BATTLiE OF PRINCETON A PRELIMINAIIY STUDV The Battle of Princeton A Preliminary Study ALFRED A. WOODHULL PRINCETON, N. J. W. C. SINCLAIR I913 Copyright, 1913, By Alfred A. Woodhull, PRINCETON, N. J. THE FALCON PRESS I913 ffH/S ©CI.A332834 To The Society of Sons of the Revolution in New Jersey NOTE. The object of this essay is to describe the tactical operations in the engagement near Princeton, on the third of January, 1777. It is a study preliminary to a fuller dis- cussion of that short Jersey campaign ; and it is put forth in this form and at this time expressly to elicit and invite criticism and, if possible, to draw out authorities, published or still in manuscript, that may throw more light on the situation. Princeton was not a great battle from the point of numbers engaged or of casualties suffered. But it was a great battle when its consequences are considered ; when the influence of that victory upon the military history of the Revolution is weighed ; and especially when one reflects upon the inevitable political result that would have followed a defeat upon that field. No one can write of these movements without recog- nizing the importance of the late General W. S. Stryker's investigation of the subject, and feeling serious obligation to him, an obligation that I gratefully express. I am glad also to acknowledge indebtedness for cordial cooperation and very intelligent comment to my friend Walter Hart Olden, whose family has lived in the neighborhood since 1696. Mr. Olden has freely placed at my disposal farm maps, field notes of old surveys, and neighborhood traditions which have been exceedingly valuable. A. A. W. Princeton, February 12th. 19 13. The Battle of Princeton A Preliminary Study The military situation on the evening of the second of January, 1777, which led to the engagement near Princeton the next day, was this : Lord Cornwallis with a considerable force had reached Princeton on the first, and proceeded toward Trenton on the second, of January. He took with him von Donop's brigade of Hessians, that had been in Princeton since December twenty-eighth, and left in that village a British brigade temporarily commanded by Lt. Col. Mawhood. Of this brigade, the 17th and 55th Foot were to follow the next morning, and the 40th, quartered in the college, was to remain there in garrison. He also left Leslie's brigade for the time at Maidenhead (Lawrence- ville). The only direct route to Trenton was the Post Road, which crossed Stony Brook by a bridge at Worth's Mill and ran through Lawrenceville. Cornwallis was de- layed by a detaining force beyond Lawrenceville, and did not reach Trenton until nearly sunset, or between four and five o'clock. The weather was warm and oppressive for the season ; it had rained, the road was deep with mud, and the smaller streams were running nearly, or quite, bank-full under the influence of the thaw. The British column was about 8,000 strong and it immediately made an ineffectual attempt to cross the Assunpink, a small stream, whose left bank the Americans held, that enters the Delaware after bounding Trenton on the southeast. Washington had with him a few small Continental regiments, and a considerable number of militia drawn from Philadelphia and South Jersey, the total being about four thousand men, imperfectly equipped and clothed. For rea- sons not necessary to rehearse here, it was imperative that the Americans should leave the British vicinity in the course of the night ; and providentially for this movement a sudden 8 and severe change in the weather made the roads, that were ahnost bottomless, rough but adamantine tracks. Accord- ingly about one o'clock in the morning, after what heavy baggage there was had been sent toward Burlington, the troops were adroitly and silently withdrawn from the line of the Assunpink and set in motion for the Quaker Bridge on the upper reaches of that creek. This bridge was on the Quaker Road, the travelled route between the Friends' Meetings of Stony Brook and Crosswicks. Between Tren- ton and the bridge were merely country ways, difficult for wheeled transportation, narrow, rough, irregular, obstructed by stumps, cut into ruts, and used only for short sections of neighborhood communication and not for travel to Prince- ton or New Brunswick. North of the Quaker Bridge the road was comparatively direct and plain, but still very infe- rior and not a highway in any proper sense. Washington's purpose was a double one ; to evacuate his absolutely untenable position, and to surprise the minor post of Princeton and possibly seize the military depot at New Brunswick. Not long before sunrise he passed Stony Brook at the point where the bridge near the canal now spans it, about a third of a mile from Port Mercer, since established, and a very little more than a mile south of the Meeting House, still standing. After crossing, he divided the command into three columns.' One, the First Division, under Maj. Gen. Sullivan, was to move by the right to Princeton and approach it on the reverse, or south, side. Sullivan left the Quaker Road about 500 yards from the Meeting House, passed behind (south of) a thick wood, apparently made use of cleared fields for easier progress, and inclined to the left so as to enter the way used by Friends from Princeton going across country to Meeting, as they sometimes did in preference to taking the longer route by the formal highway. Certainly, when Mercer be- ^ Rodney. Memoirs Long Island Historical Society. Vol. III., Part II., pp. 158-9; also Stryker, Battles of Trenton and Princeton, p. 438. came engaged he was on one of the Clarkes' farms, but not immediately at the southern base of the ridge on which the house stands. Two brigades, forming the Second Division, were to move to the left and enter the village from the west, but on the way to break the wooden bridge over Stony Brook at Worth's Mill on the main road, and to post a party there to delay any force that might arrive in pursuit. Brig. Gen. Mercer, with the Third Division, also of two brigades, was "to march straight on to Princeton, without turning to the right or left." The commander of the Second Division who was to break the bridge, leave a rear-guard there, and proceed to Princeton, has not yet been identified ; but it is believed that he was Maj. Gen. Greene. Had he broken the bridge, obviously his course toward the town would have been over the Post Road. It clearly was Washington's design to mark out a military triangle with a comparatively narrow base, (Sullivan left the road about three- fourths of a mile from the Mill,) the two sides, Sullivan's and, as we suppose, Greene's, columns, converging at the apex, Prince- ton. The triangle was bisected by Mercer's column moving midway between the others to unite with them finally at the critical position. This was a modification, conforming to the topographical situation, of the attack on Trenton eight days earlier. It had the advantage of using three lines of march, thus shortening by one-third the long drawn-out and slender formation in which the army had moved from Tren- ton, and of keeping the three columns within supporting distance of each other. But as a matter of fact no Ameri- cans reached the bridge before the battle, although the inter- ruption of hostile communication by its destruction would have been eminently desirable. Inasmuch as no further mention is made of the column sent to the left, and as Greene, who would have been its natural commander, is known to have been in the culminating fight, we are required to assume : Either ( i ) that Rodney was mistaken and such a Division was not sent; or (2) that it was recalled soon after it had started; or (3) that its commander observed Mawliood's movement and promptly and properly retraced his steps so as to rejoin Washington and thus reinforce Sullivan's First Division. In either case Mercer's Third Division became simply a flanking column to the main body and would serve as a first line of battle if attacked from the left, as proved the case. In that view, had time allowed, Mercer should have retired, skirmishing, on the main body. But the contact between the two columns was not effective, and certainly no warning was sent from the rear after Mawhood's approach was observed. It now is necessary to examine the British situation. Lt. Col. Mawhood. who had been left at Princeton over night with orders to proceed early the next morning to Trenton with a part of his brigade, drew out in the short dawn twilight and as the sun rose was ascending the hill immediately beyond Worth's Mill. He had with him the 17th Foot, a small part of the 55th Foot, a troop" of the i6th Light Dragoons, and two pieces of artillery. The greater part of the 55th, under the command of Major Cornelius Cuyler, was nearly, or quite, a mile in the rear. When near the house on the summit, then belonging to William Millette, but whose site is now that of Mrs. Schirmer's, chance observation toward the east disclosed a distant body of American troops and the commanding officer, assuming that these were fugitives from Trenton, immediately coun- termarched with the view of cutting them off. It is not certainly known which Division he discovered. Wilkinson, then an aide to St. Clair, while near the head of Sullivan's First Division, saw the British in the act of countermarch- ing and believed that it was St. Clair's own troops that had been observed." The morning was cold and clear and, when the woods did not intercept the view, moving objects could be detected at a long distance. It seems probable that a * Wilkinson. Memoirs, I., p. 144, says "three troops." ^Memoirs (1816) I., p. 141. part of Sullivan's command came into view when passing across a cleared space not far from and southeast of Thomas Clarke's house. At all events Mawhood moved rapidly down the hill, crossed the bridge at the Mill, and at the first convenient point turned to the southeast. What was his real objective is not now known, but the first command that he encountered was Mercer's, on the ground of William Clarke, now owned by M. T. Pyne and H. B. Owsley. Marshall * says : The British had discovered troops advanc- ing on their left, in a direction which would enter the road in their rear and, having repassed Stony Brook, they "moved under cover of a copse of woods toward the Americans whose van was conducted by General Mercer. A sharp action ensued," etc. He does not specify where this occur- red, and leaves it to be inferred that Mawhood met the head of a nearly continuous column ; for he goes on to say ' that "The main body of the army led by Gen. Washington in person followed close in the rear." An obvious error. There is a moral certainty that at no point of his earlier progress had Mercer been observed. Had his Division been seen while still on the Quaker Road between the Meeting House and the Mill, Mawhood would have recognized that the bridge was in danger and would have arranged to defend it. The same would be the case had he seen the Second Division, which we suppose Greene to be commanding. It is much more probable that he did observe Sullivan's First Division in the distance, directed his course to intercept it, and unexpectedly clashed with Mercer. On the other hand Wilkinson,' writing forty years after the event, notes that the main column, that is Sullivan's, wheeled to the right, and says : "Gen. Mercer with a command not exceeding 350 men, [which must mean Mercer's own brigade and * Life of Washington, ist Ed. (1805) II., p. 506. ' (p. 507-) "Memoirs (1816) I., p. 141. neglects Cadwalader's attached militia] marched immediately up Stony Brook, as I was informed at the time, to take pos- session of the bridge." After reporting that he himself had observed the British near Cochran's (i. e., Millette's) house and saw their abrupt return, Wilkinson continues (p. 142) "When Col. Mawhood . . . discovered the head of our column he did not perceive Gen. Mercer [nor any other troops] marching up the creek near its left bank and . . . he determined to retrograde and cut us up, nor had Gen. Mercer any suspicion of the presence of Mawhood's corps, until he [Mawhood] recrossed Stony Brook, when a mutual discovery was made at less than five hundred yards distance, and the respective corps then endeavored to get possession of the high ground on their [the American] right." The last clause is certainly an error, and the whole paragraph appears to be unintentionally misleading. Unless Wilkin- son, then a young aide to Gen. St. Clair, himself heard Washington's order and remembered it correctly, there is no particular presumption in favor of this account of Mercer's course, which seems to be the foundation of the popular belief to-day. Without doubt Mercer moved a short distance up the road along the brook before turning toward Princeton ; but as Wilkinson was very near the head of Sullivan's column he could have had no personal knowl- edge of how far the Third Division kept to that road, nor could he have seen what became of the Second Division. If Mercer while still on the Quaker Road had discovered Mawhood at any point, it is incredible that word was not sent back to Washington, who was with Sullivan not far away, that a hostile force of the three arms was on the left flank. Nor would a prudent officer — and Mercer was pru- dent as well as brave — voluntarily have challenged such a foe in an exposed and isolated position, certainly without notifying the commanding general. No, neither Mercer nor Mawhood knew of the other's proximity then. 13 When Mawhood's infantry accompanied by guns and horse recrossed Stony Brook, the topographical situation was this : For nearly half a mile the Post Road was much lower than the ground on either border, excepting for a strip on the southerly side. Through this strip a small water- course, now somewhat larger from careful drainage into it and impounded into two or three little ponds, ran to empty into Stony Brook immediately below the bridge. The Quaker Road, which enters the Post Road at the bridge, probably crossed the tributary on a ruder structure than the present masonry arch, and the bluff along whose base the Quaker Road passes was quite impracticable for guns and probably for cavalry. At that time the banks of the name- less rivulet were low and marshy and, overflowed in the recent thaw, what ice had formed could not have sustained troops, even had the further high ground invited immediate approach. About 350 yards from its mouth this streamlet is spanned by a causeway, the outlet upon the highway for the farming land beyond. A hundred yards lower down is a similar causeway. It is not known whether both of these approaches were standing at that time, but it is beyond any question that Mawhood must have used at least one of them to reach the plateau over which he passed in his effort to intercept Sullivan. This is confirmed by the unknown author of a manuscript in Princeton University Library,' who at the time was in a house about 400 yards from the line of battle which Mawhood formed when he unexpectedly met Mercer. The narrator reports that the troops unslung their knapsacks in his field and formed at the corner of his garden 60 yards from the door.* They then marched to William Clarke's wheatfield and the orchard about Clarke's house. The probable site of the narrator's house, which is no longer standing, is marked (N) on the map. It does ''A Brief Narrative of British Ravages. Published by the Princeton Historical Association. 1906. ' p. 35- 14 not follow that when Mawhood relieved his men of their packs and "formed", as observed by the eye-witness, that it was because he already knew of Mercer's propinquity. He had reached cleared fields, his men could leave their burdens in safety for the time, and there was every reason for him to advance unencumbered against the fleeing foe, as he be- lieved it was, with a broader front than that of the column of files which he probably used upon the road. For conve- nience in marching we may readily suppose that the infantry formed into what was then known as a column of ranks, which could readily develop a battle front when required. When Mawhood approached the apple orchard, north and northwest of Clarke's house, he formed line of battle because by that time he had learned that an American command was near. We believe that Mercer had marched directly away from the Quaker Road and nearly at a right angle to it, in conformity with his orders as reported by Rodney. In that case he would have followed the natural grade, parallel to and a very little south of the existing road laid out in 1807. He certainly would have avoided the high ground further to the left, because the whole movement was designed to be a surprise and troops on that ridge would have been visible from the Post Road. If he kept well below the higher level he need not have been seen from that direction, nor would he himself necessarily have observed an enemy moving over the more distant part of those fields. Further, the beginning of his progress across Thomas Clarke's farm was probably through woods, the first cleared ground being that which became the battle-field. Mercer, with his own brigade under Col. Haslet, was south of William Clarke's house and near the farm buildings before he recognized the British. It is probable that Mawhood had not discovered him until a little before that very time. The Americans immediately entered the orchard, which was enclosed by a heavy hedge. It is possible that Mercer intended to use this hedge as an ob- stacle against the dragoons ; and the apprehension of a mounted charge may have deterred him from falling back IS on the main body, which would have been the obvious course in the face of a foe numerically as strong and better discip- lined and equipped. However, the dragoons seem to have taken little active part; unless, dragoon-like, they partici- pated dismounted. But that has not been reported, and it is improbable. They had no recognized casualties and, be- cause mounted, they escaped in safety toward Trenton when the day finally went against them. There is some discrepancy in the accoimts as to which force fired first, but Mercer seems to have taken the offen- sive. Three volleys are reported as having been given and an equal number at once returned. At that period troops were formed for battle in three ranks, which fired in rapid succession ; so it is probable that the three volleys repre- sented one discharge from each rank. Immediately upon firing the British fixed bayonets and began a charge before which the Americans, indifferently supplied with that weapon, retired in confusion. While this was going on Captain Daniel Neil, of the Eastern Company of New Jersey Artillery, unlimbered his two guns outside the orchard on the left of the infantry and opened with canister on the British right, a grenadier company. But Neil was killed by the return fire and the guns were temporarily lost in the charge. Wilkinson (p. 142) says Mawhood's guns were on his right ; that is, opposite Neil's. In this encounter and immediately afterward several officers were slain ; Gen. Mercer himself was mortally wounded and Col. Haslet, the immediate brigade commander, was killed while attempting to hold and rally the men. This phase of the action and the unchecked flight of that part of Mercer's division occurred within a very few min- utes. But just as the Continentals were pouring down the slope, the Second Brigade of that Division, Cad- walader's Philadelphia militia, which had lost distance, emerged from a wood and appeared on the lower ground. This led the British to halt and a small portion of them to take a position behind a fence and a ditch, in front of the i6 farm buildings and nearly parallel to the present road. Here their line was extended, probably in a single rank, which allowed a broader field of fire. Gen. Cadwalader, with great daring but not with equal judgment, led his command on the field apparently in column of files, as it had been march- ing, and then endeavored to form a column of divisions in the face of the enemy and under a fire of grape. But his companies were thrown into disorder and, mingling with the retreating First Brigade, fled in confusion, abandoning one piece of artillery." Both Generals Washington and Greene then appeared on the scene and, with Gen. Cadwalader, freely exposed themselves in an unsuccessful attempt to rally the fugitives, the most of whom bore off into the woods on their new right front (their former left rear) and swarmed past the Thomas Clarke house. By this time the main col- umn behind the rising ground had been moved by the flank and formed in a three-rank line of battle on the ridge to the east of Clark's house, with Moulder's " battery, of the Phila- delphia Associators, between the dwelling and the infantry. (The gun Cadwalader lost but recovered later, was prob- ably one of Moulder's.) The situation was now alarming for Washington's army, and momentously critical for the Government it sup- ported. This was the only organized command of any importance left in the field. If it should be routed, it could not be re-assembled nor could any new army be created; and, like every other government, the Continental Congress could not sustain itself without armed support. Those tired men waiting on that low ridge were the Revolution's last hope. In their immediate front, almost under their very eyes, two defeats had been sustained within the last few minutes ; the fugitives had swept past them if not actually between their files, almost in panic, and the victorious sol- diers of the king flushed with triumph were before their 'Rodney. Stryker, p. 439. " Stryker, p. 284. 17 faces. Those halted bayonets represented successful force, and the challenging colors carried the prestige of uninter- rupted victory. The invincibility of British arms was a tradition upon which the colonials had been nurtured. Well might the patriot generals, appreciating the far-reaching consequences of a third defeat, tremble for the steadiness of this last reserve. As the new line came into view Mawhood had checked the pursuit, to re-form his battalion disordered by its very triumph. It may well be also that, startled by the sight of this unanticipated reserve, he may have hesi- tated to attack again. But there was little option. The short range of fire had of necessity permitted a very close approach, and to withdraw, even if so disposed, would be as hazardous as to advance. But notwithstanding the longer line to be overcome, and we know that a part at least of Mercer's two brigades had been rallied beyond the slope and then advanced to extend the front of those not yet engaged, there is no reason to suppose that there was any essential hesitation ; for, still under the stimulus of success, he started with trifling delay to crown his advantage with final" and complete victory. The proximity of the hostile lines is shown by the retort thrown back to Captain Fleming, who, ordering his V'irginians to dress before making ready to fire, was taunted wdth the cry "We'll dress you !" shouted across the narrow interval. Notwithstanding their smaller number the British gallantly formed and apparently intended to cover their advance by their own musketry. Their artil- lery was in action, their dragoons are presumed to have hovered near, and the greater part of the Fifty-fifth was known to be not far away, although it does not appear to have become engaged. The Americans, more numerous but shaken by their reverses and fearfully overmatched in arma- ment and discipline, that great factor of military success, awaited the attack. At that instant Washington rode to the front, an example and an inspiration, challenging death in exposure to the double fire which at once broke forth. That was the critical moment of the Revolution. The slight 18 eminence along which the defence was aligned was the moral watershed from which ultimate victory or final defeat for the cause of Independence would flow as the consequence of the engagement then imminent. This silent but eloquent appeal to the military spirit and patriotic valor of his men was effective. They advanced firing. Hand with his Penn- sylvania riflemen on the extreme right wheeled to the left and threatened Mawhood's flank, always a vulnerable point, and with St. Clair's brigade discouraged Cuyler and the Fifty-fifth, which one account says was endeavoring to connect with its detached fragment that had been acting with the Seventeenth from the beginning. It is very doubt- ful whether that regiment seriously sought to enter the fight. On the left in the line of battle Hitchcock, a despe- rate invalid, with his New England Continental brigade and Cadwalader's partly restored Philadelphians, further sup- ported by Mifilin, pressed the enemy's right. Displaying equal courage but against greater odds, the enemy was overcome, broke, and retired, at first fighting unavailingly but soon in rout. He left his artillery, his knapsacks, every- thing but his honor. From the time that Mawhood met Mercer until he fell back from Washington it was fifteen minutes, but fifteen minutes that covered a crisis big with fate. The field was indeed a stricken one, each side van- quished in turn. The Americans recovered their materiel, but their slain fought again only as their heroic death animated the survivors and drew recruits to avenge their loss. In the retreat the dragoons galloped across the yet undamaged bridge and made their way toward Maidenhead (Lawrenceville) ; some of the infantry fled directly across country toward the Cedar Grove region of Rocky Hill, and doubtless ultimately reached New Brunswick by way of the lower Millstone." Many were captured. The tale of " One group, apparently striving to reach Coryell's Ferry (Lambertville) on the Delaware, was overtaken by a pursuing party, or was cut off by local militia suddenly mobilized, near Mount Rose, and six were slain. 19 prisoners was considerable. That part of the Fifty-fifth, under Major Cuyler, that was not engaged fell back to the Post Road, returned rapidly to Princeton, assembled the Fortieth and united with it. The baggage, which we are bound to suppose was between the wings of the second regiment, had already escaped toward Trenton by the good management of Captain Scott, of the Seventeenth, who was complimented therefor by General Howe. Hastily clearing the field of its wounded and its transportable spoil, and giving direction for the burial of the dead, Washington de- tached a party to break down the bridge at the Mill, thus materially delaying the British on their return from Tren- ton, sent his army on to Princeton over the "back road", the Friends' shorter way, as originally planned, and he himself led the twenty men of the Philadelphia Troop, his only mounted force, over the broken ground toward Cedar Grove after the fugitives. It was a very whimsical adven- ture in which he engaged, not comparable to any other reported experience during the war. The exhilarating pur- suit, which he likened to a fox-chase, seems to have been the reaction from the crushing responsibility that had been pressing upon him. Under the reports of the distraught Fifty-fifth, which not unnaturally fancied that the whole Rebel army was at its heels on the main road, the two royal regiments made a hasty exit from the village, endeavoring to escape by the same "back road" up which Sullivan and Greene were ad- vancing. Consequently the two columns met on opposite sides of the ravine south of the Theological Seminary and east of the Graduate College. When the Americans de- ployed and started to advance, the British precipitately retired before the much stronger force, which closely fol- lowed them. They must have passed just south of the present grounds of the Seminary, over the fields along the general course of the present Dickinson Street, across the sites of the railroad station, Blair Arch, and West College, into the back campus. A part took refuge in Nassau Hall, but the most streamed north along the direct road to Rocky Hill and thence eastward to New Brunswick. Two or three shots were fired, it is said from Captain Alexander Hamil- ton's two-gun New York Company of Artillery, at the south face of the college. A persistent tradition maintains that one ball passed through the south window of the chapel (enlarged and transformed into the present Faculty Room) and carried the portrait of George H from the frame which now holds a composite picture of Washington, Mercer and the field. When not overgrown with ivy, the scar of another wound may be observed on the second story, midway be- tween the middle of the two windows that are next the Faculty Room on the west. After that show of overwhelm- ing force what remained of the garrison surrendered, and Witherspoon's college, a cradle of constitutional statesman- ship, was definitely freed from such occupation. The American loss in the battle was thirty enlisted men killed and thirty wounded, and eight officers killed. The remark- able proportion of fatalities attests the severity of the com- bat. The British left a hundred on the field, and altogether lost three hundred prisoners, of whom fourteen were officers. No one was killed or wounded elsewhere than as already described. Washington rejoined after the surrender on the campus, and hastened to use for the first time the Post Road. The mounted advance of Cornwallis's army of rescue came within sight of Washington's retiring forces across the Millstone at Kingston, after the bridge there had been taken up. Before it was repaired the Americans moved north on their way to Morristown, and the British when they crossed went directly to New Brunswick, to save their base. At no time in this January campaign did our troops traverse, nor was a musket fired on, the Post Road between the College and Trenton, excepting in the skirmish, almost bloodless, while the bridge at the Stony Brook Mill was being broken. After Washington left Princeton one shot was thrown down the road at the head of the approaching British column. possibly by a straggler, more probably by a local militiaman or a civilian, from a British cannon kept loaded on one of the two earthworks that von Donop, remembering Rail's defencelessness at Trenton, had set up. This stood on the southern edge of the road, directly opposite the property now belonging to Mr. Garrett. The discharge temporarily checked the advance, until a reconnoissance showed that Washington would not defend Princeton. It should be needless to say, were not the question so often asked, that the road in extension of Mercer Street and the bridge which carries it over Stony Brook played no part in these opera- tions, for the unanswerable reason that the road was not laid out nor the bridge built until 1807. The field of Princeton remains practically as it lay under the tread of war. The turnpike road, now better known as the Mercer Street extension, has made a compara- tively deep cutting diagonally through the first line of battle. The orchard and remnants of its surrounding hedge, stand- ing within reasonable memory, have disappeared. William Clarke's simple wooden house, which was crowded with wounded after the combats, has been replaced by a greater one of stone on nearly the same spot. A forest that appears to have stood on Thomas Clarke's farm, south of the road, and perhaps have encroached to the east on ground partly cleared before the Revolution, is represented by one or two straggling oaks. Thomas Clarke's house, newly built shortly before the war, consecrated by the sacrifice of Mercer dying within its doors, is substantially unchanged excepting that what was the rear has now been made the front. With these trifling differences the visitor of to-day sees the terrain precisely as it was when Mercer fell, when Haslet and Neil and Fleming, Shippin, Yeates, Morris and Read were killed or mortally wounded ; when defeat drew the patriot army backward to the very brink of ruin and Washington's invin- cible courage and superb self-control neutralized the impend- ing catastrophe, turned disaster into triumph, and forever closed the way to military intrusion. When Mawhood's M^ U ^^ redcoats failed to carry that gentle but rifle-crowned slope, there broke upon the world a victory farther reaching even than its great successor on the slope of Gettysburg. To-day that field lies bare, wholly unmarked save by a pyramid of modern shell to indicate where it was supposed Mercer's blood followed the bayonets' thrusts. Elsewhere headquar- ters are jealously preserved, marching routes and river crossings bear their mementoes, towering shafts and carven allegories dot the landscape, but there is not an object, not even a guide-board, to suggest to the inquirer, still less to the casual stranger, that this is Princeton's battle-ground, the narrow arena on which was decided the fate of the republic. PRINCETON BATTLE FIELD COPrRIGHT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 009 252 949 6 I