 
 right is "Seadrift," the summer cottage of E. S. Atwood, treasurer 
 of Water Witch Club. 
 
 Four or five hundred feet north of the "Lust in Rust" ruins is 
 the site of the "Huddy Tree," (now fallen) where the patriot, Joshua 
 Huddy, was cruelly hung by the Tories on April 12, 1782. 
 
 The Water Witch Club is composed principally of New York 
 gentlemen, who spend the summer months on the Highlands, each 
 member occupying his own cottage, and all of the cottages convenient 
 to the club house, where the members and their families gather daily 
 for social converse and where the stranger is always most kindly 
 taken in. 
 
DEFENCE OF FORT MERCER, 
 
 ACROSS from Leagaie Island, where modern battleships 
 gleam white in their might, and opposite the ramparts 
 of old Fort Mifflin, is the site of another fort, whose 
 story is one of our sacred Revolutionary annals, and whose 
 glory we may well recall on this occasion. Your Committee 
 on Historical Research has said that "the object of this So- 
 ciety is not to make history, but to preserve it." To pre- 
 serve the history of a county whose soil was so often wet 
 with the blood of patriots is indeed praiseworthy, and per- 
 haps this Society, with its love for patriotism, will be inter- 
 ested in an account of a battle, fought on New Jersey soil, 
 where patriotism impelled men to deeds of valor equal to any 
 witnessed on your own glorious field of Monmouth. 
 
 Along the eastern shore of the Delaware, among the 
 trees and beneath the undergrowth, we can trace a rounded 
 ridge, a tangle-hidden ditch and a few hillocks — all that is 
 left of the old fort at Red Bank, where four hundred soldiers 
 of the Rhode Island line held an unfinished earthworks 
 against an assault from the rear by two thousand well-dis- 
 ciplined and well-equipped Hessians, — ''trained men of well- 
 knit sinews" — where a band of patriots met the odds of five 
 to one, and drove them back in signal rout. 
 
 A marble shaft, whose inscription is half obliterated, 
 dedicated to the memory of Colonel Christopher Greene and 
 his band of patriots, looms up gray in the woodland gap. 
 The dedication of this shaft was signalized exactly fifty 
 years after the battle, by a sham fight between the Pennsyl- 
 
vania troops, commanded by Colonel Bartle, representing the 
 Hessians, and the New Jersey militia, commanded by Col- 
 onel Armstrong, representing the Americans.* A short dis- 
 tance from the monument stands an ancient farm house, built 
 in 1748, according to a stone set in the eastern gable, and 
 around it cluster stories of a dauntless Quaker dame, Ann 
 Whitall, who is said to have sat at her spinning wheel while 
 cannon balls crashed around and through the house. This 
 incident, stated by Mickle, in his "Reminiscences of Old 
 Gloucester," and repeated by Lossing, in his "Field Book of 
 the Revolution," is of doubtful authenticity; howbeit, it is 
 much more credible than the anecdote of Commodore Joshua 
 Barney. One of the enemy's galleys, at the time of this bat- 
 tle, had a brass eighteen-pounder, which told at every fire. 
 Said the Commodore : "The Americans on board the gun- 
 boats soon became so well acquainted with the sound of her 
 explosion, that whenever she went off some one would cry 
 out, 'galley shot,' at which all hands would lie down." It 
 must be admitted that dodging a cannon ball is by no means 
 an ordinary feat ! 
 
 It was at or very near Red Bank — the precise spot being 
 unknown — that Fort Nassau was erected by Captain Cor- 
 nelius Jacobsen Mey, in 1623, and the first settlement in New 
 Jersey thereby attempted. Sixty odd years later Red Bank 
 was made the capital of the county of Gloucester, but the 
 place derives no celebrity from the fact that it is the reputed 
 site of an ancient Dutch fortress, or the location of a decayed 
 capital. Its name has not been associated with any judicial 
 antics, of which it might have been the scene in the seven- 
 teenth century, but with one of the most brilliant battles of 
 
 *The Pennsylvania troops, numbering about four hundred, landed 
 from a steamer at the mouth of Woodbury creek, and marched up the 
 road along the river bank, firing their field pieces as they proceeded. 
 When they had passed the Whitall house, they were met by the Jersey 
 troops, numbering about one hundred. The monument was at first 
 placed on the edge of the river bluff, so as to be readily seen from the 
 river. Subsequently it was set further back, near the ditch that sur- 
 rounded the fort. 
 
our Revolutionary period. Historians may accord the hon- 
 ors to Monmouth, Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown, but 
 the meed of praise, in equal measure, belongs to Red Bank. 
 Monmouth had her Molly Pitcher; Red Bank her Christo- 
 pher Greene. The cry of Major Pitcairn to the seventy pa- 
 
 Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island. 
 
 From a photograph of an oil painting owned by Mr. Edward Aborn 
 Greene, of Providence, R. I. Never before published. 
 
triots at Lexington, "Disperse, you rebels; throw down your 
 arms and disperse," had a fitting answer in the reply of brave 
 
 Greene, at Red Bank: ''King George be d d; we ask 
 
 no quarter." 
 
 In September, 1777, following the defeat of Washing- 
 ton at Brandywine, and the massacre of Wayne's three hun- 
 dred patriots at Paoli, the victorious army of Sir William 
 Howe entered Philadelphia. About the same time Sir Rich- 
 ard Howe entered the lower Delaware with his fleet, intend- 
 ing to co-operate with the army of occupation in Philadel- 
 phia. Captain Hammond, commanding the British frigate 
 ''Roebuck,"* of forty-four guns, represented to the com- 
 mander-in-chief that if a sufficient force could be sent to re- 
 duce the fortifications at Billingsport, three miles below Red 
 Bank, he would take upon himself the task of opening a pas- 
 sage through the chevaux-de-frise, with which the Ameri- 
 cans had obstructed the channel between Billingsport and 
 Red Bank. General Howe at once despatched two regi- 
 ments from Chester, under Colonel Stirling, for that pur- 
 pose. They crossed the Delaware a little below Billings- 
 port, marched to the rear of the unfinished works and made 
 a furious assault upon the garrison. The Americans were 
 dismayed at this unexpected attack, and believing themselves 
 unable to make a successful resistance, they spiked their 
 guns, set fire to the barracks and fled. The British there- 
 upon demolished the works on the river front, made a pas- 
 sage seven feet wide through the stockades, sailed through 
 with six light vessels and anchored in the Delaware below 
 Red Bank.** 
 
 Howe now^ determined to make a general sweep of all 
 
 *The Roebuck, with another frigate of twenty-eight guns, several 
 smaller armed vessels and a British transport, went ashore on the beach 
 north of what is now Atlantic City about January i, 1780. 
 
 **The stockades, or chevaux-de-frise, were made of poles from 
 thirty to forty feet long driven into the mud. At the top of each pole 
 was fastened a long, sharp piece of iron for the purpose of piercing 
 the bottom of any vessel that might attempt to pass over the obstruc- 
 tion. 
 
7 
 
 the American works on the Delaware, and with that end in 
 view he concentrated his entire army in the vicinity of Phila- 
 delphia. At this time two Rhode Islands regiments, belong- 
 ing to General Varnum's brigade, under Colonel Christo- 
 pher Greene, garrisoned Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, with four 
 hundred men. 
 
 It was very important for the American cause that the 
 Delaware should be defended against the invading fleet. On 
 a low and marshy island, which has since become a part of 
 the mainland of Pennsylvania, at the mouth of the Schuyl- 
 kill, Fort Mifflin was thrown up for the purpose of covering 
 with batteries the river obstructions. On the opposite New 
 Jersey shore, as stated. Fort Mercer was built on a high 
 bank, commanding the open stretch of the Delaware above 
 and below. In the river between the two forts, under cover 
 of their guns, ranges of strong frames were sunk as chevaux- 
 de-frise, to rake the wooden bottoms of England's ships of 
 war, and blockade the narrow channel. These efforts, great 
 in their day, seem puerile in this age of floating fortresses 
 and thirteen-inch rifles. 
 
 Fort Mifflin was distant from Fort Mercer about one 
 mile, and w^as garrisoned by about four hundred men of the 
 Maryland line, in command of Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel 
 Smith. The American fleet in the river, between Red Bank 
 and Philadelphia, consisted chiefly of galleys commanded by 
 Commander Hazel wood. ''^ The Americans determined to 
 hold these posts to the last extremity. Captain Hammond, 
 as we have seen, had forced a way through the lower chan- 
 nel obstructions and come to within range of the guns at 
 Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin. Then began one of the most 
 
 *Esek Hopkins, under act of Congress of April 22, 177 S^ was made 
 the first "commander" of the American Navy, holding the office until 
 January, 1777, but the title of "commodore" was not used in the navy 
 until many years later. The title of "commodore" by courtesy was 
 extended to several officers during the War of 1812-15, but the first offi- 
 cer to hold it as a direct commission appears to have been Commodore 
 David Porter, at the time he commanded the expedition against the 
 pirates of the West Indies, 1823-24. 
 
glorious stands ever made by patriots fighting for home and 
 country in the last ditch. 
 
 Count Carl Emil Kurt von Donop, a brave German offi- 
 cer, was sent out from Philadelphia with four battalions of 
 Hessian veterans, chosen from the powerful army of occu- 
 pation. On Tuesday, October 21st, they crossed the Dela- 
 ware at Cooper's ferry, now Camden, marched to Haddon- 
 field, and thence by way of a place then known as Cattletown 
 to the King's Highway above Woodbury and toward Red 
 Bank. They had intended taking a more direct route, but 
 the Americans had destroyed the bridge over Timber creek, 
 and the Hessians were obliged to march four miles up the 
 creek, to a shallow ford, at or near Clement's bridge. A 
 portion of their route to Red Bank still goes by the name of 
 ''Hessian road," and a stream of water that crosses the road 
 is known as ''Hessian run," where, no doubt, they rested and 
 replenished their canteens. A white man named Bill Mc- 
 Ilvaine, and a negro named "Dick," the latter owned by Col. 
 Joseph Ellis, a Haddonfield patriot, volunteered to act as 
 guides for the Hessians, when they left Haddonfield on the 
 morning of October 22d. Another negro known at "Mitch," 
 probably a contraction of Mitchell, at work near the Cooper's 
 creek bridge, was pressed into service as a guide. Years after- 
 wards this negro had "Old" prefixed to his name, and as 
 "Old Mitch," he described the battle of Red Bank to the late 
 Dr. Charles Clark, of Woodbury. Twenty-five years ago, 
 Dr. Clark, then about seventy-five years old, narrated to me 
 some of the particulars of this battle, as he had previously 
 gathered them from "Old Mitch" and others who lived in 
 those stirring times. To the honor of "Old Mitch" be it 
 said, that beneath his black skin there was the blood of a pa- 
 iriot, and though bully-ragged by the Red Coats, he stood 
 by his friends and betrayed no secrets. Of the fate of Mcll- 
 vaine and Dick, we shall learn presently. 
 
 Colonel Greene, energetic, obedient and patriotic, had 
 not been idle during those October days. Washington had 
 
written him, under date of October 9th, from his headquar- 
 ter at Skippack, above Philadelphia, as follows: 
 
 " I have directed General Varniim to send your regiment and that of 
 Colonel Angell's to Red Bank, by a route which has been marked out to 
 him. The command of that detachment will, of course, devolve on you, 
 with which you will proceed with all expedition, and throw yourself 
 into that place. When you arrive there you will immediately com- 
 municate your arrival to Colonel Smith, commander of the garrison 
 at Fort Mifflin, and Com. Hazlewood, commander of the fleet in the 
 river. You are to co-operate with them in every measure neces- 
 sary for the defence of the obstructions in the river, and to counteract 
 every attempt the enemy may make for their removal. You will find 
 a very good fortification at Red Bank, but if anything should be requi- 
 site to render it stronger, or proportion it to the size of your garrison, 
 you will have it done. The cannon you will stand in need of, as much 
 as can be spared, will be furnished from the galleys at Fort Mifflin, 
 from whence you will also derive supplies of military stores. I have 
 sent Captain Duplessis, with some officers and men, to take the im- 
 mediate direction of the artillery for your garrison. He is also to 
 superintend any works that may be necessary. If there be any de- 
 ficiency of men for the artillery the security of the garrison will re- 
 quire you to assist them in the few additional ones from your detach- 
 ment. You should not lose a moment's time in getting to the place 
 of your destination and making every preparation for its defence. 
 Any delay might give the enemy an opportunity of getting there be- 
 fore you, which could not fail of being most fatal in its consequences. 
 If in the progress of your march you should fall in with any detach- 
 ment of the enemy, bending toward the same object, and likely to 
 gain it before you, and from intelligence you should have reason to 
 think yourself equal to the task, you will by all means attack them and 
 endeavor by that means to disappoint their design. I have written to 
 General Newcomb. of the Jersey militia, to give you all the aid in his 
 power, for which you will accordingly apply when necessary. Upon the 
 whole, sir, you will be pleased to remember that the post with which you 
 are now entrusted is of the utmost importance to America, and de- 
 mands every exertion of which you are capable for its security and 
 defence. The whole defence of the Delaware absolutely depends upon 
 it ; and consequently all the enemy's hopes of keeping Philadelphia and 
 finally succeeding in the object of the present campaign. Influenced by 
 these considerations, I doubt not your regard to the service and your 
 own reputation will prompt you to every possible effort to accomplish 
 the important end of your trust, and frustrate the intentions of the 
 enemy." (Signed, Gko. Washington.) 
 
 The fact that Colonel Greene was entrusted with the 
 command of a post that was of "the utmost importance to 
 America," and upon which the whole defence of the Dela- 
 ware absolutely depended, in the estimation of Washington, 
 is a tribute to the honor, the valor and the judgment of Col- 
 
lO 
 
 onel Greene, no less appreciable than the gift of a sword by 
 C^ongress. 
 
 
 Plan of Fort Mercer. 
 
 From a drawing made in 1842 by T. S. Saunders, of Woodbury. 
 REFERENCES. 
 A — Road the Hessians used in marching to the attack. 
 B — End of the Fort at which the Hessians entered. 
 C — Monument erected in 1829. 
 
 D— Ditch, cross embankment and location of masked battery. 
 F — Hickory tree used during the battle as a flag staff. 
 F— Ruins of the brick wall in the middle of the artificial bank— also 
 
 gateway. 
 G — Trenches in which the slain were deposited. 
 H — Count Donop's grave. 
 I— Whitall house. 
 
 J — Road to Woodbury, now called "Hessian Road." 
 K— Direction to Fort Mififlin. 
 The works represented extend about 350 yards in a right line. 
 
II 
 
 Not having men to properly man the fort, Colonel 
 Greene proposed to abandon about two-thirds, or the upper 
 end of it; put a d()ul)le 1)oard fence across the lower third; 
 protect it with wooden pickets and the sharpened branches 
 of trees; place the cannon in such a position as to rake the 
 upper part of the fort ; cover them with 1)ushes ; fill the space 
 between the two fences with hay, old lumber and such other 
 obstructions as were at hand. The cannon were heavily 
 k>aded with grai:)e shot and other destructive missiles. It 
 was arranged that only a show of defence should be made at 
 the upper end of the fort, which was to be abandoned as 
 soon as the attack was found to be in earnest, and a retreat 
 made to the small enclosure or main fort below. This was 
 to be defended to the last extremity. 
 
 Historians, in their brief reference to the battle of Red 
 Bank, have usually fixed the time of the assault at before 
 noon. Even the late Judge Clement, of Haddonfield, known 
 to some of you as a faithful annalist and painstaking his- 
 torian, falls into this error. Some accounts say it took place 
 earlv in the day, others are silent as to the time of day, and 
 in 1:)ut one or two instances, so far as I am aware, has it been 
 said that the assault took place late in the afternoon. 
 
 The diary of Job Whitall, a Quaker and non-combatant, 
 is interesting in this connection. Friend Whitall lived in a 
 large brick house, fronting the river and just below the fort. 
 He was the husband of Ann Whitall, already mentioned, and 
 kept a diary of daily incidents for twenty years, from 1775 to 
 1795. Under date of Tenth month, 22d, 1777, the day of 
 the battle, he says : 
 
 " This day dawned pleasant and fair. Father and I hung the gate 
 and then finished the stacks. Then we got the horses and wagon, and 
 loaded our goods to move them, as we hear the English troops in 
 the river are coming nearer." Under the same date Friend Whitall says 
 that " myself, wife and children, after eating dinner, went off to Uncle 
 David Cooper's, near Woodbury." He also tells us that Cooper sent his 
 wagon to aid in moving the goods. They drove away twenty-one head 
 of his cattle. "The people in the Fort," says he, regretfully, "drove 
 away from father and I forty-seven sheep into the Fort." 
 
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13 
 
 The fact that the Hessians had not arrived at noon, and 
 that "after eating dinner," Dame Whitall and her children 
 were taken to Uncle David Cooper's, near Woodbury, proves 
 that there was no battle until afternoon, and apparently dis- 
 proves the story about the good dame sitting at her spinning- 
 wheel, first upstairs, and then in the cellar, while cannon 
 balls were crashing through the walls of the house. 
 
 It must have b-een on account of information that the 
 Hessians w^ere coming, or because the men in the fort had 
 aroused the ire of the peaceful Quaker by driving into their 
 enclosure forty-seven of his sheep, that Job Whitall, some 
 lime after dinner on the day of the battle, decided to remove 
 his wife and children to Woodbury, and to save his twenty- 
 one head of cattle. 
 
 But if Friend Whitall resented the taking of his forty- 
 seven head of sheep by the men in the fort, what must have 
 been his subsequent feelings toward the garrison? On the 
 25th, three days after the battle, he says : 
 
 " The soldiers pressed my mare, by order of Col. Greene." The 
 next day, after noting the fact that he had hauled away the wheat 
 and grain, he adds : "Then I filled four rooms with goods — locked 
 up," and under date of the day following we read that "these . rooms 
 the soldiers broke open and took away some potatoes." Five days later, 
 on November ist, the soldiers took away his mare and four loads of 
 rye, but he tells us that he himself "got off with some of his horses," 
 and his neighbors assisted in removing his hay, produce, &c. On No- 
 vember 4th he notes : "The soldiers pressed my oxen as we were in the 
 act of hauling away, and the soldiers went to Uncle David Cooper's and 
 there pressed the sorrel horse." On the pth the "soldiers steal some 
 of the pigs at Woodbury," while the family is at meeting. The next 
 day he goes to "the Bank," meaning Red Bank, and gets a load out of 
 his cellar. On the 15th he killed his fat cow, and in the night the sol- 
 diers came and pillaged a part of it. 
 
 On the 2ist, while still living at Woodbury, he staid at home, 
 because the English soldiers had then arrived there. They took his two 
 mares, both with foal, and while the army was passing by, they came 
 and took their bread, pies, milk, cheese, dishes, cups, spoons ; also their 
 shirts, sheets, blankets, &c., and then drove out the cattle from the brick 
 shed. 
 
 These few extracts from the diary are sufficient to show 
 the perturbed state of Friend Whitall's mind about the time 
 of the battle at Red Bank. Manduit, the French engineer, 
 
14 
 
 who assisted Colonel Greene, could not comprehend the peace 
 doctrines of the Quakers, and because Friend Whitall would 
 not doff his straight coat, shoulder a musket and go into the 
 fort, the Frenchman concluded that he was a Tory, and or- 
 dered his barn torn down and his orchard destroyed. 
 
 But continuing our account of the battle, I assume that 
 the little garrison was not expecting a formidable land at- 
 tack, and their sentry lines did not extend far beyond the 
 fortification. They must be in readiness for any movement 
 made by that fleet of war vessels in the river, whose spars 
 could be seen above the ramparts of the fort. Late in the 
 afternoon, the Hessians appeared before the fort. The Brit- 
 ish naval force in the river was ready to co-operate with 
 iliem in the attack. 
 
 Colonel Greene was not dismayed by the appearance of 
 the Hessians, although the farthest sentry had dashed into 
 the fort and said they numbered twenty-five hundred. He 
 immediately ordered preparations for the defence. The four- 
 teen guns were double-shotted and reprimed. Within there 
 was the roll of drums calling to quarters, the rattle of snap- 
 ping flints, the hurrying footfalls of men forming a line 
 along the parapets, the shouting of orders, the clash of steel 
 and the tattoo of ramrods. Without there was the roll of 
 Hessian drums. Then came a time of silence, when the men, 
 we may suppose, said their prayers and examined their flints. 
 
 The last preparations were made within, when a Hes- 
 sian officer rode out from the woods, across the open field, 
 bearing a flag of truce and followed by a drummer. He 
 halted close to the ramparts and shouted : 
 
 "The king of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down 
 their arms, and they are warned that if they stand the battle no quar- 
 ter will be given." 
 
 Colonel Greene deputized a man to mount the parapet and fling 
 back the answer : "We ask no quarter, nor will we give any." 
 
 One trustworthy account says the exact words were : 
 
 ''We'll see King George be damned first; we ask no quarter." 
 
 The Hessian officer rode back to lines and the attack be- 
 
15 
 
 gan immediately. A field battery was dragged up and placed 
 ''half a shot away," says an old chronicler, "and within the 
 fort all were eager and busy." It was then four o'clock in 
 the afternoon. The Hessians opened fire with their battery, 
 hoping to make a breach in the walls. At the same time the 
 British ships l^elow the chevaux-de-frize began to thunder 
 upon the little fort, but many of their balls fell too low and 
 entered the 1)luff beneath the works. After cannonading 
 for a short time the Hessians advanced to the first entrench- 
 ment. Finding this abandoned, they shouted "Victory," 
 waved their hats and rushed into the deserted area before 
 the redoubt. When the first of the assailants had come up 
 to the abatis and were endeavoring to cut away the branches, 
 the Americans opened a terrific fire of cannon and musketry 
 in front and flank. Death rode in every volley. So near 
 w^ere the Hessians to the caponiere or looped trench which 
 flanked the enemy when they set upon the main fort, that the 
 wads were blown entirely through their bodies. The officers 
 leading the attack fought l^ravely. Again and again they 
 rallied their men and brought them to the charge, but they 
 fell in heaps among the boughs of the abatis and into the 
 moat. In the thickest of the fight Donop was easily distin- 
 guished, but his example availed nothing. Repulsed from 
 the redoubt in front, his men made an attack upon the escarp- 
 ment on the northwest or river side, but the fire from the 
 American galleys drove them back with great loss, and at last 
 they flew^ in great disorder to the woods, leaving many 
 slain.* 
 
 *"While the enemy was attacking the fort, the Augusta, of sixty- 
 four guns ; the Roebuck, of forty-four ; two frigates, of thirty-two ; the 
 Merlin, of eighteen, and their large galleys came through the lower 
 chcvaux-de-frise, and kept up a great firing, in order to draw off our 
 galleys from giving any assistance to the fort ; but they were mis- 
 taken. The Augusta, in going down in the evening, got aground. 
 Early this morning (October 23d) all the galleys and floating bat- 
 teries began the attack, when an incessant fire was kept up on both 
 sides ; so that the very elements seemed to be on fire. At eleven o'clock 
 the Augusta was set on fire, and at twelve she blew up with an aston- 
 ishing blast. One of our people was killed in a galley by the fall of a 
 
i6 
 
 Another column made a simultaneous attack upon the 
 south, but were repulsed, and all retreated save twenty, who 
 were standing on the berm against the shelvings of the para- 
 pet, under and out of the wa}^ of the guns, whence they were 
 afraid to move. These were captured by Manduit, the 
 French engineer,''' wdio had sallied from the fort to repair 
 some palisades. This brave Frenchman, making another 
 sortie a few minutes afterwards, to repair the southern abatis, 
 heard a voice from among the heaps of dead and dying ex- 
 claim in broken English : "Whoever you are, draw me 
 hence." This was Count Donop. The Frenchman caused 
 him to be carried into the fort, where it was found that his 
 hip^ was broken, but the wound was not considered fatal. 
 Remembering the threat of the Hessian officer, who was per- 
 mitted to approach the fort before the battle, an American 
 said, in the hearing of Donop : 
 
 " It is determined to give no quarter." " I am in your hands," 
 said the Count, "you may revenge yourselves." Nevertheless, the 
 wounded Hessian was properly cared for. Manduit, enjoining the 
 men in broken English to be generous toward their bleeding and hum- 
 bled prisoner. Donop said to him, "You appear to be a foreigner, sir ; 
 who are you?" "A French officer, sir," was the reply. "I am content," 
 said Donop ; "I die in the hands of honor itself." 
 
 Donop was removed first to the Whitall house, below the fort, 
 and afterwards to the house of one Lowe, over the dam, at Wood- 
 bury creek, where he died of his wounds three days later. When 
 told that his end was near, he said : "It is finishing a noble career early, 
 but I die the victim of ambition and the avarice of my sovereign." 
 To Colonel Clymer he said: "See in me the vanity of all human 
 pride. I have shone in all the courts of Europe, and now I am dying 
 on the banks of the Delaware, in the house of an obscure Quaker." 
 
 The house in which Donop died was standing until about i860. 
 It was of brick with the old style hip roof. 
 
 piece of timber, and we were so near that some of our powder-horns 
 took fire and blew up. The engagement still continued ; but the Roe- 
 buck fell lower down, and the Merlin, of eighteen guns, ran aground, 
 and at three o'clock the enemy set fire to her, when the engagement 
 ceased, the enemy falling still lower down. Thus ended two glorious 
 days. The Commodore (Hazel wood) with his boats went on board 
 the wrecks and took out much plunder, and brought off two of their 
 cannon, one an eighteen, the other a twenty-four pounder." — From a 
 "Diary of the Revolution," October 23, 1777. 
 
 *His full name was M. du Plessis Manduit. 
 
Plan of Operations of the 
 
 Reproduced from a Tory pi 
 
Ltisli and Rebel Army." 
 of Revolutionary days. 
 
I? 
 
 Weems, in his life of Washington, refers to this inci- 
 dent. The legs of prose being altogether too slow for this 
 eccentric writer, he frequently invokes the wings of poetry 
 to help him over an extraordinary occurrence. In describing 
 the battle of Red Bank, he breaks into versification as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Heaps on heaps, the slaughtered Hessians lie ; 
 Brave Greene beholds them with a tearful eye; 
 Far now from home and from their native shore, 
 They sleep in death and hear of war no more." 
 
 Dr. George W. Greene, in his book on the ''German Ele- 
 ment in the War of Independence," referring to these dying 
 words of Donop, "the victim of my own ambition and the 
 avarice of my sovereign," says : "Did these bitter w^ords 
 ever reach the ears of that sovereign? Not if we may judge 
 by the cold, business-like method with which he bargained 
 with the British King that three wounded men should count 
 as one killed, and one killed as thirty crowns banco." 
 
 The defeat of the Hessians and the death, not only of 
 Donop, but of Mingerode, the officer second in command, 
 demoralized them, and they retreated towards Cooper's Ferry 
 in detached bodies, begging food and shelter of those whom 
 they had so badly treated. The transportation of the wound- 
 ed caused much trouble, and as one detachment approached 
 Haddonfield a farmer living near the road was, with his horse 
 and cart, pressed into service to carry those who were unable 
 to walk further. The appearance of armed men so terrified 
 the farmer, that he neglected to fasten down the front of his 
 cart, and in ascending a hill near the village the weight of the 
 men was thrown on the rear of the cart. Consequently all 
 were pitched headlong into the road, at which there was 
 much swearing in Dutch by the soldiers and prostestations in 
 English by the farmer ; but after many threats the vehicle 
 was properly secured and the journey to Cooper's Ferry was 
 completed. 
 
 Other detachments of Hessians retreated by way of 
 Blackwood or Chew's Landing. Near the latter place they 
 
were met by a company of farmers' boys, who held them at 
 bay for some time. This detachment had with them a brass 
 cannon, which they are said to have thrown into the creek 
 near Chew's Landing. 
 
 Bin Mcllvaine and the negro Dick, to whom I have re- 
 ferred as guides for the Hessians, being taken prisoners by 
 the Americans, were immediately hung within the fort for 
 divers outrages which they had committed. "Old Mitch" 
 lived for many years, and often told how frightened he was 
 during the progress of the battle. Determined not to bear 
 arms against his country, and being afraid to run away, he 
 got behind a hay rick, and lay there flat on his stomach until 
 the battle was over. "Fust, when de cannon ball cum 
 along," he used to say, "I b'lieved I was a dead nigger sure; 
 but lordy massa, when de hot fightin' was a-goin' on, I was 
 mos' shuk dead as de dam cannon balls cum a-plowin' along 
 de groun' an' a-flingin' san' in my face." 
 
 Dr. Charles Clark, of Woodbury, to whom I have 
 already referred, said in 1875, that many years before he had 
 talked with "Old Mitch," and the words of the old negro, as 
 I have given them, are exactly as Dr. Clark recalled them. 
 
 In the manuscript notes of a septuagenarian, quoted by 
 Mickle, in 1845, ^^'^ ^^'^ told that he, the septuagenarian, was 
 in the fort on the morning of the 23d of October, the day 
 after the battle, when he saw that a number of the men under 
 Colonel Greene were blacks and mulattoes. The garrison 
 was then busy burying the dead. His account of the loss 
 agrees with that contained in Ward's letter to Washington, 
 namely : On the American side, from Greene's regiment, 
 two sergeants, one fifer and four privates killed, one sergeant 
 and two privates wounded, and one captain, who was recon- 
 noitering, taken prisoner. From Angell's regiment, one cap- 
 tain, three sergeants, three rank and file killed, and one en- 
 sign, one sergeant and fifteen privates wounded ; and from 
 Captain Duplessis' company, two privates wounded. The 
 Hessians lost Count Donop, Colonel Minegerode, three cap- 
 
19 
 
 tains, four lieutenants and above seventy privates killed, and 
 a brigade major, captain, lieutenant and upwards of seventy 
 non-commissioned officers and privates wounded and prison- 
 ers. A number of the wounded subsequently died. Other 
 accounts make the Hessian loss much greater.'^ 
 
 *A letter to the Neiv Jersey Gazette, dated October 23, 1777, giv- 
 ing an account of the battle, says : "In about three-quarters of an 
 hour's attack they ran off with the greatest precipitation, leaving be- 
 hind them dead about ninety persons. Among them was a lieutenant 
 colonel and four captains; and from a good authority we are assured 
 that the enemy buried one colonel and twenty-one privates between 
 the fort and Cooper's ferry, and carried over the river not less than 
 two hundred wounded. The enemy left on the field, wounded, Count 
 Donop, his brigade-major, a lieutenant and about eighty privates. 
 The brigade-major and lieutenant are permitted to go into Philadelphia, 
 and most of the privates have died of their wounds." 
 
 The following is probably a correct summary of the loss on both 
 sides : 
 
 
 Hessians. 
 
 Americans. 
 
 
 
 Wounded. 
 
 en 
 u 
 
 OJ 
 
 C 
 
 
 'u 
 
 Killed. 
 
 -d 
 
 
 
 t/3 
 
 Count Donop 
 
 Colonel Minegerade 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 Brigade-Major 
 
 
 
 
 
 Captains 
 
 3 
 4 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 Lieutenants 
 
 
 Ensign 
 
 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 
 Musicians 
 
 I 
 
 77 
 
 "97' 
 
 lOI 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 Privates . .... ... 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 20 
 
 14 
 
 22 
 
 I 
 
 A number of the wounded subsequently died. Including these, 
 the Hessian killed numbered not less than one hundred and fifty. The 
 Hessians are also said to have taken over the Delaware "not less than 
 two hundred wounded." 
 
 Dr. James Thacher, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, in his 
 journal says: "Count Donop was mortally wounded and taken, and 
 more than one hundred were killed on the spot, and a greater number 
 wounded and prisoners. The enemy retreated with great precipitation, 
 leaving many of their wounded on the road, and returned to Philadel- 
 phia with the loss of one-half their party." 
 
20 
 
 The battle lasted forty minutes, and during its progress 
 a number of Americans were killed or wounded by the burst- 
 ing of a cannon. The Hessian slain were buried in the moat 
 south of the fort. Those who were not mortally wounded 
 were taken to Philadelphia by Manduit and exchanged. 
 
 Donop was buried in the pathway half way between the 
 old Whitall house and the lower end of the fort, the feet to- 
 wards the river. Some one placed a rough stone at his head, 
 on which were picked in a very crude way the letters, ''Here 
 lies buried Count Donop." Years afterward what was left 
 of the Hessian was dug up and distributed among various per- 
 sons as ghastly relics. Time was when men were guilty of 
 exhibiting canes, the heads of which were set with teeth taken 
 from the jaw bone of a count! Annalist John F. Watson, 
 of Philadelphia, said he visited Red Bank in 1847, ^'^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 
 house of Louis Whitall, grandson of Friend Job Whitall, he 
 saw the skull of Count Donop. 
 
 While the Hessians were assaulting Fort Mercer, the 
 British fleet in the river, besides firing in the direction of Red 
 Bank, made an attack upon Fort Mifflin, across the river. Of 
 the glorious defence of this fort for six days, against over- 
 whelming odds, I need not speak. After Fort Mifflin had 
 been evacuated, (the remnant of the garrison escaping to 
 Red Bank by night) Howe sent Cornwallis with reinforce- 
 ments from New York to fall upon Fort Mercer. W^ith two 
 thousand men the latter crossed the Delaware from Chester 
 to Billingsport on November i8th. Washington had been 
 apprised of this movement and had previously sent troops 
 under General Nathaniel Greene to relieve the doughty gar- 
 rison at Red Bank. This force was to be increased by the 
 addition of Glover's brigade, but Generals Greene and Lafay- 
 ette, (the latter not yet recovered from a wound received at 
 Brandy wine, ) crossing to New Jersey, failed to connect with 
 Glover's brigade, and learning the strength of Cornwallis' 
 army, General Greene went off to Haddonfield. Colonel 
 Greene was ordered to evacuate Fort Mercer, as the British 
 
21 
 
 fleet, after the reduction of Fort Mifflin, had gone by and up 
 to Philadelphia. Colonel Greene accordingly blew up and 
 evacuated the fort on November 20th. 
 
 The day following Greene's evacuation of the fort, 
 Cornwallis arrived at Woodbury, and then began another 
 series of depredations upon Friend Whitall's barn yard and 
 pig sty, the story of which is plaintively told in the diary 
 from which I have already quoted ; nor was dame Whitall's 
 larder overlooked by the hungry Red Coats, who carried off 
 her bread, pies, cakes, milk, cheese, dishes, cups, spoons, &c., 
 likewise her shirts, sheets and blankets. On November 22d, 
 says the diarist, the soldiers took away one of his pigs and 
 cut and hacked others. They also took his harness and pota- 
 toes. The next day they took his hay and ten of his sheep, 
 and the day following, November 24th, "the English soldiers 
 moved off in the morning from Woodl3ury," going to Red 
 Bank. After they had gone Friend Whitall walked to the 
 camp ground, and found there his big kettle and the hide of 
 his brown ox. On his return from Woodbury, he found 
 that the}^ had opened his smoke house and taken five flitches. 
 They had also used of his boards a thousand feet and burned 
 two or three thousand of his staves. 
 
 Deprived of his cattle, his horses, his oxen, his sheep, 
 his pigs, his stores, his sheets and his shirts, what wonder is 
 it that Friend Job Whitall deprecated the horrors of war! 
 Surely, his was a horrible tale, the telling of which might 
 make his neighbors' faces all turn pale ! We can imagine 
 Job the Quaker, saying with Paul the Apostle, ''O, wretched 
 man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body of this 
 death?" 
 
 As a recognition of his valorous defence of Fort Mercer, 
 Congress directed that a sword be presented to Colonel 
 Greene, but this sword it was not his privilege to receive. It 
 w^as given to his son after the close of the war, the Colonel 
 himself being then dead. While stationed with his regiment 
 near Croton river. New York, he was surprised about sun- 
 
22 
 
 rise, on May 13, 1 781, by a company of Tories, consisting of 
 al)out one hundred cavalry and two hundred infantry, com- 
 manded by the notorious Colonel James Delancey. They 
 first attacked Colonel Greene's and Major Flagg's quarters, 
 and killed the Major while in bed. Colonel Greene fell after 
 his single arm had slain a number of his assailants. Being 
 badly wounded in the house, he was carried into the woods 
 and barbarously murdered. Two subalterns and twenty- 
 seven privates were also killed, and a lieutenant and surgeon, 
 with about twenty men, taken prisoners. 
 
 At the same time. Captain Knapp, of the cavalry, with a 
 detachment of Tories, attacked the house of Widow Grifhn, 
 half a mile distant from Colonel Greene's camp, where they 
 killed eight men and took twenty-one prisoners. 
 
 In referring to this cruel assault, in his ''Military Jour- 
 nal of the Revolution," Dr. James Thacher says : '' It will 
 not be denied that an enemy may be justified in availing 
 himself of every opportunity of gaining an advantage over 
 his antagonist, or that in some instances slaughter is una- 
 voidable ; but a wanton and unnecessary sacrifice of life is on 
 all occasions to be deprecated as a disgraceful violation of 
 the dictates of humanity." 
 
 In conclusion, recurrring to Red Bank, I cannot refrain 
 from expressing before this patriotic society what must be 
 the sentiment of every native or adopted son and daughter 
 of New Jersey, namely : That the neglected condition of the 
 monument erected to commemorate the bravery of Colonel 
 Greene and his band of patriots is discreditable to the Gov- 
 ernment upon wdiose grounds it is located, and to the county 
 within whose bounds it is situated. For years it has been 
 the prey of vandals, and its once-polished sides are now 
 scratched and marred by the pencil and pick of the plebe. 
 In 1872, the Government purchased a tract of about one hun- 
 dred acres along the Delaware, at Red Bank, including the 
 site of the fortifications and the old Whitall house, whose 
 floors are still stained w^ith the blood of wounded Hessians 
 
23 
 
 and patriots, and while the house, now tenanted by Captain 
 Stephen Abdih and his obhging wife, has undergone a thor- 
 ough renovation, (the woodwork shining with new paint 
 and the rooms resplendent with new furniture,) the monu- 
 ment is ignored, neglected and forgotten. 
 
 Three or four hundred feet from the road, near the cen- 
 tre of a field at Valley Forge, is the grave of Captain John 
 Waterman, a Rhode Island soldier, who died during that 
 memorable winter of 1777-78. For many years the owner 
 of the land, Mr. I. Heston Todd, has preserved and guarded 
 this grave, and over it, ere long, there will be placed a suita- 
 ble monument, the State of Rhode Island having appro- 
 priated $10,000 for that purpose. Over the same grave the 
 Daughters of the Revolution are also determined to place a 
 fitting monument. Will it become the privilege of the same 
 little commonwealth of Rhode Island to put to shame the 
 Federal Government by restoring the monument at Red 
 Bank, and protecting it from depredations by the vulgar 
 herd ? Alas, that there are no sons and daughters of Revolu- 
 tionary sires in old Gloucester county, with pride and patriot- 
 ism sufficient to preserve a monument erected within her pre- 
 cincts, to commemorate the gallant stand of that noble four 
 hundred ! 
 
24 
 
 The Monument— Mutilated and Neglected. 
 
 Photographed by Helen L. Heston. 
 
 Inscription on Nortli Side — This monument was erected on the 
 22d Octo., 1829, to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of 
 the Patriotism and Gallantry of Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene, 
 who, with 400 men, conquered the Hessian army of 2,000 troops (then 
 in the British service) at Red Bank, on the 22d Octo., 1777. Among 
 the slain was found the commander, Count Donop, whose body lies 
 interred near the spot where he fell. 
 
 Inscription on Bast Side — A number of the New Jersey and Penn- 
 sylvania volunteers, being desirous to perpetuate the memory of the dis- 
 tinguished officer and soldiers who fought and bled in the glorious 
 struggle for Independence, have erected this monument on the 22d of 
 October, A. D. 1829. 
 
^» 
 
JAM 17 tm