Monmouth – Emerging Revolutionary War Era

Amid the hot weather of June 28, 1778, the British army under General Henry Clinton battled General George Washington’s Continental Army in the fields outside Freehold, New Jersey. The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse ranks as the eleventh deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War, claiming at least 700 casualties between the two armies. While the armies moved on after the sharp fight, the citizens of Freehold were left to deal with the battle’s aftermath.

Below are excerpts from two letters written by citizens of Freehold in the immediate aftermath of the battle that describes the toll the armies and battle took on their homes.

An unidentified “young gentleman, an inhabitant of Freehold,” penned the first letter on June 29, 1778. This citizen marched during the battle with Nathanael Greene’s troops, who only arrived on the battlefield proper near the end of the fight. Thus, he could “form an idea of the particular movements of the…engagement only from the dead…” There was abundant evidence provided by the corpses on the battlefield as the British “left very many dead upon the field of action…” Beyond the furrowed ground sliced by artillery shots and musket balls, the British columns left a path of destruction in their wake. “The destruction the enemy have made is dreadful. A great number of houses, barns and out-houses, on and near the public roads, are entirely reduced to ashes. They have been all round us, and yet we have escaped.”

A lady of Freehold wrote her letter two days after the battle. She equally said the horrid aftermath of an 18th-century conflict. “The enemy declared, at Robert McKnight’s, they intended to pay us a visit the next day, as they went down to the Court-house, and said their orders were to burn all the houses in this neighborhood. Doctor Henderson is burnt out, as also Peter Foreman, David Foreman, Benjamin Covenoven, George Walker, Mr. Solomon, David Covenoven, Garret Vanderveer, David Clayton, and a number of others. Most of the people on the public road have lost every thing the enemy could carry off or destroy.”

This anonymous woman was pleased that the British army had passed on, though they left their dead behind “as thick as bees round Mr. Sutfin’s.”

The occupation of the area by the warring armies “I fear…will make a famine among us,” she sadly concluded.

The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse was only one of a long stretch of days for central New Jersey’s civilians between 1775 and 1783.

This sketch of British troops burning homes around Lexington, Massachusetts, is a view similar to the one had by Freehold’s citizens as the British army passed through their homes.

June 28, 1878, marked the centennial of the battle of Monmouth, and the anniversary did not pass without commemoration in the town of Freehold, New Jersey, the original location of Monmouth Courthouse. Local newspapers reported that over 20,000 people attended the various ceremonies, orations, and performances that were held, with local and state politicians, and veterans of the War of 1812, Mexican-American War, and the recent Civil War in attendance. George B. McClellan, former commanding general of the Union Armies and the Army of the Potomac, then serving as New Jersey’s governor, reviewed state troops and participated in the cornerstone laying of the Monmouth Battle Monument. The ceremony was the center of the commemorations that day. Although the 94-foot-tall monument crowned by a statue of “Colombia Triumphant,” would not be completed and dedicated until November 1884, those who attended the centennial events understood the significance of what it would represent. After all, it had only been thirteen years since the end of the previous war—one that was fought to save the republic that those who had bled at Monmouth fought themselves to establish. The symbolism was not lost on Enoch L. Cowart, a veteran of the 14^th New Jersey Volunteers, which was trained at Camp Vredenburgh around the old battlefield. On July 4, 1878, an original poem he had written, “Centennial of the Battle of Monmouth,” was published in the Monmouth Democrat. Here is that poem below:

Enoch L. Cowart’s poem published in the *Monmouth Democrat*

To visit the Monmouth Battle Monument and to walk the ground in which the fighting raged over in 1778, join Emerging Revolutionary War historians Billy Griffith and Phillip S. Greenwalt this November on a bus tour covering the winter encampment at Valley Forge and the Monmouth campaign. More information can be found on our website, http://www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org, or on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/events/632831987720200/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A%5B%7B%22surface%22%3A%22page%22%7D%5D%7D

Emerging Revolutionary War Era

Category: Monmouth

The Experience of Freehold’s Civilians during the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse

Monmouth Monday: Centennial of the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1878