page_title: Oliver Spencer
section_title: New Jersey campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Oliver Spencer / New Jersey campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: Caricature of Alexander Leslie from William S. Stryker (1898).
context_page_description: Oliver Spencer was a New Jersey officer during the American Revolutionary War and received a special commission to enlist and lead one of 16 Additional Continental Regiments. He was born in Connecticut and later moved to New Jersey, where he married Anna Ogden and became a tanner. He joined the revolutionary cause and engaged a British force in December 1776 as a major of New Jersey militia. On 15 January 1777 during the Forage War, his militiamen captured 70 German mercenaries. That month George Washington authorized him to recruit Spencer's Additional Continental Regiment. As colonel, he led this unit at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777 and Monmouth in 1778. His regiment participated in the Sullivan Expedition in 1779 and was disbanded at the beginning of 1781. The conflict having ruined his home and his tanning business, he moved to Ohio, where he served as a probate judge and militia commander. He was the nephew of General Joseph Spencer.
context_section_description: Spencer was appointed major of the 2nd Essex County Militia Regiment. When this organization's Colonel Elias Dayton took command of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment, it left Lieutenant Colonel Thomas in charge. When George Washington's army retreated though Elizabethtown in late 1776, the militiamen briefly joined it. From New Brunswick Washington sent the three militia regiments from Essex, Morris, and Sussex Counties to operate against the British flank from the mountains of northern New Jersey. When the militiamen reached Morristown, New Jersey, the commander of the three units resigned, as did Thomas.
  The British army commander Sir William Howe decided to halt his successful campaign at the Delaware River and hold New Jersey for the winter with 14 garrisons. Howe left Major General James Grant in charge of the garrisons and returned to New York City. Desiring to pacify the countryside, Grant ordered Brigadier General Alexander Leslie to march to Princeton via Springfield and Bound Brook on 17 December 1776. As Leslie's brigade neared Springfield, it was detected by Spencer's militia which held the town. Sending a courier to Chatham to warn the militia brigade of the British approach, Spencer withdrew his men from Springfield. At Briant's Tavern, Spencer joined the main body of militia and the men advanced to contact the British. With Captain Seeley on the right, Captain Brookfield on the left, Colonel Lindsley on the left center, and Spencer on the right center, the New Jersey militia skirmished with Leslie's brigade near Woodruff's Tavern. The engagement lasted about one hour before darkness fell, upon which the militia withdrew about one mile. During the action Spencer's horse was killed under him. When the militiamen discovered the British were gone in the morning, they were greatly encouraged at their apparent success.
  After a Hessian brigade was crushed at the Battle of Trenton on 26 December 1776 and a British brigade was mauled at the Battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777, Howe and Lord Charles Cornwallis hastily withdrew their forces from nearly all of New Jersey. This strategic retreat was immediately followed by the Forage War in which bodies of New Jersey militia and Continental Army troops severely harassed British and German forage parties. On 16 January at Connecticut Farms, 300 New Jersey militia led by Spencer ambushed 100 German foragers. In the Connecticut Farms action the mercenaries were nearly wiped out with losses of one killed and 70 captured. Another source noted an operation in which Spencer's men killed or captured almost 100 "mounted Waldecks". but did not give a date. He was also credited for boldly attacking an enemy picket near Elizabethtown.
caption: Alexander Leslie
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}