Springfield

On June 23, 1780, fighting broke out at Springfield in Union County, New Jersey, part of the ongoing Revolutionary War. Weeks earlier, on June 7, 1780, the clash at Connecticut Farms had thwarted Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen's plan to strike Washington's forces stationed at Morristown. Undeterred, Knyphausen joined with Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief across North America, to try again. British troops managed early progress in the field, but the arrival of fresh rebel reinforcements compelled them to pull back, handing the Continentals a win. With this setback, British hopes of gaining ground in New Jersey came to a close.

Battle

The British command devised a plan involving two columns moving in tandem. From Elizabethtown Point, one force would push forward on the Galloping Hill Road, passing directly through Connecticut Farms and into Springfield, while a second column moved along the Vauxhall Road to the north of Springfield, tracing the southern edge of Short Hills. Both columns shared the same destination they had sought on June 7: Hobart Gap, the passage through the Watchung Mountains offering eleven miles of open terrain leading to Washington's principal camp at Morristown.

Clinton anticipated that Washington might react to Knyphausen's push by shifting his main force around the northern edge of the Watchung range, west of Newark, to strike Knyphausen's right side. To guard against this possibility, Major General Alexander Leslie was sent up the Hudson with 6,000 troops, tasked with blocking Washington's retreat behind the mountains. At the same time, Major General James Robertson held five regiments, totaling 1,865 men, in reserve at Elizabethtown, charged with shielding Knyphausen's rear from militia and supporting Leslie should the need arise.

Knyphausen's troops set out toward Elizabethtown Point at five in the morning on June 23, with the Queen's Rangers and New Jersey Volunteers leading the way. The American outposts there fell quickly, yielding several prisoners and three light cannons. Word of the retreat reached General Maxwell, who dispatched Colonel Elias Dayton's 3rd New Jersey Regiment to hold the Galloping Hill Road, while Henry Lee's 2nd Partisan Corps took position on the Vauxhall Road. Before long the Loyalist advance made contact with Maxwell, forcing him back toward Connecticut Farms along with the remainder of his brigade. Simultaneously, General Greene had the planks torn from the bridges spanning the Rahway River at both Vauxhall and Galloping Hill.

On the left flank, along the Galloping Hill Road, Greene arranged four successive defensive lines. Dayton's regiment, joined by militia under Brigadier General Nathaniel Heard, was assigned to defend Connecticut Farms itself. Further back, Colonel Israel Angell commanded the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, its ranks thinned by sickness and expired terms of service to a mere 160 men, holding the Galloping Hill Bridge. Behind him, at the crossing over the western branch of the Rahway, stood Colonel Israel Shreve with the 2nd New Jersey Regiment, and behind Shreve, Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson's detachment of New Jersey militia waited. On the opposite flank, Greene bolstered Major Lee's partisans at the Vauxhall Bridge by adding Colonel Matthias Ogden's 1st New Jersey Regiment. Held in reserve on the elevated ground at Bryan's Tavern in the Short Hills were the remaining troops of Maxwell's and Stark's brigades.

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Barton's New Jersey Volunteers now pressed toward Connecticut Farms, running into Dayton's men, who held strong ground amid an orchard and thicket. Though outnumbering the defenders more than two to one, Barton's force struggled to advance. The tide turned when Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe led his Queen's Rangers around the American left and struck from behind. Dayton and Heard's troops were quickly overrun, and the settlement fell into British hands. Heard withdrew northward with part of his militia to strengthen the defense at Vauxhall Bridge.

Seeking to outmaneuver the defenders holding Galloping Hill Bridge, Knyphausen redirected the Queen's Rangers, the New Jersey Volunteers, the Guards Battalion, and most remaining British units from the Galloping Hill Road onto the Vauxhall Road. He himself pushed toward the bridge with 3,000 men made up of the British 37th and 38