Springfield (Second)

On June 23, 1780, fighting broke out at Springfield, located in Union County, New Jersey, as part of the ongoing American Revolutionary War. This clash came after the earlier engagement at Connecticut Farms on June 7, 1780, which had thwarted an effort by Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen, to strike General George Washington's forces stationed at Morristown, New Jersey. Following that setback, Knyphausen joined with Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief in North America, in planning a renewed push toward the same objective. British troops managed early gains and pushed forward, yet mounting rebel reinforcements soon compelled them to pull back, handing the Continentals a triumph. In the aftermath, any remaining British hopes of controlling New Jersey came to a definitive close.

Battle

The British strategy called for a pincer movement in two columns. One would push out from Elizabethtown Point up the Galloping Hill Road, passing directly through Connecticut Farms and on into Springfield, while a second column moved along the Vauxhall Road, skirting the southern edge of Short Hills north of Springfield. Both columns aimed at the same target sought on June 7: Hobart Gap, the gateway through the Watchung Mountains leading across eleven miles of open terrain to Washington's principal camp at Morristown.

Clinton anticipated that Washington might counter Knyphausen's push by marching his main force around the Watchung range's northern tip near Newark to strike at Knyphausen's right side. To guard against this possibility, Major General Alexander Leslie moved up the Hudson with 6,000 troops, tasked with blocking any retreat by Washington behind the mountains. At the same time, Major General James Robertson held five regiments totaling 1,865 men in reserve at Elizabethtown, ready to shield Knyphausen's rear from militia harassment and to bolster Leslie's position should the need arise.

Before dawn, at five in the morning on June 23, Knyphausen's troops pushed toward Elizabethtown Point, led by the Queen's Rangers and the New Jersey Volunteers. American pickets at Elizabethtown were quickly overrun, yielding several prisoners and three light cannons to the attackers. Alerted by fleeing soldiers, General Maxwell dispatched Colonel Elias Dayton's 3rd New Jersey Regiment to hold the Galloping Hill Road and sent Henry Lee's 2nd Partisan Corps to defend the Vauxhall Road. The Loyalist vanguard soon clashed with Maxwell, forcing him and his brigade to withdraw toward Connecticut Farms. At the same time, General Greene had the planking torn from the bridges at Vauxhall and Galloping Hill spanning the Rahway River.

On the American left, along the Galloping Hill Road, Greene arranged four successive defensive lines. Connecticut Farms fell to the charge of Colonel Dayton's 3rd New Jersey alongside militia under Brigadier General Nathaniel Heard. Positioned behind them, Colonel Israel Angell led his 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, its ranks thinned by sickness and ending enlistments to a mere 160 men, in defense of the Galloping Hill Bridge. Further back, at a crossing over the Rahway's west branch, stood Colonel Israel Shreve with his 2nd New Jersey Regiment, and behind him Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson commanded a body of New Jersey militia. On the right flank, Greene strengthened Major Lee's force at Vauxhall Bridge by adding Colonel Matthias Ogden's 1st New Jersey Regiment. Held in reserve on the elevated terrain of Short Hills near Bryan's Tavern 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. Despite outnumbering the defenders more than two to one, Barton's advance stalled. It took a flanking maneuver by Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and his Queen's Rangers, striking from behind, to finally break the American line. Dayton and Heard's soldiers were swiftly overwhelmed, handing Connecticut Farms to the attackers. Heard withdrew northward with part of his militia to reinforce those guarding Vauxhall Bridge.

Seeking to encircle the defenders at Galloping Hill Bridge, Knyphausen shifted the Queen's Rangers, the New Jersey Volunteers, the Guards Battalion, and the bulk of his remaining British troops from the Galloping Hill Road toward the Vauxhall Road. He himself pressed on toward the bridge with 3,000 men, made up mostly of the British 37th and 38th regiments along with the majority of the German contingent.

At the bridge, six British guns pounded Colonel Angell's position, met only by a single American cannon in response. When the defenders' supply of wadding ran short, chaplain James Caldwell, whose wife had perished during the f

Aftermath

The clash at Springfield stands among the final large scale fights of the northern theater, and it broke whatever hope the British still held of controlling New Jersey. Because the fighting that would decide the war's outcome shifted to the south, this engagement slipped into obscurity, earning it the label "forgotten victory." Washington himself had high words for the New Jersey Militia's conduct that day, noting that they rushed to take up arms everywhere and fought with a spirit matching anything he had witnessed throughout the conflict. Roughly three and a half weeks afterward, the smaller clash at Bull's Ferry took place. As for the crossings along the river where American troops made their stand, those points now correspond to the area where Vauxhall Road meets Millburn Avenue, along with the stretch of Morris Avenue near Washington Avenue.