page_title: Hugh Mercer
section_title: The American Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Hugh Mercer / The American Revolution
caption_attribution_description: English: The Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. Also depicts George Washington's personal flag, or headquarters flag, thirteen white six-pointed stars in apparently a 4-5-4 pattern on a field of blue.
context_page_description: Hugh Mercer was a Scottish soldier and physician. He initially served with the Jacobite forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and with the British forces during the Seven Years' War, but later became a brigadier general in the Continental Army and a close friend to George Washington. Mercer died as a result of his wounds received at the Battle of Princeton and became a fallen hero as well as a rallying symbol of the American Revolution.
context_section_description: Before the New York City Campaign, Washington 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. Though the fort was bravely defended, 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.
  There are rumors that Mercer exclusively originated Washington's plan to cross the Delaware River and surprise the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, and he was certainly a major contributor to its execution. Due to the victory at Trenton (and a small monetary bonus), Washington's men agreed 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.
  The next day, January 3, 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, then bayoneted repeatedly—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, while 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. In spite of medical efforts by Benjamin Rush and left in the care of two Quaker women , Mercer was mortally wounded and died nine days later on January 12, 1777. In 1840 he was re-buried at Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery.
  Because of Mercer's courage and sacrifice, Washington was able to proceed into Princeton and defeat the British forces there. He then moved and quartered his forces to Morristown in victory. Because of those victories, most of Washington's army reenlisted, 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" which shows in t
caption: James Peale's The Battle of Princeton. background left can be seen Mercer beside his white horse
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