Ambush of Geary

On December 14, 1776, militiamen in Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, staged a deadly ambush against a dragoon officer, an engagement remembered as both the Ambush of Geary and the Amwell Skirmish. Captain John Schenck led the local fighters who targeted Cornet Francis Geary, commander of a dragoon company, and shot him during the encounter.

British troops had seized New York City during the early stages of their combined New York and New Jersey campaign, and afterward they scattered garrisons across the central part of New Jersey. It was while stationed at Pennington that Geary, whose father was Admiral Sir Francis Geary, met his death in the militia's trap. Those responsible hid his remains, which ended up interred in a shallow grave, so British soldiers never managed to retrieve the body. Not until the nineteenth century did local historians take enough interest to pinpoint exactly where he had been buried, leading to memorial markers placed both at the burial site and across the ocean in England.

Killing Geary formed part of a broader pattern of militia strikes that curtailed how far British scouting efforts could reach. This shrinking of enemy reconnaissance ultimately helped pave the way for Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware River and his triumph in the Battle of Trenton.

Background

When William Howe's forces pushed Washington's Continental Army out of New York City during the autumn of 1776, Washington fell back through New Jersey with Cornwallis close behind him. By early December he had withdrawn his troops entirely across the Delaware River, prompting the British to begin settling into winter quarters throughout New Jersey. This arrangement took the form of a series of outposts stretching from Perth Amboy down to Bordentown.

Both the British and their Hessian counterparts routinely dispatched patrols to scout the countryside and gather supplies, leaving these small parties exposed to strikes from Patriot militia units operating in the region. The garrison at Trenton, made up largely of Hessian troops under Johann Rall's command, proved especially susceptible to such militia strikes. A similar vulnerability affected a detachment from the 16th (Queen's) Light Dragoons stationed at Pennington, a short distance from Trenton. To the north of Trenton, Hunterdon County became the site of alleged atrocities in early December, with accounts circulating of British and German soldiers assaulting girls and pregnant women. Such claims fueled a surge in militia resistance throughout the territory above Trenton.

Among the dragoons was Cornet Francis Geary, born in 1752 to Admiral Sir Francis Geary and Mary Bartholomew, whose eldest son and heir he was. He grew up in Surrey and studied at Balliol College in Oxford before buying a cornetcy with the 16th Light Dragoons in 1773. Geary crossed to North America in 1776, landing in New York near the close of September. During October and November his unit conducted raids across the northern part of New Jersey, encountering only scattered resistance along the way. Then, on the first of December, his company received orders to establish camp at Pennington. Two weeks later, on the fourteenth, Geary set out northward alongside seven fellow dragoons from the 16th on a scouting expedition.

Ambush

Much of what is known about this episode comes from a pension deposition filed by John Schanck, a cousin of Captain John Schenck, who commanded the Patriot militia involved. No comparable British record with such detail seems to survive. Schanck's account states that Geary and his men rode through Amwell Township on their way to Flemington, aiming to confirm that stores of salt beef and pork stood ready for army collection. The day before, Schanck had gotten word of this planned ride, and once Schenck heard the news, he headed out early the following morning. He rounded up a small band of men, eight according to Schanck's telling, and positioned them for an ambush in a stretch of woods roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) below Flemington. As Geary's company passed through, the militiamen unleashed a musket volley that killed Geary. A shorter account, offered afterward by a British officer who had not been present, noted that Geary caught wind of the ambush just before it happened but had no chance to get clear of the gunfire. The dragoons fired back, yet the militia's sustained shooting eventually forced them to pull back.

Aftermath

Once the skirmish ended, local militiamen stripped Geary of parts of his uniform, taking his sword along with the silver name plate fastened to his cap. Soldiers from the British side, dispatched afterward to recover the supplies and locate him, pressed nearby residents for information and combed the countryside, yet his remains eluded them. The militia had hidden the body, and it went into a shallow grave the following day.

Writing to Admiral Geary as colonel of the 16th, General John Burgoyne offered these words: he had rarely felt such sharp pain as in passing along news from America that touched the admiral so personally, and he feared his information was accurate beyond doubt. The admiral's son, he said, had fallen as a soldier does. Burgoyne admitted that his own familiarity with hardship left him unable to properly console or advise, noting how little comfort even the sturdiest resolve provides in such a trial. Only time and quiet reflection, he wrote, could ease the admiral's grief, and he wished to add nothing beyond the regiment's shared sorrow, his own private mourning for the son of so precious a parent, and his continued esteem for the young man's memory.

This encounter, together with other militia raids of its kind, pushed British forces to pull back the distance their scouts would travel, since venturing past roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) from Trenton had grown too risky. That caution proved significant just as American forces began gathering boats along the Delaware in preparation for Washington's crossing, the maneuver that would lead to the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776. At the time, Geary's men were positioned a mere 5 miles (8.0 km) from both the river itself and Malta Island, the point from which the crossing would be launched.