The Raid on Elizabethtown & Newark– January 25, 1780
In the heart of a brutal winter, on the icy morning of January 25, 1780, the streets of Elizabethtown, New Jersey—then a vital patriot stronghold and a symbol of the rebellious will of the American cause—were shaken by a sudden and violent attack.
The Battle of Elizabethtown and Newark, sometimes overshadowed by larger engagements, were critical and telling moment in the Revolutionary War’s “Forage War” phase, when skirmishes and surprise raids defined the struggle across the mid-Atlantic.
Led by Colonel Abraham van Buskirk and other Royalist officers, a force of approximately 400 British and Loyalist troops, including members of Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers and New Jersey Volunteers, crossed the frozen waters from Staten Island under cover of darkness. Their goal was to strike a blow at the rebel infrastructure, destroy key supplies, and seize prisoners in one of New Jersey’s most defiant towns. The crossing itself—over Newark Bay and tidal rivers clogged with ice—was harrowing, but the attackers were well-practiced in winter raids. The operation had all the hallmarks of a cold-season terror strike meant to demoralize the local population.
As they reached the outskirts of Elizabethtown (modern-day Elizabeth, NJ), the British raiders spread through the streets, setting fire to homes and public buildings. They targeted the homes of militia leaders, destroyed provisions, and clashed with patriot defenders in a brief but deadly urban skirmish. One of their primary targets was Elizabethtown Academy, sitting next to Reverend. Caldwell’s church- a center of rebel learning and resistance, which was set ablaze. Fires lit up the frigid sky.
Despite being caught off guard, local New Jersey militia, bolstered by Continental Army troops in the area, responded quickly. Under the direction of officers such as General William Maxwell and Colonel Elias Dayton, defenders rallied to resist the incursion. A fierce exchange of musket fire unfolded in the snow-covered streets. Though outnumbered and surprised, the rebel militia harassed the Loyalist troops as they began to withdraw back toward Staten Island with stolen supplies and a handful of prisoners.
The Raid on Newark – January 25, 1780
Newark, like other towns along the Watchung foothills, had become a key node of rebel support and militia activity, and its residents were shaken by the suddenness and severity of the raid. At Newark, a dual column of British troops—comprising roughly 400 infantry, 60 dragoons, and Loyalist militia, guided by local Tory Loyalist informants—crossed the frozen North River to advance through Bergen before striking the town In three coordinated divisions, they seized about 15 defenders at Newark Academy, which served as a barracks, then set the academy ablaze, ransacking nearby homes—including those of Justice Joseph Hedden and Robert Neil, a Continental quartermaster operative.
Hedden was dragged from his bed in shirt and stockings, denied additional clothing in the bitter cold, and endured severe frostbite. His wife was wounded by bayonet when she intervened. Approximately 30 prisoners were taken before the raiders withdrew in under twenty minutes, slipping back across the ice toward Staten Island. Casualties were moderate—several men killed and wounded on both sides—but the psychological impact was deep. Homes were left in ruin, civilians terrorized, and the sense of vulnerability in New Jersey’s heartland sharpened.
Elizabeth, the first English-founded town in New Jersey, now lay in ashes—burned not for territory, but for ideas. The original Independent Association of Elizabethtown had been targeted by the British Crown, and the homes of their children were put to the torch. Yet the raid also fueled resolve. The attack reaffirmed for many the ruthless tactics employed by the Crown and its Royalist auxiliaries. In response, rebel networks in Union (then Essex), Morris, Somerset, and Hunterdon Counties increased their vigilance, coordinated tighter militia patrols, and strengthened alliances with Continental commanders.
Among the most troubling aspects of the raid was the continued British policy of targeting civilian infrastructure, Presbyterian churches, and rebel-held towns—an approach that would repeat itself later that year during the June 1780 campaigns in Connecticut Farms and Springfield.
This winter assault also served as a precursor to British efforts to test Washington’s defenses during one of the harshest winters of the war in New Jersey—a series of strategic, small-scale raids designed to suppress resistance without engaging in open-field battle.
Elizabethtown and Newark, however, were not broken. Though scarred and burning, the town would rebuild, and its rebels would regroup. The memory of that January night endured in sermons, letters, and oral tradition—a chilling reminder of how the war touched not only soldiers, but also the homes, hearths, and hopes of ordinary people.
The Battle of Connecticut Farms – June 7, 1780
At dawn on June 7, 1780, a crimson tide of nearly 6,000 British regulars, Hessians, Loyalists, and Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers poured west from Elizabethtown Point, their boots marching through the salty marsh as they swept toward the rebel hamlet of Connecticut Farms (today’s Union, New Jersey). General Wilhelm von Knyphausen was left in command while Gen. Sir Henry Clinton went south. Because of earlier brutal killings of civilians, General William Tryon was superseded by a foreign commander—yet the core Royalist leadership still obeyed Tryon, viewing him as their true head. Former Royal Governor William Franklin and Tryon ran the intelligence network, feeding Knyphausen what he needed to hear. Convinced he would be rewarded before Clinton’s return, Knyphausen expected to smash through the Watchung Mountains, seize Hobart Gap, and descend on Morristown, where General George Washington kept the Continental nerve-center. For a forgotten battle, it is riddled with complexity and strange events: when Knyphausen’s rear regiment took orders from another Royal governor who personally entered battle without given authority, he surely saw the illusion of his command.
Despite the confusion, the attack landed like a hammer, guided by Loyalists. Church steeples, homes, and spring orchards burst into flame beneath a gray sky. In gardens and fields, New Jersey militia—farmers, tradesmen, forgotten Black heroes, and veterans of Trenton and Monmouth—sprang from cover, trading volleys that stalled the British columns. Under officers such as Colonel Elias Dayton, General William Maxwell, and General Nathanael Greene, these outnumbered rebels turned every fence line into a barricade and every orchard into a killing field.
Yet amid the sweat and powder rose a horror that would set all New Jersey ablaze. Inside the modest parsonage, Hannah Caldwell—wife of the “Fighting Parson,” Rev. James Caldwell—tended her nine children as darkness approached the home. Suddenly a single shot with two balls tore through the open window. Eyewitness Abigail Lennington later swore it was aimed fire from a British red-coat. Another witness said the blast, so close, “sounded like something exploded inside the house.” It was no accident. It was planned, calculated, and driven by a ruthless Royalist core that seethed over the Independent Presbyterian rebellion across New Jersey. A neighbor recalled that another woman was held at bayonet point while a soldier snarled, “That’s not Hannah—we already killed her.” In an instant, Hannah lay slain in her bedroom, becoming a martyr for a cause that now mingled faith with fury.
British propagandists dismissed her death as tragic chance, but Rev. Caldwell launched his own inquiry, piecing together eyewitness statements that exposed the shooting as deliberate terror. Word raced along turnpikes and pulpits; sermons roared with righteous indignation, recruiting men faster than any muster roll.
Farther north, on a ridgeline above Millburn, Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Rev. Caldwell watched red flames engulf a home in Connecticut Farms—unaware that it was Caldwell’s own house and that Hannah had fallen. Their hearts burned as fiercely as the village below. This day marked a shift in the war: common people were fully active in defense, forging a true “Union” of spirit among the rebels.
By nightfall the British advance was stalled, and thunderstorms cracked open the heavens. In that deluge, the Royalist force—bloodied, worn after hours of intense firefight, and still far from Hobart Gap—pulled back toward Elizabethtown. One soldier called it “a scene of horror,” as Loyalist troops sloshed through muddy lanes lit only by lightning and the glow of their own dead beside the path.
The Battle of Connecticut Farms was small in acreage yet titanic in consequence. It frustrated the last great British push toward Morristown and led to their retreat from the state. Militia enlistments galvanized across Union (then Essex), Morris, Somerset, and Hunterdon Counties. Hannah Caldwell’s death sealed a moral covenant that the Revolution would never again be merely political. Killing a reverend’s wife in her prayer room was unthinkable in those days; yet a devilish band of villains conspired to destroy the region.
Two weeks later, still reeling from their failure and seeking vindication, the British tried once more at Springfield—and found New Jersey waiting, emboldened by the smoke and sacrifice of Connecticut Farms. There was no winning against a people more spirited than the last British retreat. It was game over in the North, and the war shifted south until the British final humiliation and the end of the Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Springfield – June 23, 1780
The Battle of Springfield – June 23, 1780
On the morning of June 23, 1780, smoke once again rose from the heart of New Jersey. The largest land engagement of the Revolutionary War to take place on New Jersey soil was about to unfold in the village of Springfield. For weeks, the people of the Watchung valleys had been bracing for another blow—one that would come with fire, steel, and the vengeance of empire.
Just two weeks earlier, the British had marched through Connecticut Farms, leaving behind smoldering homes and the dead stripped body of Hannah Caldwell, shot down in her own parsonage, as she was praying for her children’s souls. That killing, was an intentional act aimed at silencing the rebellion’s spiritual center, that long forgotten testimonies, accounts, and British journals expose.
Now, General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, commanding over 5,000 British regulars, Hessians, Loyalists, and troops like Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers, launched a second, more forceful invasion westward. Their objective was fiercely debated. Some believed it was the destruction of Morristown, where General George Washington’s army lay encamped. Others saw it as a diversion—intended to weaken patriot morale and cover the British withdrawal from New Jersey. Either way, the stakes were immense. The previous attack two weeks earlier had put the state on full alert making it an impossible task.
As the redcoats advanced, beacon fires flared across the ridge lines, from Springfield to the far Watchungs, warning of the impending assault. Rebel riders galloped toward Morristown. New Jersey militia, outnumbered yet hardened, fortified the crucial Watchung Gap—a mountain pass that stood as the last natural barrier before Morristown. There, they dug in to make a stand.
At their helm was Major General Nathanael Greene, who coordinated the defense from Bryant’s Tavern, aligning Continentals and militia into a staggered defense. He was supported by battle-seasoned officers like General William Maxwell, Colonel Elias Dayton, and General Philemon Dickinson. Among their ranks were African American soldiers—free and enslaved men who took up arms in defense of liberty, including the likes of Oliver Cromwell, who had once crossed the Delaware with Washington and now faced the British again in the streets of Springfield.
As the British approached, the patriots destroyed key bridges over the Rahway River, using the waterways as natural lines of defense. Fierce firefights erupted in the fields and orchards. The village itself became a battleground—Springfield’s Presbyterian Church, already scorched in the earlier raid, stood again as a fortress of defiance. Reverend James Caldwell, widow of the slain Hannah, distributed hymnals in lieu of gun wadding, shouting, “Give ’em Watts, boys!”—a cry that has echoed through generations.
Meanwhile, further east in Perth Amboy, General Henry Clinton had arrived with reinforcements and another plan: to push toward Middlebrook, another patriot stronghold. But that assault was aborted when Benedict Arnold, recently turned traitor, provided intelligence suggesting a greater prize—West Point. Clinton turned his fleet north up the Hudson River, leaving Knyphausen’s forces to face the fury of New Jersey alone.
The would-be Battle of Morristown never came to pass.
Pressed hard by rebel resistance, and with Washington’s army massing behind the hills, the British campaign began to collapse. Before retreating, they set fire to Springfield—burning homes, mills, barns, and churches in one last act of retribution. The flames lit the sky as the British marched eastward, passing again through Connecticut Farms and retreating to Elizabethtown Point, crossing back to Staten Island.
The Battle of Springfield was more than a tactical victory—it was a turning point. It marked the final major British attempt to seize control of New Jersey. Never again would they march inland in force. The New Jersey militia, long underestimated, had proven their resolve. They fought not only for land or orders, but for family, faith, and freedom.
In the smoke and chaos of that June day, something unshakable had been forged—a unity of purpose between local civilians, Continental troops, and the ghost of Hannah Caldwell, who had not died in vain.
The Revolution had passed through fire—and it endured.
