Chapter VII: Introduction: By Albert Shaw (5)

Fearfully outnumbered as they were, the Americans were now attacked in front by the Hessians advancing from Flatbush under General de Heister, and in the rear by this flanking column. The result was disastrous. Sullivan’s command was cut to pieces and himself captured. Terrible slaughter occurred in the woods and the slopes towards Fourth Avenue. The only escape not closed by the British was across the mill-dam and marshes of Gowanus.

Meanwhile Cornwallis was detached to attack Stirling’s line, which had still held its position on the western side of Prospect Heights. Desperate indeed was the plight of this devoted remnant of the army, outnumbered on all sides. General Grant, the British commander in front, had pressed forward (after having repeatedly been driven back) and finally surrounded and captured Atlee’s riflemen. Stirling gallantly determined to attack Cornwallis, and drive him back and so get an opportunity to cross by Brower’s Mill-dam to the defences of Fort Box. Here was the heroism of the day. Taking command of Smallwood’s gallant Maryland regiment and forming in the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street, Stirling led these brave young Marylanders three times in a charge on Cornwallis’s lines. Closing their ranks as they were cut down by grape and canister, the Maryland onset drove the British back behind the stone Cortelyou house. Once they forced the gunners from their guns, but at last, overwhelmed by numbers, the survivors fell back, leaving 256 killed out of 400. It was the sight of this brilliant charge and the spirited but frightfully unequal contest that caused Washington to wring his hands in anguish and say: “Good God! what brave fellows I must lose this day!”

While these Marylanders gallantly sacrificed their lives to hold Cornwallis in check, a large portion of Stirling’s command crossed the Gowanus Creek and brought the tattered colors of Smallwood’s regiment and over twenty prisoners within the lines. The battle was over at noon. The bodies of the gallant Maryland heroes—the flower of the army—were afterward buried on a small knoll or island. Third Avenue runs across it, between Seventh and Eighth Streets, but its site is far below the present street level.

In estimating the service of these Marylanders, it is to be recalled that they were young, never before under fire, and were led without their own colonel, who was detached the day before for a court-martial in New York. When the charges were made, the troops had already been several hours fighting, and had to re-form under fire, after it was plain that the battle was lost. The attacks were up an ascent, against superior numbers, strong artillery, and an overwhelming body of seasoned veterans. Even the assault and death of Montgomery at Quebec were not more gallant. Unlike that hopeless attack, the Marylanders accomplished their purpose by their sacrifice, and stopped the advance of Cornwallis. The brilliancy, dash, and steady persistence of this charge have not been properly recognized.

After the repulse of the patriot army, the battle ceased. The prudence of Lord Howe would not permit the English army to move upon the entrenchments. Bunker Hill with its terrible memories was too recent.

The next day, the 28th, Washington reinforced the Brooklyn troops, increasing their number to 9000. Among them were Colonel Glover’s battalion of fishermen and sailors from Salem and Marblehead. On that day heavy rain prevented an attack. In the afternoon the British began regular siege approaches towards Fort Putnam by a trench starting from the present Clinton Avenue near the corner of De Kalb Avenue.

A council of war decided on evacuation. Even in this extremity Washington caused an elaborate statement of reasons to be drawn up as the grounds of his action. That night, aided by the dense fog, the entire body were rowed over by Colonel Glover’s Marblehead boatmen. The skill and admirable mastery of detail in this retreat were Washington’s. For many hours he sat on his horse at the ferry, patiently superintending the embarkation. At least on one occasion he had to check a rush of impetuous and alarmed men from crowding into the boats. Finally with the last crew he embarked. The retreat of the entire force from Long Island was safely effected. At four o’clock only empty trenches were revealed to the invaders.

In Prospect Park is a monument to the heroism of this gallant Maryland regiment. At different streets are memorial tablets to mark the lines of defence. Perhaps some day a statue of Washington, near the old ferry, will mark the spot where his prudence and skill saved the American Army.

During the British occupation the noble forests of Brooklyn were destroyed. One may search in vain for any oaks or elms about the City that are really ancient.

The mention of the Wallabout and the present site of the Navy Yard recall some of the most painful memories of our history—the horrors of the prison-ships. Few indeed are the Revolutionary families that have not had deep sorrows connected with the ships _Whitby_, _Good Hope_, _Old Jersey_, _John_, _Falmouth_, and other hulks, where the martyrs ended their severe captivity. The bodies of the victims—having been removed from time to time—are now, it is hoped, in their final resting-place on the westerly front of Fort Greene Park opposite the Plaza. As yet no monument, not even an inscription, marks the spot where were reverently laid the bones of 11,500 martyrs to American liberty.

The Navy Yard, starting in 1824, has become the foremost in the country. Here are gathered trophies of the Nation’s battles on many seas. In a little enclosure near the Commandant’s office, are grouped captured ordnance, with a howitzer that did service under Hull on the _Constitution_. Trophies from the Spanish war have lately been added to this collection. Here are the guns taken from the burnt and shattered _Almirante Oquendo_ and _Vizcaya_, and by them is mounted a submarine contact mine from the defences of Guantanamo, which the _Texas_ broke adrift without exploding the deadly contents. Not far away was built the ill-fated battleship _Maine_. In these docks were outfitted many of the fleet that fought the battle of Santiago. In the Spanish war, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was where most of the yachts and merchant steamers, purchased in emergency, were converted into cruisers. Under Naval Constructor Bowles, the unparalleled record was made in 1898 of thirty-four vessels thus converted and fitted out for service in the auxiliary navy in ninety-three days!

At the southern shore of the enlarged Brooklyn are the forts and batteries defending this part of Long Island. Under the modern defences of Fort Hamilton, still is preserved Fort Lafayette, an island structure of masonry, valueless for war, but ever to be kept for its associations. Built in 1812 to defend the Narrows, its name was changed at the time of Lafayette’s return in 1824. In 1861, it was used to imprison those from Maryland and the border States, whose loyalty the Federal Administration distrusted. When the Judges of Brooklyn issued writs of _habeas corpus_ to bring up these political suspects, and inquire into the justice of their captivity, the remedy was to hurry the prisoners to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, beyond the reach of the process of New York courts.

Here also, in 1862, a division commander of McClellan’s army was held prisoner. General Charles P. Stone, a graduate of West Point, was blamed for the disaster at Ball’s Bluff. By secret orders of Secretary Stanton, he was arrested at midnight, hurried to New York, and kept forty-nine days in solitary confinement in Fort Lafayette, without trial, charges, or answer to his appeals for a hearing! Congress finally vindicated him and set him free, after one hundred and eighty-nine days’ imprisonment.

The interior of the Fort was burned out in the winter of 1869. Its armament has never been replaced. The dark red circular walls stand at the opposite end of the Bay from the Statue of Liberty, and furnish an impressive contrast, in their memories of an American Bastille.

On the completion of the new Shore Road, following the contour of the Narrows, an admirable approach upon the bluff overlooking the Bay will lead the visitor to this Golden Gate of the commerce of New York.

The traditions of home rule, local self-government, and civic conscience have come down from the early Brooklyn agitations against the government of Peter Stuyvesant. Brooklynites before consolidation with the greater city had a liberal home-rule charter that was first administered under Mayor Seth Low. Through his government, the “Brooklyn plan” became the ideal of other municipalities.

The ancient zeal for education and schools has not declined. Besides the college, academy, and public schools, two Brooklyn institutions distinctively illustrate the modern trend of popular municipal education. The Pratt Institute, with its wide and helpful teaching in the industrial arts, is perhaps the most famous of all Brooklyn benevolences. But the enlarged and expanding Brooklyn Institute, with its multiform departments, its generous field of lectureships, and its museum, is destined to become the model for organizations planned to diffuse popular culture in cities.

The regard of Brooklyn for the Church and the influence of the clergy on the life of Brooklyn are proverbial. To recall the names of Brooklyn’s clergy is to mention many leaders of the American pulpit. Not a little of their inspiration has come from the influence and history of Brooklyn itself. In its growth from village to city, and then to borough, it has developed along the lines of equality of social opportunity, and thus unconsciously has been reaping the fruits of the lives and examples of its Dutch founders.

PRINCETON

PLANTING AND TILLING

BY WILLIAM M. SLOANE

Princeton is by no means one of the oldest settlements in the State of New Jersey, and yet it has a history of more than two centuries, the first homestead having been established there in 1682. Although situated midway, or nearly so, between two of the largest Colonial towns, and nearly equidistant from the head of navigation on two important streams, the Raritan and the Delaware, it remained a quiet and unimportant hamlet for over half a century. Most of the travel between New York and Philadelphia went by way of Perth Amboy and Camden; there was little to interrupt the humble labors of the settlers in clearing the forest and tilling the soil.

Yet the roll-call of Princeton’s pioneers reveals names which are now synonymous with patriotism and famous wherever American history is studied: Stockton, Paterson, Boudinot, Randolph, and others almost as renowned. Their instinctive Americanism is first recorded in a successful protest to the provincial authorities against the quartering of British troops in their humble homes during the French and Indian War.

October 22, 1746, the College of New Jersey was chartered by Governor Hamilton, an act notable in American history because the first of its kind performed without authorization from England or the consent even of the provincial legislature. The institution was opened under President Dickinson in May, 1747, at Elizabethtown. After his death, which occurred in October of the same year, the few students were transferred to Newark and put under the care of the Rev. Aaron Burr, one of the twelve trustees. On the fourteenth of the following September, Jonathan Belcher, just appointed governor, granted a new charter fuller and more formal than the first. His interest in the college was from the outset very great, and his opinion, already formed, that Princeton was the most desirable spot for its permanent site ultimately prevailed, the citizens of the hamlet proving more active and liberal than those of New Brunswick, already a good-sized town, to which likewise terms were proposed “for fixing the college in that place.”

Thereafter the little settlement grew rapidly and soon became a considerable village. In 1756 the new buildings were virtually completed and the college was transferred to its future home. Notable men from throughout the State and from the cities of New York and Philadelphia became interested in the new seat of learning. More noteworthy still were those who taught and those who studied in it. Within a decade after the completion of Nassau Hall the names of Burr, Edwards, Witherspoon, of Livingston, Rush and Ellsworth, of James Manning, Luther Martin and Nathaniel Niles became Princeton names. The stream of influential patronage once started continued to flow until long after the Revolution. It included men from New England on the one hand, and from the South on the other, with, of course, a powerful element from the Middle States.

Princeton College is the child of Yale. But the parting was not entirely amicable. Theological controversy grew very fierce, even for the Connecticut Valley, in the days of Whitefield’s preaching. The conservatives or Old Lights held the reins and were not kindly disposed toward the innovators or New Lights. The trouble culminated in the expulsion from Yale of David Brainerd because, defying the Faculty’s express command, he attended New Light meetings and would not profess penitence for his fault. This occurred in 1739; thereafter an even stronger feeling of discontent smouldered among the liberal Calvinists until finally the way was clear for founding a new training-school for the ministry and the learned professions on broad and generous lines. Brainerd became a most successful and famous missionary. He was betrothed to the daughter of Jonathan Edwards and died at her father’s house, a victim of his own laborious and devoted life. This was less than a year after the College of New Jersey had been founded by a body of liberal-minded men of all orthodox denominations, under the influence of a few leaders who sympathized with both Brainerd and the Edwards theology. The first charter was granted by an Episcopalian governor to four Presbyterian clergymen, and one of the original trustees was a Quaker. Governor Belcher, who enlarged the charter and made the College “his adopted daughter,” was a man of the most catholic feeling. Fourteen of the trustees under the permanent constitution were Presbyterian clergymen, an arrangement corresponding to the similar one whereby the majority of the governing body of Yale was composed of Congregational ministers. This wise guardianship has kept the two universities true to their traditions, and the flourishing condition of both is the strongest proof anywhere afforded that temporal affairs do not necessarily suffer when committed to the charge of spiritual advisers. Considerable sums of money were raised in England by the personal solicitation of Tennent and Davies, two clergymen sent out for the purpose by the Trustees. The ten laymen of the first Princeton board represented various orthodox denominations, including Episcopalians and Quakers. There is not a syllable in the charter concerning creeds, confessions, or religious tests. It is very significant of the vast improvement in public morality that a college founded under such auspices a hundred and fifty years ago was partly endowed and supported by lotteries authorized and drawn both in Connecticut and New Jersey.

From the day when the College was installed in its grand new home, history-making went on apace in Princeton. Nassau Hall was a majestic building for those days; distinguished foreign visitors to America all noted its dimensions and architecture in their written accounts of travel. Indeed, even now, with the tasteless alterations of chimneys, roofs and towers made necessary by fire and carried through with ruthless economy, it may be considered one of the great monumental college buildings in America. It is, however, far more than this; we assert without fear of contradiction that it has no peer as the most historic university pile in the world. This contention rests on the fact that it saw the discomfiture of the British at the ebb-tide of the American rebellion, harbored the Government of the United States in its critical moments and cradled the Constitution-makers of the greatest existing republic. No other university hall has been by turns fortress and barrack, legislative chamber and political nursery in the birththroes of any land comparable to our land.

The building was designed to be complete in itself; it contained lodgings for a hundred and forty-seven students, with a refectory, library and chapel. The class which entered under Dickinson, the first president, had six members, of whom five became clergymen. His untimely death a year after his election made his administration the shortest but one in the College history. During the ten years of Burr’s tenure of office (1747-1757) the total number of students was a hundred and fourteen; half of them entered the ministry. The short presidency of Jonathan Edwards lasted but a few months. It gave the glory of his name, that of America’s greatest metaphysician, to the College, the sacred memories of his residence to the venerable mansion now occupied by the Dean, and the hallowed custody of his mortal remains to the Princeton graveyard, a spot to which thousands have made their pilgrimage for the sake of his great renown. In this enclosure he lies beside his son-in-law, the Rev. Aaron Burr, who was his predecessor. At his feet are the ashes of the brilliant and erratic grandson, the Aaron Burr so well known to students of American history. President Davies, who followed Edwards, held his office for only two years, and was succeeded by Finley who presided for five. Under the latter the number of students present at one time rose to one hundred and twenty. All told, a hundred and thirty sat under his instruction, and of these less than half, fifty-nine, became clergymen.

This tendency to send fewer and fewer men into the ministry is highly significant. It reached its climax under the next president—the great Scotchman whose name is among the most honored in the history of his adopted country—John Witherspoon. His incumbency was coincident with the Revolutionary epoch, lasting from 1768 to 1794. In those twenty-six years four hundred and sixty-nine young men graduated from the College; of these, only a hundred and fourteen, less than a quarter, became clergymen, an average of between four and five a year. This phenomenon was due to the fact that Witherspoon, though lecturing on Divinity like his predecessors, was vastly more interested in political than in religious philosophy. So notorious was this fact that many a pious youth bent on entering the ministry passed the very doors of liberal Princeton to seek the intense atmosphere of Yale orthodoxy, while many a boy patriot from New England came hither to seek the distinction of being taught by Dr. Witherspoon.

The first eight years of Witherspoon’s presidency embraced the period of political ferment in the Colonies which ushered in the War of the Revolution. From the very beginning of his residence in America, the new president espoused the Colonial cause in every conflict with Great Britain; he was soon accounted “as high a son of liberty as any man in America.” Not content with enlarging and improving the College course, he collected funds throughout the Colonies from Boston to Charleston, and even laid Jamaica under contribution to fill the depleted College chest. From the pulpit of the old First Church his voice rang out in denunciation of the English administration, until in his native land he was branded as a rebel and a traitor. The spread of the Reformation was more largely due to the fact that Luther was a professor in the University of Wittenberg than to any other single cause; the adherence to the Revolution of the powerful Scotch and Scotch-Irish element in the Colonies was chiefly if not entirely secured by the teachings of John Witherspoon from his professor’s chair in Nassau Hall. To him and John Dickinson, author of the _Farmer’s Letters_, belongs the credit of having convinced the sober middle classes of the great middle Colonies that the breach with England was not merely inevitable, but just and to their interest.

But Witherspoon was more than a teacher, he was a practical statesman. His country-seat was a farm on the southern slope of Rocky Hill, about a mile due north of Nassau Hall. Its solid stone walls still bear the classic name which he gave it, of Tusculum. In his hours of retirement at that beloved home he seems to have brooded more on the rights of man than on human depravity, more on law than on theology, more on Providence in His present dealings with men than on the remoter meanings of God’s Word. In the convention which framed the constitution of New Jersey, he amazed the other delegates by his technical knowledge of administration and led in their constructive labors; he assisted in the overthrow of William Franklin, the royal governor; was elected to the Continental Congress, and in the critical hour spurred on the lagging members who hesitated to take the fatal step of authorizing their president and secretary to sign and issue the Declaration of Independence. With solemn emphasis he declared:

“For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more.
That reputation is staked, that property is pledged on the
issue of this contest; and although these gray hairs must soon
descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather that they
descend thither by the hand of the executioner, than desert at
this crisis the sacred cause of my country.”

The word “God” occurs but once in that famous document. Jefferson wrote it with a small “g.” Witherspoon was the solitary clergyman among the signers; neither he nor his neighbor, friend, and supporter, Richard Stockton, of Morven, who was a member of his church, set their hands the less firmly to sign the paper. Finally, Witherspoon was a member of the secret committee of Congress which really found the means of moral and material support for the war down to its close. He was chosen in the dark hours of November, 1776, to confer with Washington on the military crisis; he was a member, with Richard Henry Lee and John Adams, of the committee appointed that same winter to fire the drooping spirits of the rebels when Congress was driven from Philadelphia to Baltimore. He was a member, too, of the boards of war and finance, wrote state papers on the currency, and framed many of the most important bills passed by the Continental Congress. It was not unnatural that when, at the close of the war, Congress was terrified by unpaid and unruly Continentals battering at its doors in Philadelphia, it should seek refuge and council, as it did, in John Witherspoon’s college.

Thus it happened that Nassau Hall became one of the hearthstones on which the fires of patriotism burned brightest. From 1766 to 1776 there were graduated two hundred and thirty young Americans. What their temper and feeling must have been may be judged from the names of those among them who afterwards became eminent in public life. Ephraim Brevard, Pierrepont Edwards, Churchill Houston, John Henry, John Beatty, James Linn, Frederick Frelinghuysen, Gunning Bedford, Hugh Brackinridge, Philip Freneau, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Henry Lee, Aaron Ogden, Brockholst Livingston, and Wm. Richardson Davie. Those ten years produced twelve Princetonians who sat in the Continental Congress, six who sat in the Constitutional Convention, one President of the United States, one Vice-President, twenty-four members of Congress, three Judges of the Supreme Court, one Secretary of State, one Postmaster-General, three Attorneys-General, and two foreign ministers. It may well be supposed that the clergymen who were their comrades in those days of ferment were, like their great teacher, no opponents of political preaching. The influence of such a body of young men, when young men seized and held the reins, was incalculable.

“We have no public news,” writes James Madison from Princeton on July 23, 1770, to his friend, Thomas Martin,

“but the base conduct of the merchants in New York in breaking
through their spirited resolutions not to import; a distinct
account of which, I suppose, will be in the Virginia
_Gazette_ before this arrives. The letter to the merchants in
Philadelphia, requesting their concurrence, was lately burned
by the students of this place in the college yard, all of them
appearing in their black gowns and the bell tolling.... There
are about 115 in the College and in the Grammar School, all of
them in American cloth.”

“Last week, to show our patriotism,” wrote in 1774 another Princeton student, Charles Beatty,

“we gathered all the steward’s winter store of tea, and having
made a fire in the campus we there burnt near a dozen pounds,
tolled the bell, and made many spirited resolves. But this was
not all. Poor Mr. Hutchinson’s effigy shared the same fate with
the tea, having a tea-canister tied about his neck.”

“THE SIGNER”.]

With such a nursery of patriotism at its very hub, the temper of the surrounding community can easily be pictured. The proposition for a provincial congress came from Princeton. John Hart, a farmer from the neighboring township of Hopewell, and Abraham Clark, a farmer’s son from the neighboring county, were associated with graduates from Princeton College and delegates from Princeton town in conducting its deliberations. Both were made delegates to the Continental Congress and both, along with Witherspoon and Stockton, were signers of the Declaration of Independence. Even Francis Hopkinson, the fifth signer for this State, a Philadelphian in reality, though a temporary resident of Bordentown, was, as the friend and co-worker of Freneau and Brackinridge, intimately associated with Princeton influence. When rebellion was finally in full swing, the Committee of Safety for New Jersey held its sessions here, probably in Nassau Hall, possibly in the famous tavern. It is well known that neither the Continental Army nor the people of the United States at large were profoundly impressed by the Declaration of Independence. This was not the case in Princeton, for the correspondent of a Philadelphia paper wrote that on July 9, 1776, “Nassau Hall was grandly illuminated and independency proclaimed under a triple volley of musketry, and universal acclamation for the prosperity of the United States, with the greatest decorum.”

Seven days previous to this demonstration, the Provincial Congress, sitting at Trenton, had adopted a new State constitution; nine days later the first Legislature of the State assembled in Nassau Hall—the College library room—and chose Livingston governor. They continued more or less intermittently in session until the following October after the invasion of the State by British forces. Before the invaders they fled to Trenton, then to Burlington, to Pittstown, and finally to Haddonfield. After the battles of Princeton and Trenton they promptly returned to their first seat and resumed their sessions.

* * * * *

The storm of war broke upon Princeton early in December of the same year, 1776. The British Army, landed from Howe’s fleet in New York Bay, had entirely worsted the American forces. Brooklyn, New York, Fort Washington with Fort Lee had been successively abandoned, and Washington in his memorable retreat across this State reached Princeton on the first of December. Stirling, with one thousand two hundred Continentals, was left as a rear-guard, while the Commander-in-Chief with the rest, one thousand eight hundred, and his stores, pushed on to Trenton, whence he crossed in safety to the right bank of the Delaware. On the seventh, Cornwallis entered Princeton at the head of six thousand Anglo-Hessian veterans, driving Stirling before him. The invaders were quartered in the College and in the church. Both Tusculum and Morven, the estates of the arch-rebels Witherspoon and Stockton, were pillaged, and the new house of Sergeant was burnt. All the neighboring farms were laid under contribution for forage.

Popular disaffection followed in the course of Washington’s retreat. Large numbers of the people and many of the State officials accepted the English offers of amnesty. The patriots were compelled to abandon their homes and flee across the Delaware. Two regiments were left by Cornwallis in Princeton as a garrison. The rest of his troops were established in winter quarters at New Brunswick, Trenton and Bordentown. Washington’s thin and starving line stretched along the Delaware from Coryell’s Ferry to Bristol. Congress fled to Baltimore. Putnam, with no confidence in Washington’s ability even to hold his ground, was making ready for a desperate defence of Philadelphia.

There was as yet no French alliance, no adequate supply of money raised either at home or abroad, no regular or even semi-regular army,—nothing, apparently, but a disorderly little rebellion; for the first promise of constancy in New England and of regular support for a considerable force of volunteers had had as yet no fulfilment. The English felt that the early ardor of radical and noisy rebels would fade like a mist before Howe’s success; Canada was lost; New York as far as the Highlands was in British hands; so also were New Jersey and Long Island, which latter virtually controlled Connecticut. Howe believed the rebellion was broken; Cornwallis had engaged passage to return home.

While the British were lulled into security, Washington and the patriots, though desperate, were undaunted. A well considered and daring plan for a decisive sally from their lines was formed and carried to a successful issue. On Christmas night two thousand four hundred men were ferried over the Delaware nine miles above Trenton; the crossing was most dangerous, owing to the swollen waters and the floating ice; the ensuing march was made in the teeth of a dreadful storm. The affair at Trenton was scarcely a battle, it was rather a surprise; the one thousand two hundred Hessians were taken unawares and only a hundred and sixty-two escaped; nearly a thousand were captured. What made it a great event was its electrical effect in restoring courage to patriots everywhere, together with the inestimable value to Washington’s troops of the captured stores and arms. He did not occupy the place at all, but returned immediately to his encampment on the other shore to refit.

The ensuing week was certainly the most remarkable of the Revolution. The English in New York were thrown into consternation. Cornwallis hastened back to Princeton, where he collected between seven and eight thousand men, the flower of the British army. Washington’s force, on the other hand, was reinforced with a speed and zeal bordering on the miraculous. Three thousand volunteers came in from the neighborhood and from Philadelphia. The term of service for nine hundred of his men would expire on New Year’s day; these were easily induced, in the new turn of affairs, to remain six weeks longer. Washington and John Stark both pledged their private fortunes and Robert Morris raised fifty thousand dollars in Philadelphia. The mourning of the patriots throughout the Middle States was changed into rejoicing.

On the thirtieth of December the American army began to recross the Delaware; the movement was slow and difficult owing to the ice, but was completed the following day. On January 1, 1777, Washington wrote from Trenton that he had about two thousand two hundred men with him, that Mifflin had about one thousand eight hundred men at Bordentown on the right wing and that Cadwalader had about as many more at Crosswicks, some miles to the east. He thought that no more than one thousand eight hundred of those who passed the river with himself were available for fighting, but he intended to “pursue the enemy and break up their quarters.”

Next day Cornwallis, leaving three regiments and a company of cavalry at Princeton, set out by the old “King’s Highway” for Trenton. At Maidenhead, now Lawrenceville, there was a skirmish between his van and the American outposts; thence for over five miles his march was harassed by irregular bodies of his foe, General Hand being stationed in command of a detachment at Shabbakong creek, and General Greene about a mile this side of Trenton. It was four o’clock, and therefore late in the short winter day when the English General reached the outskirts of the city. There stood Washington himself with a few more detachments, ready still further to delay the British march through the town. Withdrawing slowly, the last Continental crossed the bridge over the Assanpink in safety, to fall behind earthworks, which in anticipation of the event had been thrown up and fortified with batteries on the high banks behind.

FROM A PAINTING BY COL. J. TRUMBULL.]

The British attacked at once, but were repulsed; undismayed they pressed on again, and again they were driven back across the narrow stream. The spirited conflict continued until nightfall, when the assailants finally gave up and withdrew to bivouac, hoping to renew the fight next morning. In this affair on the Assanpink about a hundred and fifty, mostly British, were killed. Cornwallis dispatched messengers to summon the men he had left at Maidenhead and Princeton, determined if possible to surround, overwhelm and annihilate Washington next day. But the battle on the Assanpink was destined to be the only real fighting in Trenton. Washington had in mind the strategic move which rendered this campaign one of his greatest, if not his very greatest. He determined to outflank his foe by a circuitous march to Princeton over the unguarded road on the south side of the Assanpink.

The night was dark and cold; the camp-fires of both lines burned strong and bright. Behind those of Cornwallis there was a bustle of preparation for the next day’s battle; behind those of Washington there was a stealthy making ready for retreat. The baggage was packed and dispatched to Burlington; a few men were detached to keep the fires well fed and clear; the rest silently stole away about midnight. Their march was long, between sixteen and eighteen miles, and difficult because the frost had turned the mud on the roads into hummocks. But at sunrise on the third of January the head of the column had crossed Stony Brook by the bridge on the Quaker road, and stood about a mile and three-quarters from Princeton, awaiting the result of a council of war. They were masked by the piece of woods which is still standing behind the Quaker meeting-house. It was determined that Washington with the main column should march across the fields, through a kind of depression in the rolling land intervening between the meeting-house and Princeton, in order to reach the town as quickly as possible. Mercer, with three hundred and fifty men and two field-pieces, was to follow the road half a mile farther to its junction with the King’s Highway, and there blow up the upper bridge over Stony Brook, that by which Cornwallis’s reserve, marching to Trenton, must cross the stream. This would likewise detain Cornwallis himself on his return in pursuit.

* * * * *

There were three actions in the battle of Princeton. Two of the three English regiments left in reserve at Princeton were under way betimes to join Cornwallis at Trenton. One of these under Colonel Mawhood, with three companies of horse, had already crossed Stony Brook and had climbed the hill beyond, before they descried Mercer following the road in the valley below; the other was half a mile behind, north of the stream. Mawhood quickly turned back and, uniting the two, engaged Mercer. The Americans were armed with rifles which had no bayonets, and although nearly equal in number to the enemy they were first slowly then rapidly driven up the hill to the ridge south of the King’s Highway and east of the Quaker road. They stood firm before the firing of the English, but yielded when the enemy charged bayonets. In this encounter Mercer was severely wounded and left for dead. Many other officers were likewise wounded as they hung back, striving to rally the flying troops.

Washington, hearing the firing, stopped immediately and, leaving the rest of his column to follow their line of march, put himself at the head of the Pennsylvania volunteers and wheeled. Summoning two pieces of artillery he turned to join the retreating forces of Mercer. The British reached the crest of the hill in pursuit before they saw Washington’s column. The sight brought them to a halt, and while they formed their artillery came up. It seemed to Washington a most critical moment. In an instant Mercer’s command was fused with his own men, and placing himself well out before the line he gave the order to advance. There was no halt until the Commander himself was within thirty yards of the foe; at that instant both lines volleyed simultaneously. The fire was hasty and ineffective. Washington, as if by a miracle, was unscathed. As the smoke blew away, an American brigade came in under Hitchcock, while Hand with his riflemen attacked the British flank. In a few moments Mawhood gave up the fight; his troops, after a few brave efforts, broke and retreated over the hill up the valley of Stony Brook. The bridge was then destroyed.

Meantime the head of the American column had reached the outskirts of Princeton. There, on the edge of the ravine now known as Springdale, was posted still a third British force composed of soldiers from the 40th and 55th Line. The Americans, with Stark at their head, attacked and drove them back as far as Nassau Hall, into which the fugitives hastily threw themselves. From the windows scattered remnants of their regiments could be seen fleeing through fields and byways toward New Brunswick. The American artillery began to play on the walls of the building; one ball, it is said, crashed through the roof and tore from its frame the portrait of George II., hanging in the Prayer Hall; another is still imbedded in the venerable walls. A Princeton militiaman, with the assistance of his neighbors, finally burst the door and the little garrison surrendered.

When Donop retreated from Bordentown to Princeton after the battle of Trenton, he threw up an arrow-head breastwork at the point not far from where Mercer and Stockton Streets now join; on this still lay a cannon of the size known as a thirty-two pounder, the carriage of which was dismantled. It was early morning when Cornwallis became aware that his expected battle would not be fought at Trenton; the roar of artillery gave him the terrible assurance that the blow had been struck on his weakened flank,—that his precious stores at New Brunswick were in danger. Swiftly he issued the necessary orders and appeared at the west end of the town on the King’s Highway, just as Washington was leaving Princeton, his van having been delayed in crossing Stony Brook. The citizens had loaded the gun in the breastwork and on the approach of the intruders they fired it. This utterly deceived the English generals, for they thought themselves facing a well-manned battery. It was some time, tradition says an hour, before they were undeceived and in that precious interval Washington collected his army and marched away. His forces were too weak to risk the venture of seizing New Brunswick, even temporarily; accordingly he turned northwestward and reached Morristown in safety. There and at Middlebrook his headquarters practically remained for the rest of the war. The English were content to secure New Brunswick.

In the battle of Princeton there were engaged somewhat under two thousand men on each side. The actual fighting lasted less than half an hour. We lost very few men—so few that the number cannot be accurately reckoned—possibly thirty; but we lost a brave general, Hugh Mercer, a colonel, a major, and three captains. The English soldiers fought with unsurpassed gallantry. They lost two hundred killed and two hundred and fifty captured, but no officers of distinction. It was not, therefore, a big fight, but it was none the less a great and decisive battle. How important Washington felt it to be, is attested by his personal exposure of himself. How decisive the great military critics have considered it, is shown by the fact that the campaign of which it was the finishing stroke is held by them to have been typical of his genius as a strategist. The two affairs of Trenton and Princeton are in the short histories of the Revolution generally reckoned together. And naturally so, since they occurred so near to one another in time and place. But, strategically and tactically examined, the battle of Trenton made good Washington’s position behind the Delaware; the battle of Princeton secured New Jersey and the Middle States.

After the preliminary actions which took place in New England the remainder of the Revolution falls into three portions—the struggle for the Hudson, to secure communication between New England and the Middle States; the struggle for the Delaware, to secure communication between the Middle States and the South; and thirdly, the effort to regain the South. After the battle of Princeton, Washington was able to establish a line from Amboy around by the west and south to Morristown; New England, the Middle and Southern States were in communication with each other and free. As a result of the first campaign by a numerous and well-equipped Anglo-German army the English held nothing but Newport in Rhode Island and New York City, with posts at King’s Bridge on the north and at New Brunswick on the south. The proof was finally secured that Washington with a permanent army such as the Colonies might, unassisted, have furnished him, would have been a match for any land force the English could have transported to America.

For the remaining years of the war Princeton was held by the Americans. Both the Legislature of the State and the Council of Safety held their meetings within its precincts; for a time Putnam was in command of the little garrison, for a time Sullivan. Early in 1781 thirteen hundred mutinous Pennsylvanians of Washington’s army marched away from Morristown and came in a body to Princeton. They were met by emissaries from Clinton who strove to entice them from their allegiance. But, though mutinous, they were not traitors, for they seized the British emissaries and handed them over to General Wayne to be treated as spies. A committee of Congress appeared and made such arrangements as pacified them. In the autumn of the same year the victory of Yorktown was celebrated with illuminations and general rejoicings. The College was again in session with forty students and local prosperity was restored. In 1782 there was held a meeting to support a continuance of the war.

The Revolutionary epoch was fitly brought to a close by a meeting of Congress in Nassau Hall. On June 20, 1783, three hundred Pennsylvania soldiers who were discontented with the terms of their discharge marched from Lancaster to Philadelphia and beset the doors of Congress, holding that assembly imprisoned for three hours under threat of violence if their wrongs were not redressed. The legislators resolved to adjourn to Princeton. They were made heartily welcome, the college halls were put at their disposal, and the houses of the citizens were hospitably opened for their entertainment. Their sessions were held regularly in the College library for over four months, until the fourth of November, when they adjourned to meet at Annapolis three weeks later. Washington was in Princeton twice during this time: once at commencement in September, when he made a present of fifty guineas to the trustees—a sum they spent for the portrait by Peale which now hangs in Nassau Hall, filling, it is said, the very frame from which that of George II. was shot away during the battle. The second time he came in October, at the request of Boudinot, President of Congress, and a trustee of the College, to give advice concerning such weighty matters as the organization of a standing army to defend the frontiers, of a militia to maintain internal order, and of the military school. The Commander-in-Chief was received in solemn session and congratulated by the President on the success of the war. He replied in fitting terms. According to tradition he occupied while in attendance on Congress a room in a house now replaced by the handsome Pyne dormitory on the corner of Witherspoon and Nassau Streets, but his residence was the colonial mansion three miles away on the hill above the town of Rocky Hill which has been preserved as a historical monument and revolutionary museum by the liberality of Mrs. Josephine Swann. It was from this place that he issued his famous farewell address to the army.

But the greatest occasion in Princeton’s history was on the thirty-first of the same month. Congress had assembled in the Prayer Hall to receive in solemn audience the minister plenipotentiary from the Netherlands. There were present, besides the members, Washington, Morris, the superintendent of finance, Luzerne, the French envoy, and many other men of eminence. The company had just assembled when news came that the Treaty of Peace had been signed at Versailles. Many brilliant and beautiful women were present, and their unchecked delight doubled the enthusiasm of all. The reception was the most splendid public function thus far held by the now independent republic. On the twenty-fifth of November the British evacuated New York. Washington left Princeton to attend the ceremony, and afterward journeyed by Annapolis to his home at Mt. Vernon. He believed that, his military career being concluded, he was to spend the rest of his days as a private gentleman.

Providence had ordained otherwise. He had carried the difficult, strange and desultory War of the Revolution to a successful end; he had, by wise counsel and firmness, averted the dangers of a civil war which seemed imminent, so far as he could judge from the temper of those about his headquarters at Newburgh. Once more he was to enter the arena of embittered strife, but in a conflict political and not military. Three of the five great actions in which he was personally present during the Revolution were fought on Jersey soil; his next leadership was displayed in a contest waged in Philadelphia, but largely by Jerseymen or Princetonians. Princeton’s place in American history can not be understood without consideration of the Constitutional Convention, where the passions of localism, separatism and sectional prejudice broke forth afresh. The assembly contained many wise and far-seeing men. Of its fifty-five members, thirty-two were men of academic training. There were one each from London, Oxford, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and five had been connected with the checkered fortunes of William and Mary. The University of Pennsylvania sent one, Columbia two, Harvard three, Yale four and Princeton nine. The most serious dissension, as is well known, was concerning the relative importance of large and small States in legislation. The Virginia, or large-States plan, was for two houses, basing representation in both on population. It was essentially the work of James Madison, a pupil of Witherspoon. The Jersey, or small-State, plan was for one house, wherein each State should have equal representation. It was the cherished idea of Paterson, another Princetonian. Over these two schemes the battle waged fiercely until it seemed that even Washington, the presiding officer, could not command peace or force a compromise, and that the convention was on the verge of dissolution. Connecticut had ever been accustomed to two houses—one representing the people, one the towns. It was the compromise suggested on this analogy by Sherman and Ellsworth, and urged by them, with the assistance of Davie from Georgia, which finally prevailed. Ellsworth and Davie were both Princetonians. Madison joined hands with Washington in the successful struggle for the acceptance of the new Constitution in Virginia—both Ellsworth and Paterson, their end attained, became the most ardent Federalists.

The history of Princeton during this century has of course not been so dramatic as it was in the last, but the town and neighborhood have secured the permanent influence foreshadowed by its Revolutionary record. They shared in the control of State and nation, they gave their sons freely to the service of the country in each of the three wars since fought. But of course the story of Princeton is, in the main, the story of the University. Reopening its doors under Witherspoon with about forty students, its graduating class as early as 1806 numbered fifty-four, and thence to the outbreak of the Civil War it enjoyed almost unbroken prosperity under four presidents, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Ashbel Green, James Carnahan and John Maclean. The first care of its friends was to provide for thorough training in science, so that it has the honor of having had the first American professor of chemistry. For a time it likewise had a professor of theology; but the founding of the Theological Seminary in 1812 and its permanent location in Princeton the following year committed that branch of learning to an institution which has since become one of the most important in the country. From time to time new buildings were added to both College and Seminary as necessity required. How stern the college discipline was is shown by the fact that at intervals, fortunately rare, students were sent to their homes in numbers scarcely credible in this quieter age; on one occasion a hundred and twenty-five out of something over two hundred. In 1824 Lafayette graciously accepted the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the authorities while passing from New York to Washington. In 1832 Joseph Henry was made professor of natural philosophy, a chair he held with the highest distinction, for it was in his Princeton laboratory that he made his epochal discoveries in electricity, stepping-stones to the revolution of the world by its use; in 1848 he was made director of the Smithsonian Institute. In 1846 was organized a Law School; its three professors were men of the highest distinction, but the project was premature. In 1855 flames destroyed all but the walls of Nassau Hall, whereupon it was speedily remodelled as it still stands; the variation, slight as it was from the original, appears to have been in the interest of economy rather than beauty.

The only serious check in Princeton’s prosperity was caused by the Civil War. Though a large proportion of the students had always come from the Southern States, the rest were enthusiastic in their Northern sympathies, and the national flag was hoisted by them over Nassau Hall in April, 1861. The minority tore it down, but it was promptly restored to its place by a gallant citizen of the town, who in climbing to the apex of the cupola twisted the shaft of the weather-vane and fixed the arrow with its head to the north. Thus it remained until conciliation was complete a few years since (1896), when the pivot was repaired so that the historic index may point in all directions at the will of the winds. The withdrawal of the Southern students left the numbers of the ever-loyal University at a low ebb, and it was not until after the accession of James McCosh to the presidency that the new clientage which has so munificently supported him and his successor was secured. It is also gratifying to note that the sons of the old Princeton Confederates are returning in ever greater numbers. The presidencies of Dr. McCosh and Dr. Patton are too near to belong to history. The evidences of the enormous strides made in material equipment are on every hand: splendid and beautiful buildings, professors of distinction in great numbers, and a body of students numbering, along with those of the Seminary, about fifteen hundred. Near by is the famous Lawrenceville School, itself an epochal institution in the history of our secondary training. Wherever men converse of science, literature or art, the names of Princeton’s sons must be considered; but her chiefest glory thus far has been in her contributions to political and educational life. Representative of a definite theory and practice in her sphere, she breeds men in abundance to uphold her banner in the face of all assaults.

Time, place and the men—these are the factors of history; the first and the last vanish, the scenes alone remain. If history is to be made real, if we are to know in the concrete, from the experience of the men and women who have left the stage, what alone is possible for ourselves and our race, we do well to see and ponder the places which knew those who have gone before. Princeton possesses, in Nassau Hall, a focus of patriotism—a cradle of liberty. In her battle-field, the spot where culminated one of the greatest campaigns of one of the greatest of generals; and in her sons one sees the triumph of the moral forces which combine in true greatness. The lesson to be learned from Princeton’s historic scenes should be that intellect and not numbers controls the world; that ideas and not force overmaster bigness; that truth and right, supported by strong purpose and high principle, prevail in the end.

PHILADELPHIA

THE CITY PENN FOUNDED AND TO WHICH FRANKLIN GAVE DISTINCTION

BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS

Cities are of nature. Their long life flows in ways she has made longer than the changing rule of which they are part. Nations and boundaries are of man and his laws. Artificial creations all. Cities and their sites are of the same forces as form the rivers and ports, the passes and pathways on which they stand and last as long. Rome outlives its empire, and Damascus the shock of massacre from Chedorlaomer to Timur. The cities of Europe are still where they were twenty centuries ago. The civil structure into which they fit has changed until nothing is left of what once was. These things are missed in the general. They come to be seen in the particular.