Page [THE FIRST WINTER ENCAMPMENT IN MORRIS COUNTY] 1 [Situation: January 1777] 1 [From Princeton to Morristown] 2 [The New Base of American Operations] 3 [Winter Quarters for Officers and Men] 5 [Instability of the Army] 6 [Food and Clothing Shortages] 7 [Recruitment Gets Under Way] 7 [Sickness and Death] 8 [Washington Tightens His Grip on New Jersey] 9 [The Prospect Brightens] 10 [End of the 1777 Encampment] 11 [JOCKEY HOLLOW: THE “HARD” WINTER OF 1779-80] 11 [Intermission: War in Deadlock] 11 [Morristown Again Becomes the Military Capital] 12 [Building the “Log-house city”] 12 [Terrible Severity of the Winter] 16 [Lack of Adequate Clothing] 17 [Shortage of Provisions and Forage] 17 [Money Troubles and Their Consequences] 18 [Guarding the Lines] 18 [The Staten Island Expedition] 19 [Sidelights on the Pattern of Army Life] 22 [Luzerne and Miralles] 23 [The Committee at Headquarters] 24 [Lafayette Brings Good News] 24 [Two Battles End the 1779-80 Encampment] 25 [JANUARY 1781: THE STORY OF TWO MUTINIES] 27 [THE NEW JERSEY BRIGADE ENCAMPMENT OF 1781-82] 29 [GUIDE TO THE AREA] 29 [HOW TO REACH THE PARK] 42 [ESTABLISHMENT AND ADMINISTRATION] 42 [VISITOR FACILITIES] 43 [RELATED AREAS] 44
“Washington Receiving a Salute on the Field of Trenton.” From the engraving by William Holl (1865), after the painting by John Faed.
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.
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.