By:Al Wicklund
MONROE — Township residents got a lot closer Monday to Gen. George Washington and his army’s camp in the township on the eve of the Battle of Monmouth — in distance if not time — at the Senior Center.
Historian Richard Walling told his audience that while the event is some 220 years in the past, the site of Washington’s encampment is part of the neighborhood, only a few minutes driving time from where they sat in the Township Hall.
“If you were to go from here (the Senior Center), make a right on Perrineville Road and a left on Prospect Plains Road to its connection with Gravel Hill Road, you would be at the campsite, then known as Miller’s farm,” Mr. Walling said.
The general and some 8,000 Continental troops ate and slept there before the June 28, 1778 battle in the fields near Monmouth Courthouse. The day of the battle, Washington’s command went cross country, through fields, to take the most direct route to the plains around Monmouth Courthouse and join the battle, he said.
Mr. Walling also outlined the route followed by some of the Continental force moving out from Kingston on Ridge Road to Dayton and then taking Georges Road to Cranbury.
Earl Feder of The Ponds, a member of the audience, was particularly taken by Mr. Walling’s use of the names of roads that gave a real sense of the history that surrounds the area.
“I was on Gravel Hill Road when I drove here today. What is around us is fascinating,” he said.
Dina Block of Concordia said learning about what happened in town in 1778 “makes you feel like a part of history.”
Mr. Walling opened his talk by giving the background of what led to the Battle of Monmouth.
The capture of Philadelphia had been a great prize for the British, but an American victory at Saratoga, N.Y., changed the French position from an under-the-table supporter of the Americans to an open ally and put the British in Philadelphia at risk.
“With the probable entry of the French fleet in the conflict, the British knew their army in Philadelphia could be bottled up by a French blockade at the mouth of the Delaware River.
“The British decided to abandon Philadelphia and consolidate their forces in New York City,” Mr. Walling said.
The British didn’t have the ships to remove the whole army in one convoy and they didn’t have time to shuttle the army and its equipment from Pennsylvania to New York, he said, so they had to march across New Jersey.
“It was a large undertaking. The army’s baggage train was 12 miles long. There were 20,000 soldiers to be moved,” Mr. Walling said.
Once it was determined the British were going across Central Jersey to the Sandy Hook area to be ferried across to New York, rather than take a northerly route to cross farther up the Hudson River, Washington had to decide whether to harass the British army, attack it in a major battle or just let it march to New York unmolested.
“Washington held a council of high ranking officers at Hopewell. The seniors officers were cautious and voted to let the British go. The younger officers, including Lafayette, wanted to attack,” Mr. Walling said.
The council vote was not to attack, but Washington had second thoughts and later decided to take the opportunity to strike, he said.
Mr. Walling said the winner of the Battle of Monmouth can be argued either way. The British army remained intact and made it to New York — but the American Revolutionaries proved themselves in battle, fought like a professional army and were a match for the cream of the British army, perhaps the best army in the world at the time.
Ms. Block said she enjoyed the talk and, “I feel honored to be living in this historic area
Mr. Walling teaches history to the Middlesex County Vocational Technical School and is involved in historic research in Central Jersey.
