NJ - June 1777

My part of NJ is drenched in Revolutionary War history. I live at the foot of the Watchung Mountains, known to Washington as the Blue Hills. They were a natural barrier behind which the Continental Army was safe from incursions by the British out of New York. The Blue Hills run more or less east to west and parallel the main agricultural region of the state. From the heights, Washington’s troops could keep tabs on any British activity on the plains below. The Continentals were a menace to British security and frequently raided British foraging parties before returning to the safety of the ridge tops. Washington, with his main army, kept to the shelter of these hills. Down on the plain were some local militia and General Sullivan’s division to support them.

During the summer of 1777, General Howe tried to entice Washington down from the safety of his Middlebrook encampments and to bring about a general engagement. Howe was confident that he’d be able to crush the Continentals if he could meet them in open combat.

On June 12, Howe marched his army of 16,000 west from New Brunswick, NJ, and took a defensive position at Somerset Courthouse, eight miles from Middlebrook. From there and in full view of Washington’s observation posts on the ridges above, he plundered the area’s farms and villages. Washington did not move from his position. Howe stayed five days, from the 14th to the 19th. Frustrated, he returned to Perth Amboy by way of New Brunswick, and from June 22 to 24, Howe moved his army to Staten Island. On the 24th, Ambrose Serle, Howe’s secretary, wrote to Lord Dartmouth, the former Secretary of State for the American colonies. He told him that after “vainly endeavouring to bring Washington to an action from the rocks and hills where he was posted…” he was departing from New Jersey.

From the heights, Washington observed the British embarkation. He believed it was safe to move his army out of the Blue Hills and down to what was then known as Quibbletown, now the New Market neighborhood of Piscataway. (Quibbletown — there was a long-running local church dispute over whether the Sabbath was Saturday or Sunday.) Howe immediately recognized the opportunity and saw his chance. He ordered all his forces to re-cross the Arthur Kill from Staten Island to Perth Amboy. He was going after Washington!

His plan was to use a pincer movement similar to the one he had employed in the Battle of Brooklyn Heights (and would employ three months later at Brandywine).

Cornwallis, with 5,000 men, set out at 1 a.m.; they traveled west on Amboy Avenue to the town of Woodbridge and on Old Tree Road to the Scotch Plains. If they could turn Washington’s left flank at Scotch Plains and get between him and the Blue Hills, Washington would have no escape route. Vaughn, with about 12,000 men, set out at 3 a.m.: they traveled west by a more southern route on the New Brunswick Road and King George’s Road to Quibbletown. Howe was going to attack Washington’s army from two directions, and with his escape route into the Blue Hills blocked, Washington was going to be forced to fight a general engagement.

Cornwallis was delayed by an advance guard of Daniel Morgan’s riflemen. They were not a serious impediment and were brushed aside in half an hour. But that action warned Generals Stirling and Washington that the British were back in NJ.

Within an hour, Washington had ordered troops to plug the passes through the Blue Hills at Westfield, Scotch Plains, and Quibbletown. But that would take time. Stirling deployed two brigades, including the NJ brigade. The force of about 2,500 met Cornwallis’s 5,000 about two miles south of the Scotch Plains gap in what was then known as Ash Swamp (present-day Ashbrook Golf Course). Stirling made good use of the ground to make up for being outnumbered and outgunned. The engagement lasted over two hours. All the while, fresh British troops were arriving as Vaughn’s units came up from Quibbletown.

Cornwallis tried to flank Stirling by a movement around Ash Swamp, but that effort dissolved under a hail of grapeshot. But the Americans had no reinforcements, and the British could plainly see wagons filled with Colonial dead and wounded leaving the field. Before his troops were cut off or submerged, Stirling retreated. His men had done enough. The gaps in the Blue Hills behind them now bristled with American bayonets. It was time to get out. Disengagement under fire is very difficult business, but Stirling’s two brigades managed it. Howe’s pincer movement had failed to trap Washington’s army or bring about the general engagement Howe desperately wanted.

While the British retained the field and spent the night within sight of the Westfield gap, their foray was over. The next day Howe retired to Staten Island and never returned to NJ in force. Months later when attacking Philadelphia, the British moved the Army from NY to PA by sea rather than traverse across NJ.

There are two fascinating details about this affair. (1) It’s rumored that Howe was distracted all day by the lovely wife of a local miller whose mill stood on a creek near Ash Swamp. That if Howe had given his attention to his business rather than his pleasures, the day might have ended differently. (2) This was the baptism by fire for an entirely new weapon — the Ferguson breechloading rifle. Most people who’ve heard of the Ferguson breechloader associate it with the Battle of Brandywine several months later. But the fact is that Ferguson and his men and a few (but not all) of his rifles first saw action on this day.

The Ferguson rifle was a marvel. As described in The Annual Register: “Length 50 in.; weight 7 1/2 lbs.; bayonet 25 in. long and 1 1/2 in. wide, and being of fine temper and razor edge was called a sword bayonet; folding rear sight with leaves of 100 to 500 yds. The rotating breechblock has 12 threads to the inch, and opens or closes with one complete whirl of the guard. When open, the top of the screw is level with the breech bottom, a ball dropped in slides forward into a chamber slightly larger than the rifled diameter, the muzzle is tipped downward, powder put in to fill the chamber back of the ball, the guard is turned and the screw rises to the top and removes any surplus powder, while making the breech gas tight. When fired, the ball takes the rifling.”

Ferguson himself said: “it perform’d four things never before acomplish’d.

“1. – It put 15 balls into a target at 200 yards in 5 Minutes – 2. It fired 6 good Shots in a Minute – 3. It put a ball at 100 yards into the bull's Eye laying upon its back – 4. It fired four Shots in a minute advancing at the rate of four Miles Per Hour – 5. After pouring a bottle of water into the barrel & Pan when loaded in half a Minute she fired as well as ever.”

That performance is astounding. The standard British infantry weapon, the “Brown Bess” smoothbore musket, was wildly inaccurate. Not too long ago, some lightly used originals were discovered in the UK. One was test-fired. At 50 yards, it could not reliably hit the 4×8 sheet of plywood the targets were affixed to. Concerning traditional smoothbores, a young lieutenant Ulysses Grant once opined, “At 200 yards, a man might shoot at you all day without you ever finding out about it.” So the Ferguson was a quantum leap forward.

Records show that Ferguson’s men were in NJ and part of Vaughn’s column. In a letter, Ferguson wrote, “My Lads were only concern’d in one Skirmish in a wood, where we had Six kill’d & wounded as they have never exceeded 90 under arms, it is a slice from my small command which I can ill afford.”

While Howe nor his officers make no mention of him nor his men, the final embarkation orders for troops leaving NJ list their boarding … “Embarkation -Lt. Infantry & Fergusons Corp at half past 9.”