Hugh Mercer

Hugh Mercer (16 January 1726 – 12 January 1777) was a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He fought in the New York and New Jersey campaign and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Princeton.
He was born in Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He served as an assistant surgeon in Charles Edward Stuart's army during the Battle of Culloden in the Jacobite rising of 1745. After the failed uprising, Mercer escaped to the Province of Pennsylvania.
He lived in Greencastle, Pennsylvania (now known as Mercersburg, Pennsylvania) and Fredericksburg, Virginia, worked as a physician and established an apothecary. He served alongside George Washington in the provincial troops during the French and Indian War and they became close friends.
Early life and education
Mercer was born on January 16, 1726 in Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, Scotland to Ann Monro and the Reverend William Mercer, a minister in the Church of Scotland. At 15, he began studying medicine at the University of Aberdeen's Marischal College, and graduated as a physician in 1744. He served as an assistant surgeon in the army of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and was present at the Battle of Culloden when Charles' army was defeated on 16 April 1746. As a fugitive in his homeland in 1747, Mercer fled Scotland after months in hiding. In the Fall of 1746, he departed Leith by ship and sailed to Philadelphia. He settled in Pennsylvaniva near Greencastle, now known as Mercersburg, and practiced medicine as a physician and apothecary for eight years.
French and Indian War
Although Mercer opposed the British in the Jacobite Rising of 1745, he fought with the British during the French and Indian War. In 1755, Mercer served as a captain in General Edward Braddock's army in his failed attempt to take Fort Duquesne. He was wounded in the arm during the battle and left behind in the scramble to retreat. He was able to rejoin his troops and continued to treat wounded soldiers. In March 1756, he was commissioned a captain in a Pennsylvania regiment, and accompanied Lt. Col. John Armstrong in the Kittanning Expedition in September 1756.
In one of the confrontations with Native Americans, Mercer was badly wounded and separated from his unit. He trekked through the woods for 14 days, injured and with no supplies, until he found his way back to Fort Cumberland. In 1757, he was placed in charge of the garrison at Shippensburg and promoted to Major. It was during this period that Mercer developed a lifelong friendship with George Washington.
Both Washington and Mercer served in the Forbes Expedition under British General John Forbes during the second attempt to capture Fort Duquesne. Forbes occupied the burned fort on 25 November 1758. Forbes immediately ordered the construction of a new fortification to be named Fort Pitt, after British Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder. He also named the settlement between the rivers "Pittsburgh", modern Pittsburgh.
Fredericksburg Virginia
At the recommendation of Washington, Mercer moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1760 to practice medicine after the war. He befriended another Scottish ex-patriot, John Paul Jones. Mercer became a noted member and businessman in town, buying land and involving himself in local trade. He married Isabella Gordon and started a family. He became a member of the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge in 1767. Washington, who was also a member of this lodge, later became President, and at least eight members were generals of the American Revolution (Washington, Mercer, George Weedon, William Woodford, Fielding Lewis, Thomas Posey, Gustavus Wallace, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who was honorary in 1824) – far more than any other group, institution or organization save the pre-Revolution British Army. This lodge is still in existence today.
Soon afterward, Mercer opened a physician's apothecary and practice. His apothecary in Fredericksburg, Virginia is now a museum. George Washington's mother, Mary Washington, became one of Mercer's patients, and Mercer prospered as a respected doctor in the area. Mercer married Isabella Gordon and together they had five children: Ann Mercer Patton, John Mercer, William Mercer, George Weedon Mercer, and Hugh Tennant Mercer. In 1774, George Washington sold Ferry Farm, his childhood home, to Mercer, who wanted to make this prized land into a town where he and his family would settle for the remainder of his days.
During 1775, Mercer was a member of the Fredericksburg Committee of Safety, and on 25 April, he was one of the members of the Independent Company of the Town of Fredericksburg who sent a letter of concern to Colonel Washington when the British removed gunpowder from the magazine at Williamsburg. In an August vote, Mercer was excluded from the elected leadership of the new regiments formed by the Virginia Convention because he was a "northern Briton", but on 12 September, he was elected Colonel of the Minute Men of Spotsylvania, King George, Stafford, and Caroline Counties.
On 17 November 1775, Mercer was one of 21 members chosen for the Committee of Safety of Spotsylvania County. On 10 January 1776, Mercer was appointed colonel to what soon became the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Virginia Line, and the next day, George Weedon was appointed lieutenant colonel. Future president James Monroe and future Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall also served as officers under his command. On June 5, 1776 Mercer received a letter from the Continental Congress, signed by John Hancock, appointing him brigadier-general in the Armies of the United Colonies and requesting him to report to headquarters in New York immediately.
American Revolution
Mercer was placed in charge of a large troop of Pennsylvania Militia stationed in Paulus Hook, New Jersey to protect from potential attack from British troops in Staten Island.
Before the New York City Campaign, Washington had ordered two forts built to repel the Royal Navy. On the New York side of the Hudson River, Fort Washington was constructed, and Mercer himself oversaw the building of the earthen fortification on the New Jersey side, named Fort Lee. The British captured Fort Washington on 16 November 1776, and the Americans abandoned Fort Lee four days later. The retreat to New Jersey became known as "the Crisis of the Revolution", because the enlistments of most of Washington's soldiers ended on New Year's Day 1777.
Mercer led a raid on Richmondtown, Staten Island on October 15, 1776, temporarily securing the town and taking as prisoners those inside the makeshift hospital of St. Andrew's Church, only to be later repelled back to New Jersey, releasing the prisoners and causing numerous British casualties in the process.
Some historical accounts credit Mercer with the suggestion for George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River which surprised the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776. The victory at Trenton (and a small monetary bonus) made Washington's men agree to a ten-day extension to their enlistment. When Washington decided to face off with Cornwallis during the Second Battle of Trenton on January 2, 1777, Mercer was given a major role in the defense of the city.
Death
The next day, January 3, 1777, Washington's army was en route to Princeton, New Jersey. While leading a vanguard of 350 soldiers, Mercer's brigade encountered two British regiments and a mounted unit. A fight broke out at an orchard grove and Mercer's horse was shot from under him. Getting to his feet, he was quickly surrounded by British troops who mistook him for George Washington and ordered him to surrender. Outnumbered, he drew his saber and began an unequal contest. He was finally beaten to the ground, bayoneted seven times, and left for dead.
When he learned of the British attack and saw some of Mercer's men in retreat, Washington himself entered the fray. Washington rallied Mercer's men and pushed back the British regiments, but Mercer had been left on the field to die with multiple bayonet wounds to his body and blows to his head. Legend has it that a beaten Mercer, with a bayonet still impaled in him, did not want to leave his men and the battle and was given a place to rest on a white oak tree's trunk, and those who remained with him stood their ground. The tree became known as "the Mercer Oak" and is the key element of the seal of Mercer County, New Jersey.
When he was discovered, Mercer was carried to the field hospital in the Thomas Clarke House (now a museum) at the eastern end of the battlefield. Benjamin Rush cared for Mercer and other wounded troops. Rush was assisted in caring for the wounded by Quakers.
Local Quakers continued to care for wounded troops from both Continental and British forces, after the Continental Army moved North. The Quaker meeting house is adjacent to the property now known as Princeton Battlefield State Park. Medical efforts were made by Rush to save Mercer, but he was mortally wounded and died nine days later, on January 12, 1777. He was initially interred in the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia and reinterred to Laurel Hill Cemetery in 1840 with a monument funded by the Saint Andrew's Society.
Because of Mercer's courage and sacrifice, Washington proceeded into Princeton and defeated the British forces there. He then moved and quartered his forces to Morristown in victory. Because of those victories, most of Washington's army re-enlisted, the French finally approved arms and supplies to the Americans and a stunned Cornwallis pulled his forces back to New York to reassess the surprising American successes. The "crisis" had ended, America had the means to fight, and British public support for the war slowly began to wane.
John Trumbull used Mercer's son, Hugh Jr., as a model for his painting The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777. A portrait by Charles Willson Peale entitled Washington at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777 displays Washington in the foreground with Hugh Mercer lying mortally wounded in the background, supported by Dr. Benjamin Rush and Major George Lewis holding the American flag. This portrait is the prize possession of Princeton University. James Peale painted a version of "Battle of Princeton" whose background shows a very indistinct portrait of Mercer being helped from the ground.
Family
Succeeding generations of Mercer's family have distinguished themselves. Famous direct descendants of Hugh Mercer were his grandson Virginia governor John Mercer Patton, his sons Confederate Lt. Col Waller T. Patton and Col. George Smith Patton, who in turn was an ancestor of General George S. Patton, Jr. Other direct descendants include another grandson Confederate General Hugh Weedon Mercer (CSA), songwriter Johnny Mercer, and Sergeant Christopher Mercer Lowe (US Army).
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In popular culture
In the Broadway musical Hamilton, General Mercer is referenced by Aaron Burr in the song "The Room Where It Happens": "Did ya hear the news about good old General Mercer? You know Clermont Street? They renamed it after him. The Mercer legacy is secure."
Hugh Mercer is referenced in the A. W. Burns/George W. Hewitt song "America Shall Aye Be Free".
In the 2000 television film The Crossing, a dramatization of Washington's crossing of the Delaware and the battle of Trenton, Mercer is played by Roger Rees.
Namesakes
Fort Mercer, located in Red Bank Battlefield of what is now the Borough of National Park, New Jersey
Hugh Mercer Elementary School in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Mercer County, Illinois
Mercer County, Kentucky
Mercer County, Missouri
Mercer County, New Jersey
Mercer County, Ohio
Mercer County, Pennsylvania
Mercer County, West Virginia
Mercer Hall at the University of Mary Washington
Mercer, Maine
Mercer, Pennsylvania
Mercer Street in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Mercer Street in New York, New York
Mercer Street in Trenton, New Jersey
Mercers Bottom, West Virginia
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania
Mercerville, New Jersey
Gallery
References
Citations
Sources
External links
Hugh Mercer: An Unexpected Life
1726 births
1777 deaths
18th-century American physicians
18th-century Scottish medical doctors
18th-century United States Army personnel
Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
British military personnel of the French and Indian War
Burials at Christ Church, Philadelphia
Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)
Continental Army generals
Continental Army officers from Virginia
Deaths by bayonet
Jacobite military personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745
Mercer family of Virginia
Military personnel from Fredericksburg, Virginia
Patton family
People from Pitsligo
People of colonial Pennsylvania
Scottish emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies
Scottish generals
Scottish Jacobites
United States military personnel killed in the American Revolutionary War
Virginia colonial people