Posted on 02/01/2006 3:23:05 AM PST by Pharmboy
NATIONAL PARK -- Continental Army Col. Christopher Green withstood a Hessian force that outnumbered his troops five to one in the fall of 1777, but the monument to his memory has fallen prey to time, weather and skateboarders.
Atop the seven-story-tall monument at Red Bank Battlefield, a Revolutionary soldier -- musket at the ready -- stands forever watching the Delaware River.
Like his flesh-and-blood counterparts, the soldier looks in the wrong direction.
As winter approached in 1777, the British had Philadelphia. Continental troops had put cheavaux de frise, pointed log devices that worked like giant riverborne punji spikes, into the Delaware to keep British supply ships from getting to the city. The Continental Army was putting the squeeze on river traffic, with troops at Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer on each side of the river.
Green had about 400 troops at Fort Mercer. They expected an attack from the river. They might have been taken by complete surprise had it not been for Jonas Cattell, who ran from Haddonfield to warn the men at Fort Mercer.
On the afternoon of Oct. 22, 1777, a force of 2,000 Hessians marched right up what is now Hessian Avenue, stopping outside the flimsy walls of Fort Mercer. An arrogant Hessian officer demanded that the Americans surrender. Green sent the man back with the message that no quarter would be asked and none given.
It should have been a one-sided battle.
It wasn't.
That Continental soldier staring at the river tops a white granite monument to Col. Green, with a bronze plaque to explain what happened:
"The attacking force was disastrously defeated with the loss of its commander, Count von Donup, thirty-six officers and nearly six hundred men. The American loss was thirty-seven."
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
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Correct. He has a county and several streets in the state named after him. My mother grew up on Mercer Street in Jersey City.
Thanks for the ping!
What an interesting article.
My sister lives in Phillipsburg, NJ, and there is a Green Street and a Mercer St. there.
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