He was prepared for Clinton’s choice of the alternate movements. Although one division had been advanced in the direction of the Hudson River, Generals Greene, Maxwell, and Stark, with Harry Lee’s cavalry, and a strong force of militia, had been left in position near Springfield. Few battles of the American Revolution have received less attention, as among the decisive battles of the war, than that of Springfield, N.J. And yet few were more strikingly illustrative of the strategic wisdom with which Washington had planned the successful prosecution of the war, as early as 1776.
On the morning of the twenty-third, at five o’clock, the British army, having crossed from Staten Island in two columns, began its advance. (See maps, “Battle of Springfield,” and, “Operations in New Jersey.”) Its force consisted of five thousand infantry, nearly all of their cavalry, and eighteen pieces of artillery. General Clinton, with the right wing, advanced along the Springfield road with vigor, but deliberately, as if this were his principal line of attack. Upon approaching the first bridge near the Matthews House, he was obliged to halt until his guns could gain a suitable position, since Colonel Angel’s Rhode Island regiment, with one gun, commanded the bridge over the Rahway, and occupied an orchard which gave good cover. At first, the British guns were aimed too high and did little execution. By fording the stream, which was not more than twelve yards wide, Angel’s position was turned, so that he was crowded back to the second bridge, over a branch of the Rahway, where Colonel Shreve resisted with equal obstinacy and bravery. By reference to the map it will be seen that General Greene, as well as Dickinson’s militia on a slight ridge in the rear of Shreve, was admirably posted for reserve support. Angel lost one-fourth of his men and was ordered to fall back, with Colonel Shreve, to the high ground occupied by Generals Maxwell and Stark, near a mill. Colonel Dayton’s Regiment was also distinguished for its gallant conduct. Washington Irving refers very pleasantly to the part taken in the action by Chaplain Caldwell, whose church had been burned on the twenty-fifth of January and whose wife had been killed on the sixth of June, as follows: “None showed more ardor in the fight than Caldwell the chaplain, who distributed Watts’s psalm and hymn books among the soldiers when they were in want of wadding, with the shout: ‘Put Watts into them, boys!’”
The other British column had for its special objective the seizure of the pass leading to Chatham and Morristown. Major Lee’s cavalry, and a picket under Captain Walker, had been posted at Little’s bridge, on the Vauxhall road, and Colonel Ogden’s Regiment covered them. General Greene found that he could not afford to hold so extensive a front, and concentrated his force at other positions eminently strong and capable of vigorous defence. The remainder of Maxwell’s and Stark’s brigades also took high ground, by the mill, with the militia force of Dickinson, on the flanks.
General Knyphausen led this column in person. But the Vauxhall bridge was as closely contested as had been that at Springfield. Greene shifted his position, in view of this second attack and its pronounced objective, to a range of hills in the rear of Byron’s tavern, where the roads were brought so near, that succor might be readily transferred from one to the other. The movement was admirable, scientific, and successful. Tn his report to Washington, he says: “I was thus enabled to reach Colonel Webb’s Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Hunton commanding, and Colonel Jackson’s Regiment, with one piece of artillery, which entirely checked the advance of the enemy upon the American left, and secured that pass.”
The Battle of Springfield had been fought with coolness and unfaltering bravery, and had been won. General Clinton burned Springfield, crossed to Staten Island at midnight, withdrew his bridge of boats, and reached his headquarters in safety. His loss, as reported by contemporary journalists, was placed at about one hundred and fifty men; but comparison of his Reports and Musters, before and after the expedition, make the killed, wounded, and missing twice that number. The American loss was one officer and twelve non-commissioned officers killed, five officers and fifty-six privates wounded, and nine missing; “Captain Davis and the militia not reporting.”
General Clinton’s report says: “I could not think of keeping the field in New Jersey; and wished to land the troops and give a camp of rest to an army of which many corps had had an uninterrupted campaign of fourteen months.”
For five years, New Jersey had been a constant theatre of active war. It was indeed the strategic centre of the war for American Independence. The bravery of her soldiery, whose homes were constantly menaced, was only surpassed by the heroism of her women. These, constantly exposed to every possible desolation that attended the marching and counter-marching of contending armies, never flagged, flinched, nor failed, until her delivery was at last complete.
On the night of June 24, 1780, the day after the Battle of Springfield, Washington, upon return to his headquarters, addressed another call to Governors of States for their full quota, under new assignments, and awaited with interest further tidings from the progress of the French allies, then on the sea. This Battle of Springfield had vindicated his confidence in the Continental troops; and, as in all armies, some regiments proved invariably reliable, under whatever conditions they fought.
On the tenth day of July, 1780, the first division of the French army sent by Louis XVI., in aid of American Independence, consisting of six thousand troops, landed at Newport, R.I. All were under the command of Lieutenant-General Rochambeau, accompanied by Major-General Chastellux, a relative of Lafayette, and escorted by seven heavy battleships, under command of Chevalier de Ternay.
Washington immediately submitted a project for the capture of New York; but on the thirteenth of July Admiral Graves readied that city with six ships-of-the-line, which gave to the British such superiority of ships and guns, that the plan was postponed to wait the arrival of the second French division, of equal numbers, which was supposed, at the time, to be already on its way from France. But Sir Henry Clinton was not inactive. The time to strike was before the French could unite with Washington and take their place in the American army. He planned a surprise, and advanced with eight thousand troops as far as Huntington, L.I., for a descent upon Newport; but Washington put his entire army in readiness to advance upon New York. Clinton, having learned that Rochambeau, advised by Washington, had gone into camp in a strong position, and with the rapidly assembling militia would be superior in force, recalled his troops. He converted the expedition into a naval blockade of Newport, if possible thereby to cut off the second division of the French army, upon its arrival within American waters.