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 AN ADDRESS 
 DELIVERED JUNE T, 190£ 
 
 WILLIAM H. COR BIN 
 
 t the UnveiUng by the State Commjs^loner* of 
 
 Tablet placed upop th© Connecticut farms 
 
 resbyterian Church, Uniorv County, N. J., in 
 
 ommetnoration of ttje Battle of June 7, 1780. 
 
CONNECTICUT FARMS 
 
 e^ 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 DELIVERED JUNE T. 1905 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM Hv' COR BIN 
 
 n^ 
 
 At the Unveiling by the State Commissioners of 
 a Tablet placed upoQ the Connecticut Farms 
 Presbyterian Church, Union County, N. J., in 
 commemoration of thje Battle of June 7, 1780. 
 
 J^^iS, 
 
Ep41 
 
 
CONNECTICUT FARMS 
 
 AS the good people of this Church will doubtless recall, 
 your congreg-ation was, one hundred and twenty-five 
 years ago to-day, without a pastor. For the forty 
 years of their peaceful existence as a church your fathers 
 had been under the stated teaching of Godly ministers, but 
 a year before the day which we now celebrate, their pastor, 
 the Rev. Benjamin Hait, had gone to his reward, and they 
 had not yet found another. Their parsonage was vacant. 
 The times were full of peril and distress; your brethren at 
 Elizabeth Town were in sore trouble ; you had here a church 
 and parsonage without a minister ; they had a minister — a 
 rare good one — but, alas, no church home and no parsonage. 
 Their parsonage first, and then their meeting house, had 
 both been burned to the ground by armed midnight marau- 
 ders while they, terrified, indignant and helpless, watched 
 the wicked destruction of the flames. So your vacant par- 
 sonage was tendered to the Rev. James Caldwell, pastor 
 of the Elizabeth Town Church, and he came here with his 
 worthy wife, Hannah Ogden, and his nine small children, 
 and occupied your house. 
 
 Little did your fathers think that their quiet homes, far 
 back among the hills, and their little church would soon be 
 desecrated, pillaged and destroyed, and that, too, not in the 
 dark, by half organized bands of foragers, but in broad day- 
 light, by stately English brio^ades, commanded by the gen- 
 erals of the King. 
 
 James Caldwell was not only a pastor, but Chaplain to 
 the whole Essex County Church Militant. His chief busi- 
 ness in the Revolution was with the troops, praying and 
 preaching to the battalions, to be sure, and bestowing his 
 pious offices upon the wounded and the dead ; but still, more 
 
notably, stirring up in the people and their officers and 
 leaders a spirit of devotion to the cause of independence, 
 instructing them in the meaning of the conflict, and arousing 
 their enthusiasm and courage to the pitch of enduring hard- 
 ness as good soldiers. 
 
 In the early morning of this day, 1780, rumors were 
 not lacking of the advance of the British troops, and the 
 parson, anxious for the safety of his family, gathered the 
 little ones together to remove them farther back into the 
 hills where the Continental forces lay. Mrs. Caldwell de- 
 termined to stay, and, with the two smallest of the Uttle 
 ones, remained at the parsonage while the parson hastened 
 with the others to the Short Hills and bestowed them there. 
 
 But the Parson's was not the only anxious household 
 that morning. By a recent law of the State, one-half of 
 all the men were always to be on duty for the defence of 
 Elizabeth Town, Newark and other important points, and 
 all the rest were enrolled in the militia, and subject to instant 
 call in case of invasion. Such a call was now made. The 
 signals at Short Hills were fired, and every man in every 
 house was slinging on his powder-horn and taking down 
 his gun, and, after hasty directions to his family, was 
 hurrying to the meeting place of his company. There was 
 no hesitation, no holding back. The events of the past five 
 years had taught them to be ready and to be quick. They 
 had gone out again and again to fight the battles of their 
 neighbors of Elizabeth, Amboy, Woodbridge, Newark and 
 beyond, and now that their own day had come, they would, 
 of all the days, not fail. 
 
 General Washington afterwards said of them : 
 
 "The militia deserve everything that can be said on 
 both occasions. They flew to arms universally, and acted 
 with a spirit equal to anything I have seen in the course 
 of the war." 
 
 You know the familiar story of the battle. Major- 
 General Knyphausen, with 6,000 troops, crossed Staten 
 Island Sound on the evening of June 6th, to Elizabeth 
 Town, and, at daybreak the next morning, formed in three 
 
imposing brigades, with abundant artillery and cavalry, and 
 took up the march from Elizabeth Town Point towards 
 this place. 
 
 The young brigadier, Lord Stirling, rode at the head 
 of the column, the same who, as Colonel Stirling, had the 
 year before led the invading party which, at night, had 
 burned the barracks, the Academy and the parsonage at 
 Elizabeth Town. 
 
 Against this brave array Colonel Dayton had stationed a 
 guard of twelve men at the Cross Foads, in Elizabeth, 
 while he mustered all the rest of the militia and hastened 
 back towards this place, where he designed to make a stand. 
 
 As Gen. Knyphausen's column drew near, the twelve 
 sturdy fellows at the Cross Roads fired and brought the 
 column at a halt, mortally wounding the young General 
 Stirling. The column soon resumed its advance, marching 
 through the village of Elizabeth. An eye-witness describes 
 it as one of the most beautiful sights he ever beheld. "In 
 the van marched a squadron of dragoons of Simcoe's Regi- 
 ment, known as the 'Queen's Rangers,' with drawn swords 
 and glittering helms, mounted on large and beautiful 
 horses ; then followed the infantry, composed of Hessians 
 and English troops, the whole amounting to nearly 6,ooo 
 men, and every man, horseman and foot clad in new uni- 
 forms, complete in panoply and gorgeous with burnished 
 brass and polished steel." The famous Coldstream Guards 
 Regiment of the British regular army, which is, to this 
 day, the show regiment of London, was in the line. The 
 three heavy bridages, under Generals Knyphausen, ^lathew 
 and Tryon, moved ponderously forward, a brilliant and 
 overpowering spectacle, such as these parts have never seen 
 before nor since. 
 
 But there were few to see it at Elizabeth Town. Those 
 who did, looked out from their shattered homes over the 
 ashes of their church and school and Court House, over 
 gardens and orchards, wasted and ruined, over trampled 
 fields and destroyed fences ; their fathers and brothers were 
 gone, some to hateful imprisonment on Staten Island or 
 
in the prison hulks in New York harbor, some dead, some 
 in the scattered patriot battalions among the hills. 
 
 How appalling to them must have been the sight of 
 this well-fed, perfectly-equipped, great overpowering King's 
 army! How hopeless the contest must have seemed! 
 
 With what bitter tears must they have beheld this 
 climax of war after the long, sad years of midnight skir- 
 mish, pillage and fire ! 
 
 But Colonel Dayton did not stop to ponder or to de- 
 spair. He hastened ahead of the invading army, sending 
 the alarm everywhere. There were no telephones in Con- 
 necticut Farms in those days, nor telegraphs anywhere, to 
 bring the news ; and yet almost as quickly as by telegraph 
 the news was spread. As soon as it was known that the 
 enemy had landed at the Elizabeth Town Point, word was 
 sent to Prospect Hill, back of Springfield, and the i8- 
 pounder gun was fired, and the tar barrel on the signal pole 
 on the First Mountain was set ablaze. This was seen at 
 the camp at Morristown, ten miles away, and instantly the 
 drums beat to arms, and Washington, with the army, 
 marched with all speed towards Springfield. The whole 
 town, which is now the County of Union, heard and saw 
 the signals, and the militia of every hamlet, from Spring- 
 field to Rahway, seized their guns and started for the front. 
 
 It was Concord and Lexington over again. Knyp- 
 hausen had hardly left the village of Elizabeth when he 
 encountered a brisk bush-whacking fire from fences and 
 woods and defiles, and he was never free from it again till 
 he returned to Staten Island, two weeks later. 
 
 General Maxwell was at that time in charge of the 
 Jersey Brigade, a portion of which was stationed in and 
 about Elizabeth, under Colonel Elias Dayton. But, as the 
 General very frankly wrote a few days later : 
 
 "I thought Elizabeth Town would be an improper 
 place for me. I therefore retired toward Connecticut Farms, 
 where Colonel Dayton joined me with his regiment. I 
 ordered a few small parties to defend the defile near the 
 Farms Meeting House, where they were joined and as- 
 
sisted in the defence by some small bodies of militia. The 
 main body of the brigade had to watch the enemy on the 
 road leading to the right and left toward Springfield, that 
 they might not cut off our communication with His Ex- 
 cellency, General- Washington." 
 
 Here, then, at the defile south of the church, to be seen 
 as plainly now as then, began the "Battle of Connecticut 
 Farms." That, it seems to me, is the proper name to give 
 to the operations of that day. At Elizabeth there was a 
 skirmish, at Springfield the advance ended, but here, where 
 we stand, and on the ridge to the west of us, the pitched 
 battle was fought. 
 
 At the defile, which lies here at our feet, the picket 
 line held the British for three hours — a marvelous perform- 
 ance when the relative forces are considered. Indeed, Gen- 
 eral Maxwell says : "Our parties of Continental troops 
 and militia at the defile performed wonders." After hold- 
 ing the enemy for three hours, they actually crossed the 
 defile and drove the British advance back a considerable 
 distance, but on the arrival of large British reinforcements 
 the Americans were, in turn, driven back to this ground, 
 where ^Maxwell had formed his whole brigade and the 
 militia into line of battle. Then occurred what General 
 jMaxwell described as the closest action he had seen in 
 this war. 
 
 The lines of battle seem to have been drawn from near 
 the Sleeker Inn southwesterly along the ridge to a point 
 back of this church. ^Maxwell made a quick assault and 
 drove back the British advance. In turn he was driven 
 back by the greatly superior force of the enemy till he 
 reached the Rahway River bridge at Springfield. There 
 he made a stand, and, with the aid of some well-placed 
 artillery, brought the invaders to a halt, and drove them 
 back to their former position near this church. 
 
 By this time Washington had arrived at Short Hills, 
 and was in a position to reinforce General ]\Iaxwell so that 
 the battle would be more equal. The British commander, 
 on obser\-ing this, abandoned the fight, and prepared to 
 
retreat as soon as the darkness should cover his movements. ' 
 The dozen houses at this place were filled with his wounded. 
 In the evening these were removed, and the soldiers began 
 their work of plunder, taking everything that was portable. 
 As the troops began their retreat the houses and the church 
 were set on fire and burned to the ground. 
 
 Meantime occurred an act of such cruelty and horror 
 as deeply affected the entire community, and, indeed, the 
 story soon spread throughout the country and embittered 
 against the soldiers of the King many who had before been 
 lukewarm in the patriot cause. 
 
 Mrs. Caldwell, bravely remaining with her two infants 
 at the parsonage, had, during the afternoon, retired to her 
 chamber for seclusion and prayer. Here a British soldier 
 passing by saw her, and deliberately, at a few feet distance, 
 in spite of her appeals, fired upon her through the window 
 as she sat upon a bed with her little ones ; and so this pious 
 and gracious lady, innocent of all offense, fell a martyr to 
 the cause of liberty. A more melancholy and pathetic 
 event is not recalled in the history of the Revolution. 
 
 I have often admired the quaint old-fashioned, beauti- 
 ful epitaph upon her tombstone. Nothing more appropri- 
 ate can be said of her : 
 
 "Stop, passenger ! Here lie the remains of a woman 
 who exhibited to the world a bright constellation of the 
 female virtues. On that memorable day, never to be for- 
 gotten, when a British foe invaded this fair village and 
 fired even the temple of the Diety, this peaceful daughter 
 of Heaven retired to her hallowed apartment, imploring 
 Heaven for the pardon of her enemies. In that sacred 
 moment she was, by the bloody hand of a British ruffian, 
 dispatched, like her Divine Redeemer, through a path of 
 blood, to her long-wished for native skies." 
 
 There was much in the course of the war that seemed 
 to our people barbarous and cruel. Governor Livingston, 
 in addressing the Legislature in 1777 upon the cruelty of 
 the enemy, with his characteristic vigor, spoke of "the 
 contemptible figure they make at present (that is, after 
 
Princeton and Trenton) and the disgust they have given 
 to many of their own confederates by their more than Gothic 
 ravages." He says: "The rapacity of the enemy was 
 boundless ; their rapine was indiscriminate and their bar- 
 barity unparalleled. They have plundered friends and 
 foes. Effects capable of division they have divided ; such 
 as were not, they have destroyed. They have warred upon 
 decrepid age ; warred upon defenceless youth. They have 
 committed hostilities against the possessors of literature 
 and against ministers of religion ; against public records 
 and , private monuments, and books of improvement and 
 papers of curiosity ; and against the arts and sciences. They 
 have butchered the wounded, asking for quarter, mangled 
 the dying weltering in their blood; refused to the dead the 
 rights of sepulture; suffered prisoners to parish for want 
 of sustenance ; disfigured private dwellings of taste and ele- 
 gance ; and, in the rage of impiety and barbarism, profaned 
 edifices dedicated to Almighty God." 
 
 We can see the worthy old Governor swelling with 
 rage over his ruffled shirt bosom as he goes on after this 
 fashion, filling page after page with his wrathful quill. 
 
 In the same year the Committee of Congress, appointed 
 to inquire into the conduct of the enemy, reported, "That 
 in every place where the enemy had been there are heavy 
 complaints of oppression, injury and insult suffered by the 
 inhabitants * * >i= The whole track of the British army 
 is marked with desolation and a wanton destruction of 
 property * * * The fences destroyed, houses deserted, 
 pulled to pieces or consumed by fire * * * But above 
 all, places of worship, ministers, and other religious persons 
 of some particular protestant denomination, seem to have 
 been treated with the most rancorous hatred, and at the 
 same time with the highest contempt." 
 
 It does seem strange to us that it should have been 
 thought necessary to burn churches and schools, but in 
 those days that was the strategy of war of the kind Knyp- 
 liausen waged. Three churches, two parsonages and an 
 academy seems a pretty large record for one township. But 
 
Knyphausen seems to have deemed that foray lost wherein- 
 he burned no Presbyterian Church. 
 
 General Sherman once said: "War is cruelty; you 
 cannot refine it." No truer word was ever spoken. We^ 
 may be disposed to question it when we remember our 
 Red-Cross hospitals, our kindness to prisoners, our cour- 
 tesy to foes. But it is, and must be, forever true — war is 
 cruelty. 
 
 When, at Santiago, we smother and overwhelm a half 
 dozen Spanish warships with a storm of shot and cover 
 their decks with mangled wounded, gasping for breath 
 amid the stifling poison gasses of modern high explosives 
 till they finally fling themselves into the sea as a last des- 
 perate chance to save their lives, does it refine war to pull 
 the survivors out of the water, clothe and feed them, and 
 send them home in comfort ? No ; those courtesies are the 
 refinements of peace after men have ceased to fight. While 
 war and battle last, they are as cruel and relentless as ever, 
 and more destructive and deadly. 
 
 Excesses and wrongs are bound to occur so long as 
 men engage in the horrible game of killing each other. So 
 we will accept Governor Livingston's statements as gen- 
 erally true, but yet with some allowance, and will remember 
 that we were on the border-line between the foes, where 
 retaliations and provocations were very common. The 
 situation of the people was peculiarly unfortunate, and 
 subjected them to ills not ordinarily suffered, even in the 
 warfare of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 A word as to Governor William Livingston, one of 
 the most notable citizens who has ever lived in your present 
 Township of Union. 
 
 He was a fiery old patriot, distinguished as a fighter, not 
 only with his sword, but with his pen and his tongue, which 
 were sharper than any two-edged sword. He had removed 
 from New York to this township (sensible man that he was) 
 fifteen years before the Revolution, and in 1772 had built 
 for his home Liberty Hall. That fine old mansion still 
 stands, and is now the home of our worthy Senator, the 
 
 10 
 
Honorable John Kean. He was a member of the first 
 Continental Congress in 1774; he was foremost in stirring 
 up the Xew Jersey people to resistance at the time of the 
 Boston Tea Party troubles. He was one of the Committee 
 of Observation,- elected with great enthusiasm at Elizabeth 
 Town, in December, 1774. (This committee, to put it 
 briefly, was the beneficent "ring" which ran ever}1;hing and 
 ruled ever}1:hing in the Town with a firm hand during the 
 Revolutionary War to the immense advantage of the Town.) 
 He was made Brigadier-General in charge of all the New 
 Jersey militia in 1776, and the same year was chosen by the 
 Legislature to be the first Governor of the State of New 
 Jersey, which office he held for fourteen years. 
 
 The British commander seems to have been particularly 
 desirous to take Livingston, dead or alive, but the old Gov- 
 ernor and his clever daughters were too sly for them, and 
 he never was taken. But I believe Senator Kean can still 
 show in Liberty Hall the marks of Hessian bayonets thrust 
 into the panels and stairways by disappointed scouting 
 parties sent out to catch the Governor. No more zealous 
 and uncompromising patriot than William Livingston joined 
 the Revolutionists. By education and experience, and by 
 his native abilities, he was fitted to be a leader, which he 
 speedily became ; and he gave all his powers and all he had, 
 unreservedly, to the cause of American Independence. 
 
 At 10 o'clock in the dark night of June 7th the British 
 army, in silence, retreated from this spot. Lieutenant 
 IMathew, of the Coldstream Guards, who wrote an accoimt 
 of it, says : "Nothing more awful than this retreat can be 
 imagined. The rain, with the terrible thunder and light- 
 ning, the darkness of the night, the houses of Connecticut 
 Farms, which he had set fire to, in a blaze, the dead bodies 
 which the light of the fire or the lightning showed you now 
 and then on the road, and the dread of an enemy, com- 
 pleted the scene of horror." 
 
 Two weeks later the army came again, halted at this 
 point, divided into two columns, and again advanced, but 
 were baffled just beyond Springfield, whose church and 
 
 II 
 
homes they burned. Then it was that the bereaved Parson 
 Caldwell took a personal hand in the fight, and flung the 
 psalm books to the soldiers for wadding, crying : "Put Watts 
 into 'em, boys ; give them Watts !" 
 
 The action of June, 1780, was, of course, the culmina- 
 tion of the war for this hamlet ; but the trials of the people 
 who lived here endured through seven long years. Their 
 fathers and sons were summoned month after month and 
 year after year, whenever dangers or alarms thickened. The 
 discouraging news of failures and defeats had to be borne ; 
 hostilities were suspended and resumed over and over again, 
 like a fire stamped out a dozen times and breaking into a 
 blaze again with every hour of the weary night. 
 
 A struggle, apparently hopeless, had still to be persevered 
 in. The men of this place stood fast. Patience became 
 their habit, and their fortitude grew to be absolutely re- 
 liable. The tribulations that had so long fallen upon them 
 tempered and wrought them as a hammer on beaten steel, 
 till at last, when the day of their home battle came, they 
 could (in the words of General Maxwell) "work wonders." 
 So we are not surprised to find, on Knyphausen's 
 second advance to Springfield, on the 23d of July, these 
 same militiamen in the thick of the fray. Major-General 
 Greene, in command of the regulars of the Continental Army 
 on that day, had also the assistance of the farmers of this hill- 
 side, and in his report repeatedly refers to them. He 
 says : "The militia * * * made a spirited attack upon 
 one of the enemy's flanking parties," After the burning 
 of Springfield the enemy retreated. "Captain Davis," he 
 says, "with a large body of militia, fell upon their rear and 
 flanks, and kept up a continual fire upon them till they 
 entered Elizabeth Town, which place they reached about 
 sunset." Think of it ! A "continual fire" for a chase of 
 six miles. General Greene adds that those who were en- 
 gaged "behaved with great coolness and intrepidity, and 
 the whole of them discovered an impatience to be brought 
 
 12 
 
into action. The good order and discipline which they 
 exhibited in all their movements do them the highest 
 honor." 
 
 Here we h^ve it — so trained to endurance and patience 
 that when the battle came they were positively impatient 
 to get into the thick of it. Mere numbers could not subdue 
 such men. Doubtful or hesitating at the opening of the 
 war, questioning what all this rebellion against the King 
 might lead to, and not understanding fully the justifica- 
 tion of it, these plain, practical, conservative farmers had 
 finally learned, through long experience of abuses and 
 troubles, through the clear sounding tones of Caldwell's 
 teaching, and the loud and belligerent, but always forcible 
 and convincing, voice of Livingston, that absolute inde- 
 pendence of the King and the right to set up rulers of their 
 own free choice, was what they were fighting for and must 
 have. 
 
 And with this clearer view and more determined pur- 
 pose came higher appreciation of their own duty and des- 
 tiny as free electors of a free state. They laid hold on the 
 new doctrine, to us old and commonplace, but to them fresh 
 and inspiring, for it was then new in the world, the doc- 
 trine of the dignity and importance of the individual man, 
 and his right to an equal voice with all other men in the 
 government, and to an equal opportunity to enjoy his life, 
 liberty and property. His very humanity gave him a title 
 to a prospect and an inheritance that inspired him to no- 
 bility. The man who could accept this new faith was a 
 new creature. Chains could never again bind him. No 
 hardship of fortune could ever rob him of his vision of 
 liberty. He had become a patriot, to live or to die. And 
 yet, while the prospect exalted him, the responsibility of it 
 sobered him. He was a soldier, but a citizen first of all. 
 
 So when the battle was over, and peace came, with- 
 out a day's intermission, he laid down his rifle and resumed 
 his plough. But he was not the same man. Chastened, 
 hafdened, instructed, inspired, he was now the strong man, 
 the veteran soldier, the enthusiastic patriot. On him rested 
 
 13 
 
the hopes of the future of the State, and those hopes were 
 not disappointed. His sons, and his sons' sons, were Hke 
 him, and when wars and troubles came again, a like spirit 
 was found in them. When the supreme test of the Re- 
 public came in civil war, his children, like him, fought 
 nobly, and after the fight was over, a million of them 
 dropped their guns and took up their scythes faithfully and 
 simply, and helped to reap and stow away the harvest that 
 was ripening while they as yet had been on the battlefield. 
 
 God grant that such men, with such motives and such 
 fidelity to the common duties of life, may never be wanting 
 to fight the battles of this Republic. 
 
 JOURNAJEv PRESS, ELIZABETH, N. J. 
 
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