Princeton, January 3rd 1777. The Day That Changed the Revolution. Or....Fool me twice, shame on me.

From the day the British set foot on Staten Island in July 1776 they had been unstoppable. They surprised and badly mauled Washington’s Army at Brooklyn Heights. Washington only saved the Army with a daring night evacuation of the Army to Manhattan. But the British pushed him from Manhattan, capturing Fort Washington and Fort Lee, and drove him across New Jersey. The only thing that saved the Continental Army was their escape across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

The Americans’ improbable Christmas Day victory over the Hessians at Trenton stung the British, but did not seriously impair their operations. In fact, having the Americans’ back on the Jersey side of the Delaware presented Cornwallis with a great opportunity. He needed to bring about a general engagement and crush the Continental army, ending the Rebellion. And quickly. He set out for Trenton from their base at New Brunswick with a force of 9,000 and 28 guns to “bag the fox.”

Washington, too, was frantic about the impending disaster about to befall his Army. Not destruction from British action, but self-destruction. After the Christmas Day victory, Washington took the Army back to Pennsylvania. There, they were safe from any immediate British counterstroke. But a great many of Washington’s troops had enlistments that expired at the end of the year. Only personal appeals from Washington himself and promises of a cash bonus held the Army together.

“i]f you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.”

He had six weeks to save the Revolution. On the 30th of December, he recrossed the Delaware and reoccupied Trenton.

Cornwallis had advanced as far as Princeton. Hearing that Washington was only 12 miles southwest, he took 8,000 troops and sought to bring about the decisive battle he wanted. Leaving a force of three regiments of infantry and one of light dragoons at Princeton under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mawhood, he advanced on Trenton with 8000 troops and 24 guns.

Washington established a defensive position on the southern edge of Trenton on the south side of the Assunpink Creek. A stone bridge connected it to the main part of town. To provide early warning, he sent a brigade consisting of Pennsylvania riflemen and Virginia regulars to set up a blocking position on the road between Trenton and Princeton. (On what is today Rte 206 near Rider University)

Cornwallis, when he came upon the blocking force, tried to brush the Colonials aside, but they refused to be moved. Under the command of Colonel Hand, the Americans opened a consistent fire. It took over an hour in pouring rain to shake out the British column on the road into battle lines out in the fields. And those thin red lines of British infantry overreached Col. Hand’s positions on both flanks. It was time for Hand to leave. His troops commenced a fighting retreat back toward Trenton. And once in the town fought from house to house. They were finally driven from their positions by a Hessian bayonet charge. Washington himself rode onto the bridge to direct covering fire that allowed Hand’s rear guard to get out. It was nearly dark when they rejoined the main body of the Army on the south side of the creek. Cornwallis tried to take the bridge in a rush. That effort faltered under heavy fire from the Americans. Two more attempts met the same fate, retreating under a hail of canister and grapeshot. Cornwallis decided to call off the attack for the night and to cross in force the next morning. He went to sleep convinced he finally had Washington right where he wanted him.

Washington, for his part, had no intention of waiting around for the hammer to fall. He knew all too well that his army – two-thirds of which were raw militia – could not survive a stand-up fight with Cornwallis’ main body. If the Americans stayed where they were, and in the morning the British forced the bridge or forded the creek – which they surely would – the Americans were finished. So Washington did it again. Just as he had done to save the Army after Brooklyn Heights, he withdrew the Army unseen and unheard from right under the noses of British forces who were confident of crushing him in the morning.

He decided on an audacious plan. Leaving some oddments of New Jersey militia charged to keep the campfires burning and make digging noises, he’d take the rest of his Army on a looping night march around Cornwallis’s left flank to attack his rear at Princeton. If they could take Princeton, Cornwallis – threatened with being cut off from New Brunswick and New York – would have to retire. The Americans had reason to believe this was within their abilities. They had information (probably from a Princeton student) about Lieutenant Colonel Mawhood’s dispositions in Princeton. And there was a convenient but little-known road leading around Cornwallis and up to Princeton. But it all depended on the British in Trenton remaining gullible. Would they fall for this ruse a second time? Unbelievably, they did just that.

The Americans quietly withdrew and were on the road and headed towards the back door of Princeton. The night was frigid, and the muddy roads frozen. The Americans were hungry and tired … and behind schedule. As morning dawned, the head of the American column had not yet reached Princeton. Washington directed his friend General Hugh Mercer to take a small force on ahead. Their goal was to take and destroy a bridge on the main road between Princeton and Trenton…isolating Cornwallis. But bad luck intervened. Cornwallis, in anticipation of a general engagement on the 3rd, had called for reinforcements and sent for Mawhood and his regiments from Princeton. As morning dawned Mawhood’s command was hurrying south on the main road. Mercer was hurrying north on the back road. In only a few places is traffic on one road visible from the other. But Mawhood’s scouts caught sight of Mercer’s force. Mawhood, now aware of Americans behind him and heading for Princeton, wheeled his command about and headed back north to engage whatever force he found. The Americans had almost taken Princeton unopposed. But now, here south of town, their intelligence about British dispositions moot, their forces divided and on the move, the Americans would have an unexpected fight on unexpected ground.

Mawhood’s regiments were professionals, well armed and well trained, with their enemies on their front. They met Mercer’s command on the Clarke farm. Their first volley went high. It gave precious time for Mercer to get organized. For a few minutes the outnumbered Americans held their own. Mawhood, who liked to project an air on nonchalance when in battle, rode up with a pair of his favorite springer spaniels at his heels. He ordered a bayonet charge. In a furious charge, the 17th Regiment of Foot broke Mercer’s troops and bayoneted Mercer himself.

Other Colonial troops were now arriving. First were militia from Pennsylvania and Delaware and a company of Marines. Maybe 1500 in all. It should have been more than enough to put things right. But the sight of Mercer’s fleeing units, under a steady British fire, the militia began to come apart. Just then, Washington rode up. Astride a white horse, he rallied the troops. He rode to the front, sometimes only 30 yards from the British lines. Myth says that one of his officers covered his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch Washington shot from the saddle. But he remained unscathed.

“Parade with us my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy and we shall have them directly!”

His cool presence steadied the shaken militiamen. More Americans arrived, and weight of numbers finally won out. But the 17th Foot had one more furious charge left in them. Nearly surrounded, they leveled bayonets yet again and broke through the Americans to reach the road south to Trenton. The other British troops broke, fleeing across the fields. They were soon on the road north, headed back to New Brunswick.

The final shots were fired on the campus of Princeton University, where a group of British barricaded themselves inside Nassau Hall, determined to fight it out. Myth has it that a cannonball passed through the building and decapitated a portrait of King George VI. Taking this as a bad omen, the British surrendered. Washington had his victory.

The celebration was short-lived. Troops pursuing the 17th Foot south soon came upon Cornwallis and the main body hurrying north from Trenton. When it became clear that the American Army had disappeared from under their guns, the British were immediately on the road. Washington had no time to even secure the British supplies stockpiled in Princeton, nor the two cannons he had captured. Finding that Cornwallis was coming hard, Washington got his troops moving as well. They headed north too. Washington briefly considered going to New Brunswick, where there was now only a small British garrison and a rumored 70,000-pound British war chest, but the troops were exhausted. Instead they turned off for the road to Morristown. Cornwallis returned to New Brunswick. It was their last remaining possession in the state.

The American Army spent a mild winter in Morristown. There, shielded by the Watchung Mountains and the Great Swamp, the Army was safe from molestation by the British yet able to observe every move the British made. The lovely Mrs E. and I paid a visit to an overlook nearby aptly named Washington Rock from which you can see from Manhattan, to ships in NY harbor, Perth Amboy and all the way to New Brunswick. If the British moved south for Philadelphia or North for the Hudson Valley, Washington could attack them from the rear. Even the British foraging parties out of New Brunswick were sighted from the heights and ambushed by New Jersey militia down on the plains. The British had lost freedom of movement and were effectively confined to an increasingly difficult to supply canton.

After Princeton, nothing was the same. The unstoppable British Army was unstoppable no more.