Battle of Iron Works Hill - Background

Background

In July 1776 forces of Great Britain under the command of General William Howe landed on Staten Island. Over the next several months, Howe's forces, which were British Army regulars and auxiliary German troops usually referred to as Hessian, chased George Washington's Continental Army out of New York City and across New Jersey. Washington's army, which was shrinking in size due to expiring enlistments, and desertions due to poor morale, took refuge in Pennsylvania on the western shore of the Delaware River in November, removing all the available watercraft to deny the British any opportunity to cross the wide river.

General Howe established a chain of outposts across New Jersey, and ordered his troops into winter quarters. The southernmost outposts were located at Trenton and Bordentown. The Trenton outpost was manned by about 1,500 men of a Hessian brigade under the command of Johann Rall, and the Bordentown outpost was manned by Hessians and the British 42nd Regiment contingents, about 2,000 troops in all, under the command of the Hessian Colonel Carl von Donop. Bordentown itself was not large enough to house all of von Donop's force. While he had hoped to quarter some troops even further south at Burlington, where there was strong Loyalist support, floating gun batteries from the Pennsylvania Navy threatened the town, and Donop, rather than expose Loyalist allies to their fire, was forced to scatter his troops throughout the surrounding countryside.

As the troops of von Donop and Rall occupied the last outposts, they were often exposed to the actions of rebel raids and the actions of Patriot militia forces that either arose spontaneously or were recruited by Army regulars. These actions frayed the nerves of the troops, as the uncertainty of when and where such attacks would take place, and by what size force, put the men and their commanders on edge, leading them to jump up to investigate every rumored movement. Rall went so far as to order his men to sleep "fully dressed like on watch."

One militia force that rose in December 1776 was a company under the command of Virginia Colonel Samuel Griffin. Griffin (whose name is sometimes misspelled "Griffith") was the adjutant to General Israel Putnam, who was responsible for the defense of Philadelphia. Griffin's force, whose exact composition is uncertain, probably included some Virginia artillerymen, Pennsylvania infantry, and New Jersey militia, and numbered five to six hundred. By mid-December he had reached Moorestown, about ten miles southwest of Mount Holly. By December 21, Griffin had advanced to Mount Holly and established a rough fortification atop a hill near an iron works, south of the Rancocas Creek and the village center. Von Donop sent a Loyalist to investigate, who reported a force of "not above eight hundred, nearly one half boys, and all of them Militia a very few from Pennsylvania excepted". Thomas Stirling, who commanded a contingent of the 42nd positioned about seven miles north of Mount Holly at Blackhorse (present-day Columbus), heard rumors that there were 1,000 rebels at Mount Holly and "2,000 more were in the rear to support them". When von Donop asked Stirling for advice, he replied, "You sir, with the troops at Bordentown, should come here and attack. I am confident we are a match for them."