Princeton, 3 January 1777

The battle, stage by stage

1. 2–3 January 1777, about 1–4 AM

   The back road

   After beating off Cornwallis's attacks at the Assunpink Creek on 2 January, Washington's army — about 4,500 to 6,000 men by different estimates, with some 35 guns — is pinned against the creek at Trenton. A council of war decides to slip away by night. About 500 men and two guns stay behind to keep the campfires burning, dig noisily and post sentries, while the army, wagon wheels reportedly muffled with rags, marches east and north by the back roads through Sandtown and Quakerbridge onto the Quaker Road, avoiding the Post Road where Cornwallis's troops lie. Freezing weather has hardened the mud. In Princeton, Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood's brigade — the 17th, 40th and 55th Foot with dragoons and artillery, about 1,200 men (American Battlefield Trust; Mount Vernon) — has orders to march to Trenton at daybreak, leaving the 40th to hold the town. The route between Trenton and Quakerbridge is drawn schematically.

2. 3 January, about 7:30–8 AM

   Sighted from Cochran's Hill

   At sunrise the head of the American column reaches the Stony Brook Quaker meeting house and turns northeast onto the Saw Mill Road, a back road (now vanished) across the Clarke farms that leads into Princeton from the south. A detachment turns left toward the Post Road bridge over Stony Brook to cut the road to Trenton — Mercer's brigade in the traditional account (Mount Vernon); the 2010 Princeton battlefield study (Selig, Harris and Catts) has Mercer advance on the Saw Mill Road against the British, not toward the bridge, and sends a detachment of Mifflin's brigade (Col. James Potter's Pennsylvania militia, with artillery) down the Quaker Road to the bridge only after the fight on the Clarke farms. The American Battlefield Trust has Mifflin's force sent to seize the bridge from the start. Mawhood, already over the bridge with the 17th and 55th, sees the Americans from Cochran's Hill across the brook, sends his wagons on, and turns his column back over the bridge to meet them. Cochran's Hill is placed approximately.

3. About 8 AM

   The Clarke orchard

   Mawhood sends the 55th back toward the town and, with the 17th, two light guns and dragoons, makes for the rising ground of William Clarke's farm, about a quarter mile east of the Post Road. Mercer's brigade, a few hundred men, many of them riflemen without bayonets, comes up through the orchard and meets the 17th at about 40 yards; the orchard hid the British line until they were close. After a short, hot exchange the 17th charges with the bayonet. Mercer's horse is shot; he is clubbed and bayoneted repeatedly — the Clarke House marker says seven bayonet wounds — after refusing to surrender, and Colonel John Haslet of Delaware is shot dead. The popular legend of Mercer dying under the 'Mercer Oak' is just that: the state park marker says he was actually wounded just uphill, behind the British line. The orchard and the 55th's hill are placed approximately.

4. About 8:15 AM

   Washington between the lines

   Mercer's men stream back through Cadwalader's Philadelphia Associators, untried militia forming near Thomas Clarke's house, and the militia falter. Captain Joseph Moulder's Philadelphia battery — two guns by the state park marker, four by the American Battlefield Trust — on the high ground northeast of the house, with Thomas Rodney's Delaware militia, fires grape and canister and stops the British advance; one British company that tries to take the guns is the farthest the Crown troops get. Washington rides up, rallies the fugitives and the militia, and leads them forward to about 30 yards from the British line before ordering them to fire; his aide John Fitzgerald, fearing him killed in the smoke, finds him unhurt. Hitchcock's New England Continentals and Hand's Pennsylvania riflemen come up on the right, across what is now Maxwell's Field.

5. About 8:30 AM

   A fine fox chase

   Hitchcock's brigade volleys and charges while Hand's riflemen work around the British left; the 17th, outnumbered and nearly enveloped, breaks. Its guns are abandoned. Mawhood and part of the regiment cut their way out to the Post Road, cross Stony Brook and make off toward Maidenhead (Lawrenceville) and Trenton; others run north toward Princeton. Washington joins the pursuit, reportedly calling out, 'It is a fine fox chase, my boys!' (Mount Vernon). The whole fight on the Clarke farms has lasted perhaps 15 to 20 minutes.

6. About 9 AM

   Frog Hollow

   Sullivan's division, which had halted on the Saw Mill Road facing the 55th on the high ground to the north, now advances on the town. The 40th, with part of the 55th on its left, makes a stand on the north side of a ravine called Frog Hollow (today on the Seminary golf course near Alexander Street, beside the old Princeton Inn, now Forbes College), behind it a breastwork; the 2010 study says Mawhood had detached the 40th there early as a blocking position. When American regiments — the 11th Pennsylvania among them, by one account — climb the ravine, the British fall back after a brief stand; a 55th platoon sent to flank the attackers is cut up. The ravine position is approximate.

7. About 9:30–10 AM

   Nassau Hall

   Most of the 40th and 55th get away along the road to New Brunswick, but about 200 men barricade themselves in Nassau Hall, the college's great stone building, firing from broken windows. American guns are brought up and fire on the building; Americans break in the door and a white flag appears at a window; by the usual count 194 men come out and lay down their arms (Wikipedia, after Boatner). By a long Princeton tradition the guns were Captain Alexander Hamilton's New York company, and one ball is said to have decapitated a portrait of George II in the prayer hall — a tradition, not a documented fact. A scar on the building is still pointed out. Gun positions here are conjectural.

8. 3 January, noon to evening

   Away ahead of Cornwallis

   Hearing the guns at dawn, Cornwallis hurries back up the Post Road from Trenton. The Americans hold Princeton until about midday, seizing what stores they can, while a party breaks up the Stony Brook bridge (Major John Kelly of Col. James Potter's Pennsylvania militia, part of the detachment from Mifflin's command), working under British artillery fire; by the Princeton Battlefield Society's account Kelly fell into the brook when a beam gave way; Cornwallis's troops are delayed there and cross at a ford a little upstream. Too exhausted to strike the British depot at New Brunswick, Washington marches by Nassau Street and the Kingston road over the Millstone, then north by Somerset Courthouse and Pluckemin to Morristown (by 5–6 January). Losses are disputed: about 25 to 44 Americans killed and 40 wounded (Lengel; Ketchum; Washington's report of 6 or 7 officers and 25 to 30 men); for the British, Howe reported 18 killed, 58 wounded and 200 missing, while Washington claimed over 100 killed and nearly 300 captured; the American Battlefield Trust estimates about 230 British killed or wounded and about 250 captured, against about 80 Americans. Mercer dies at the Clarke house on 12 January.