It was dawn, April 13, 1777, and a British attack force consisting of four thousand of the kings finest troops, were ready and waiting at their jumping-off points, near Bound Brook, New Jersey. The infantry was arranged in four separate wings, including one hundred dragoons, and ten light artillery pieces. Overnight, three attack wings had quietly moved into position, while the fourth wing, tasked with blocking the roads north, had yet to arrive. The American defenders, numbering approximately five hundred, and commanded by General Benjamin Lincoln, had failed to detect the British approach, and were slumbering away in their beds.
The village of Bound Brook sat along the north bank of the Raritan River, only eight miles west of Brunswick (modern New Brunswick) where the British were quartered. It was one of several forward posts established by General George Washington to serve as an early warning system and challenge British incursions into the state's interior. For the first several months of winter, the Americans had violently opposed British movements, but now the snows had melted, the roads had dried, and British General Charles Cornwallis intended to repay the American’s audacity with a lethal blow of his own. Two British columns, one under General James Grant, the other commanded by Hessian Colonel Carl von Donop, had advanced on roads that paralleled the river, while the third, under Lt. Col. William Harcourt (accompanied by Cornwallis) had traveled cross-country, intent on entering Bound Brook from the rear. The plan was for all three wings to attack the town simultaneously, taking the Americans by complete surprise (see map above).
Suddenly muskets cracked east of town, where Grant’s vanguard, led by Hessian Captain Johaan Ewald, had stumbled headfirst into American sentries. “The picket received us spiritedly and withdrew under heavy fire,” Ewald later recalled. Moving forward on the sound of Ewald’s guns, Harcourt’s column waded across a creek and entered Bound Brook from the west, virtually unopposed. So too, Donop’s wing, which also charged across Queen’s Bridge into the village, and faced only light resistance.
East of town, however, Ewald and his Hessian Jaegers were diving for cover. “The day dawned and I was exposed to a murderous fire,” the Hessian recalled. “When I looked around for my men, I saw that no one had followed me except the brave Lieutenant Trautvetter, my hornblower, Muller,” and seven other Jaegers. The Americans had constructed a redoubt on the east edge of town to cover any approach from River Road, and Ewald and his men would remain pinned down under intense fire from the rebel position for another ten minutes.
As Ewald and his men were scrambling for cover, Harcourt’s wing stormed into the village from the west. Nearby, American Generals Lincoln and Anthony Wayne had been sleeping in the Horne house, where Lincoln had established his headquarters. Awakened by the sudden commotion, the generals spotted the approaching redcoats, only two hundred yards distant, and grabbed for their gear.
“Gen. Lincoln and his soldiers were startled by the fierce cry of his sentries, ‘To Arms!’ Hastily arising, without time for dressing, they made a rapid retreat, passing through the fast enclosing lines of the two detachments of the enemy’s army, firing a few shots aimlessly as they ran.” Harcourt’s wing surged through the village, joining Donop’s troops, attacking the American redoubt from the rear, as redcoats surrounded the Van Horne home, firing at the guards. “The Guard,” wrote Ewald, “was partly cut down and partly captured, three cannons captured, and the two generals fled without breeches.” The redoubt was quickly overrun, where many Americans were gunned down. Those who could manage an escape fled the village, running north through the woods.
The fighting was over in moments only. Cornwallis had planned and executed an almost flawless operation, marching four wings on separate night-time routes, only to attack in precise order (something rarely achieved in warfare), and driving the Americans from their post. It is difficult to recall another British operation throughout the American Revolution that was better organized, executed, and equally successful. The only slight imperfection was the small infantry detachment sent to block the roads running north, which was late in arriving. For the Americans, it had been an utter and embarrassing defeat. The British then plundered the small village and were back on the road toward Brunswick before noon, with three artillery pieces and ninety prisoners in tow.
At his headquarters in Morristown (see map below), General George Washington got late word of the attack and promptly ordered General Nathanael Greene to march from Basking Ridge with his division to support Lincoln at Bound Brook. But, by the time Greene arrived – well after noon – the British were already long gone. General Lincoln subsequently gathered his scattered troops and by late afternoon had reoccupied the village, as if nothing had happened.
On its face, the British operation appeared wildly successful. Cornwallis had punched the Americans in the nose, precisely his intention. But was the superb nighttime advance of 4,000 of the King’s finest troops, the synchronized attack and overwhelming victory, really worth nothing more than three cannon, a pillaged village, and ninety prisoners? Let’s take a closer look.
Cornwallis can be applauded for his tactical masterpiece but, upon closer inspection, the strategic scope of his operation appears to be virtually nonexistent, suggesting a painful lack of imagination. Yes, he had punched a hole in Washington’s forward defenses, but it seems with little thought of taking advantage of that success, once accomplished. With four-thousand troops in Bound Brook (now occupying the right flank of the American forward line) the redcoats still had another fourteen thousand at Brunswick, within an easy eight-mile march. From Bound Brook roads ran north behind Quibbletown (modern New Market), Piscataway, Spanktown (modern Rahway), and Ash Swamp where rebel forces frequently operated, all the way north to Westfield, a staging area for many rebel operations (see map above). By simply shifting 2,000 troops west to hold Bound Brook, the initial four thousand redcoats could have marched up those northbound roads, forcing the Americans to immediately evacuate all their forward posts, or face the threat of being cut off from headquarters, encircled, and crushed in detail. Thus, through maneuver alone, Washington’s entire forward line could have been forced into a panicked retreat. But that did not happen, although the possibility was literally at Cornwallis’ fingertips. And it did not happen because General Cornwallis appears to have had no conception of the possibility, even though he understood the road network and location of the American posts. Nor did he apparently learn anything from the painfully slow American response to his attack, a fact that surely could have been used to further advantage.
General Washington, on the other hand, appears to have gleaned a great deal from the American defeat. On April 17 (only three days after the attack) he wrote to General William Maxwell, one of his division commanders, insisting that the number of forward posts be reduced, the men drawn far more tightly together, and scouts placed along the enemy’s lines to warn of surprise. He continued, “By means of this we shall have it more in our power to move quick; shall be less liable to surprizes; and can give aid much quicker than in cases where Men upon any alarm, or Movement of the Enemy are to be assembled from Several different Posts, at a distance from each other.”
It was then early 1777 and General Washington was still learning the art of war, something in which the senior British generals were supposed to have been expert. Soon thereafter, Washington decided to secretly shift his entire army to the first ridgeline of the nearby Watchung Mountains at Middlebrook, a Gibraltar like position which was virtually unassailable. On May 6, only weeks after the debacle at Bound Brook, Washington wrote to Benjamin Rush, outlining his evolving thinking, explaining that, “the more an army is collected, the better it is adapted, both to the purposes of defense and offense, and the better enabled, either to defeat the attempts the enemy may project against it, or take advantage of favorable conjunctures, which may offer, to annoy and injure them.” Washington appears to have learned a great deal from the American defeat at Bound Brook, but for Cornwallis and his British regulars, there apparently had been nothing to see, so for them it remained business as usual.
Over time, the art of war has been codified into a number of principles, taught at virtually every command school. These include elements such as economy of force, concentration of force, unity of command, simplicity, security, etc. George Washington, unschooled in the finer points of warfare, had, prior to The Revolution, commanded little more than two regiments of Colonial troops along the Virginia frontier. But, judging from his correspondence with both Maxwell and Rush, during the three weeks after Bound Brook, he appears to have come to grips with a good many of these principles, if not formally, at least on an instinctual level.
Today the brief engagement at Bound Brook has been all but forgotten, nevertheless, it would have long lasting effects. Because General Cornwallis – at the nominal cost of a ransacked village, three cannons, and ninety prisoners – had inadvertently provided the American general a tutorial in the art of war, a tutorial Cornwallis would come to regret some few years later at a different village, this named Yorktown.
Jim Stempel is a speaker and author of ten books and numerous articles on American history, spirituality, and warfare. His newest book regarding the American Revolution – The Enemy Harassed: Washington’s New Jersey Campaign of 1777, the amazing story George Washington’s forgotten campaign – was released in March. For a full preview, pricing, and reviews of The Enemy Harassed, visit Amazon (https://amzn.to/34J4fZN). Or visit Jim’s website (https://bit.ly/2EAWNVT) for all his books, reviews, articles, biography, and interviews.
