Morristown National Historical Park

During two critical winters of the Revolutionary War, 1777 and 1779-80, the rolling countryside in and around Morristown, N. J., sheltered the main encampments of the American Continental Army and served as the headquarters of its famed Commander in Chief, George Washington. Patriot troops were also quartered in this vicinity on many other occasions. Here Washington reorganized his weary and depleted forces almost within sight of strong British lines at New York. Here came Lafayette with welcome news of the second French expedition sent to aid the Americans. And here was developed, in the face of bitter cold, hunger, hardship, and disease, the Nation’s will to independence and freedom. Thus for a time this small New Jersey village became the military capital of the United States, the testing ground of a great people in its heroic fight for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The First Winter Encampment in Morris County

SITUATION: JANUARY 1777.

Sir William Howe had been mistaken. Near the middle of December 1776, as Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s army in America, he believed the rebellion of Great Britain’s trans-Atlantic colonies crushed beyond hope of revival. “Mr.” Washington’s troops had been driven from New York, pursued through New Jersey, and forced at last to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. The British had captured Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, the only American general they thought possessed real ability. Some mopping up might be necessary in the spring, but the arduous work of conquest was over. Howe could spend a comfortable winter in New York, and Lord Cornwallis, the British second in command, might sail for England and home.

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Then suddenly, with whirlwind effect, these pleasant reveries were swept away in the roar of American gunfire at Trenton in the cold, gray dawn of December 26, and at Princeton on January 3. Outgeneraled, bewildered, and half in panic, the British forces pulled back to New Brunswick. Now they were 60 miles from their objective at Philadelphia, instead of 19. Worst of all, they had been maneuvered into this ignominious retreat by a “Tatterde-mallion” army one-sixth the size of their own, and they were on the defensive. “We have been boxed about in Jersey,” lamented one of Howe’s officers, “as if we had no feelings.” George Washington with his valiant comrades in arms had weathered the dark crisis. For the time being at least, the Revolution was saved.

FROM PRINCETON TO MORRISTOWN.

Washington’s original plan at the beginning of this lightninglike campaign was to capture New Brunswick, where he might have destroyed all the British stores and magazines, “taken (as we have since learnt) their Military Chest containing 70,000 £ and put an end to the War.” But Cornwallis, in Trenton, had heard the cannon sounding at Princeton that morning of January 3, and, just as the Americans were leaving the town, the van of the British Army came in sight. By that time the patriot forces were nearly exhausted, many of the men having been without any rest for 2 nights and a day. The 600 or 800 fresh troops required for a successful assault on New Brunswick were not at hand. Washington held a hurried conference with his officers, who advised against attempting too much. Then, destroying the bridge over the Millstone River immediately east of Kingston, the Continentals turned north and marched to Somerset Court House (now Millstone), where they arrived between dusk and 11 o’clock that night.

Washington marched his men to Pluckemin the next day, rested them over Sunday, January 5, and on the Monday following continued on northward into Morristown. There the troops arrived, noted an American officer, “at 5 P. M. and encamped in the woods, the snow covering the ground.” Thus began the first main encampment of the Continental Army in Morris County.