Field of Liberty

It was only a little battle, but it was a great victory.

The countryside between Trenton and Princeton was gentle to the eye, but frozen and cruelly hard to the ill-shod men of Washington's rabble in arms. The back road by which the Continental General hoped to outflank Lord Cornwallis was full of tree stumps--which made heavy work for the cannoneers wrestling the rag-muffled wheels. Perhaps the General, flushed with his Christmas Night victory at Trenton, was now going too far.

Marching out of Princeton came three British regiments of foot, gleaming in scarlet and gold. These were no mercenaries, like the Hessians beaten at Trenton; these were seasoned and loyal troops. From a striking force of perhaps 2,500 men, Washington detached a skeleton brigade led by General Hugh Mercer to destroy the bridge over Stony Brook. But it was too late. The British regulars shattered and scattered the raw American irregulars, gave Mercer a fatal wound. His panicked men infected Washington's main body.

The Man on a White Horse. Time & again Washington tried to rally his ragged men, now in ragged ranks. Finally, riding a big white horse,*he exposed himself between the lines, inviting obedience --or death. For a moment the fate of the Continental Army hung in excruciating suspense. Each side fired a volley. When the smoke from the muskets lifted in the frosty air, Washington still bestrode his horse, unscathed. The Redcoats gave way. The victorious Americans carried their pursuit into Nassau Hall.

The little battle established Washington, once dubbed a Fabius Cunctator, as a general of brilliant resource. Said Frederick the Great (an expert with the rhetorical long bow): these "achievements were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military science." The Revolution went on to its ordained end.

Eight score and nine years rolled gently over the gently rolling battlefield of Princeton. By chance, it was little built upon. This week, while the sweet gums turned as scarlet as the British soldiers' coats, the long-peaceful soil was dedicated as a state park. Said Princeton's President Harold Willis Dodds: the University was "succumbing to nostalgia" in its bicentennial year. On the preserved battlefield, any lover of human liberties could look back with pride.

*Artist John Trumbull made it a horse of another color (sec Cut).

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