On 3 January 1777 George Washington's Continental Army defeated a British force at Princeton, New Jersey. The night before, Washington had left his campfires burning in front of Lord Cornwallis's army at Trenton and marched away in the dark. At dawn his columns ran into British troops leaving Princeton. After a hard fight in which General Hugh Mercer was mortally wounded, Washington rallied his men and drove the British off. Coming a week after Trenton, the victory closed a campaign that kept the American cause alive through the winter.
A trap at Trenton
After his surprise victory at Trenton on 26 December 1776, Washington brought his army back to Trenton. On 2 January 1777 Cornwallis marched from Princeton with the main British force and pushed the Americans back through Trenton to the south bank of the Assunpink Creek. His attempts to cross failed, and he decided to attack in the morning. He left Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood at Princeton with the 17th, 40th and 55th Regiments of Foot.1
That night Washington chose to slip away rather than wait for the attack. His army left its fires burning, marched east and then turned north along back roads toward Princeton. The whole sequence, from the crossing of the Delaware to Princeton, is told in our article on the Ten Crucial Days.2
Mercer's fight in the orchard
At dawn Mawhood set out from Princeton to join Cornwallis and ran into the brigade of Brigadier General Hugh Mercer near William Clarke's orchard. After an exchange of fire Mawhood's men charged with the bayonet and overran the Americans. Mercer was caught in the rout, and when he refused to surrender, British soldiers bayoneted him. According to the American Battlefield Trust, he died of his wounds nine days later in the Thomas Clarke House.3
John Cadwalader's Philadelphia militia, coming up behind, also gave way under the bayonet. At this point Washington rode forward himself, tried to rally the broken troops and led fresh units into line. American artillery fired grapeshot and canister into the British, and the counterattack broke Mawhood's line.4
Nassau Hall and the losses
Mawhood and part of his force cut their way out with the bayonet and escaped. Other British soldiers fell back into Princeton, and some took shelter in Nassau Hall, the main building of the College of New Jersey, today Princeton University. BritishBattles.com says 194 of them surrendered there to Captain Alexander Hamilton.5
The American Battlefield Trust gives the numbers engaged as about 4,500 Americans against about 1,200 British. The casualties are disputed. The American Battlefield Trust estimates 75 American and 270 British casualties. BritishBattles.com puts the American loss at 40 killed and wounded, among them General Hugh Mercer. For the British, BritishBattles.com gives 40 dead, 58 wounded and 187 missing.6
Why it mattered
Washington could not stay. With Cornwallis marching back from Trenton, he quickly left Princeton, marched a short way up the New Brunswick road and then turned north to winter quarters at Morristown. The British gave up most of their posts in New Jersey and fell back to New Brunswick.7
Princeton was a small battle by European standards, and the American Battlefield Trust describes it as a meeting engagement into which both sides stumbled. Together with Trenton, though, it showed that the Continental Army could beat British regulars in the field, and BritishBattles.com argues that the two victories brought French intervention in the war a step closer. The battle is covered in detail in our article on the Battle of Princeton.8
Also on this day
- 1911: Siege of Sidney Street. Police and soldiers besieged two Latvian revolutionaries in a house in Stepney, London, the last of a gang whose Houndsditch robbery attempt had killed three policemen.
