END OF THE 1777 ENCAMPMENT.
General Howe had meanwhile determined, as early as April 2, to embark on another major attempt to capture Philadelphia, this time by sea approach. He apparently kept his own counsel, however, and up to the last minute neither the American nor the British Army knew his real intentions. The garrisons at Perth Amboy and New Brunswick left their cramped winter quarters for encampments in the open soon after the middle of May. This colored reports that Howe was about to attack Morristown, or that, while his main force advanced by land towards Philadelphia, a band of Loyalists would march from Bergen into Sussex County to aid a rising of the Tories there.
Made uneasy by these and other British movements, Washington decided that the time had come to leave Morristown. On May 28, therefore, leaving behind a small detachment to guard what military stores were still in the village, he accordingly moved the Continental Army to Middlebrook Valley, behind the first Watchung Mountain a short distance north of Bound Brook, and only 8 miles from New Brunswick. This was a natural position from which the Americans could both defy attack and threaten any overland expedition the enemy might make. Such was the relationship of the two armies as the curtain went up on the ensuing summer campaign. The encampment of 1777 at Morristown had drawn to a close.