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Hugh Mercer (January 16, 1726 – January 12, 1777) was a Scottish brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He fought in the New York and New Jersey campaign and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Princeton.
Mercer was born in Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He served as an assistant surgeon in Charles Edward Stuart's army during the Battle of Culloden in the Jacobite rising of 1745.
The uprising failed, and Mercer escaped to the Province of Pennsylvania where he lived in Greencastle, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania and Fredericksburg, Virginia. He worked as a physician and established an apothecary. He served alongside George Washington in the provincial troops during the French and Indian War, and he and Washington became close friends.
At age 15, he began studying medicine at the University of Aberdeen's Marischal College, and graduated as a physician in 1744. He served as an assistant surgeon in the army of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745, and was present at the Battle of Culloden when Charles' army was defeated on 16 April 1746.
As a fugitive in his homeland in 1747, Mercer fled Scotland after months in hiding. In the fall of 1746, he departed Leith by ship and sailed to Philadelphia. He settled in Pennsylvaniva near Greencastle, now known as Mercersburg, and practiced medicine as a physician and apothecary for eight years.
Mercer was badly wounded in the fighting at Kittanning and separated from his unit. He trekked through the woods for 14 days, injured and with no supplies, before he "lay down, giving up all hopes of ever getting home." A "company of Cherokee Indians in kings pay" found him and carried him to Fort Lyttleton, where he recovered. Robert Robison, "Colonel J. Armstrong's Attack on the Kittaning", in A Selection of some of the most interesting narratives of outrages committed by the Indians in their wars with the white people, Archibald Loudon, ed. Carlisle: A. Loudon Press, 1811 In 1757, he was placed in charge of the garrison at Fort Morris in Shippensburg and promoted to Major. It was during this period that Mercer developed a lifelong friendship with George Washington.
Both Washington and Mercer served in the Forbes Expedition under British General John Forbes during the second attempt to capture Fort Duquesne. Forbes occupied the burned fort on 25 November 1758 and immediately ordered the construction of a new fortification to be named Fort Pitt, after British Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder. He also named the settlement "Pittsborough" between the rivers which today is Pittsburgh. (1999). 9780967410302, Larsen's Outdoor Publishing. ISBN 9780967410302 Mercer built a temporary fort during construction of Fort Pitt, informally known as "Mercer's Fort". It was dismantled in 1760. Stotz, Charles Morse. Drums in the Forest: Decision at the Forks, Defense in the Wilderness. University of Pittsburgh Pre, 2005.
During 1775, Mercer was a member of the Fredericksburg Committee of Safety, and he was one of the members of the Independent Company of the Town of Fredericksburg who sent a letter of concern to Colonel George Washington when the British removed gunpowder from the magazine at Williamsburg. In an August vote, Mercer was excluded from the elected leadership of the new regiments formed by the Virginia Convention because he was a "northern Briton", but he was elected Colonel of the Minute Men of Spotsylvania, King George, Stafford, and Caroline Counties on 12 September.
On November 17, 1775, Mercer was one of 21 members chosen for the Committee of Safety for Spotsylvania County. On January 10, 1776, he was appointed colonel to the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Virginia Line, and George Weedon was appointed lieutenant colonel.
Mercer was placed in charge of a large troop of Pennsylvania Militia stationed in Paulus Hook, New Jersey to protect from potential attack from British troops in Staten Island.
Before the New York City Campaign, Washington had ordered two forts built to repel the Royal Navy. On the New York side of the Hudson River, Fort Washington was constructed, and Mercer himself oversaw the building of the earthen fortification on the New Jersey side, named Fort Lee. The British captured Fort Washington on 16 November 1776, and the Americans abandoned Fort Lee four days later. The retreat to New Jersey became known as "the Crisis of the Revolution", because the enlistments of most of Washington's soldiers ended on New Year's Day 1777.
Mercer led a raid on Richmondtown, Staten Island on October 15, 1776, temporarily securing the town and taking as prisoners those inside the makeshift hospital of St. Andrew's Church, but was repelled back to New Jersey, releasing the prisoners and causing numerous British casualties in the process.
Some historical accounts credit Mercer with the suggestion for George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, which resulted in a surprise attack on the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776. The victory at Trenton (and a small monetary bonus) made Washington's men agree to a ten-day extension to their enlistment. When Washington decided to face off with Cornwallis during the Second Battle of Trenton on January 2, 1777, Mercer was given a major role in the defense of the city.
When he learned of the British attack and saw some of Mercer's men in retreat, Washington himself entered the fray. Washington rallied Mercer's men and pushed back the British regiments, but Mercer had been left on the field to die with multiple bayonet wounds to his body and blows to his head. Legend has it that a beaten Mercer, with a bayonet still impaled in him, did not want to leave his men and the battle and was given a place to rest on a white oak tree's trunk, and those who remained with him stood their ground. The tree became known as "the Mercer Oak" and is the key element of the seal of Mercer County, New Jersey.
When he was found, Mercer was carried to the field hospital in the Thomas Clarke House, now a museum. at the eastern end of the battlefield. Benjamin Rush cared for Mercer and other wounded troops. Rush was assisted in caring for the wounded by Quakers.
Local Quakers continued to care for wounded troops from both Continental and British forces, after the Continental Army moved North. The Quaker meeting house is adjacent to the property now known as Princeton Battlefield State Park. Medical efforts were made by Rush to save Mercer, but he was mortally wounded and died nine days later, on January 12, 1777.
Because of Mercer's courage and sacrifice, Washington proceeded into Princeton, where he and the Continental Army defeated British forces in the Battle of Princeton. Washington then moved and quartered his forces in Morristown following the victory.David Hackett Fischer (2025). 019518159X, Oxford University Press. 019518159X Because of those victories, most of Washington's army re-enlisted, the French finally approved arms and supplies to the Americans, and a stunned Cornwallis pulled his forces back to New York to reassess the surprising military victories by Washington and his Continental Army. The crisis ended, demonstrating that Washington and his army had the means to fight, and British public support for continued engagement in the war began waning.
John Trumbull used Mercer's son, Hugh Jr., as a model for his portrait The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777.
A second portrait by Charles Willson Peale, Washington at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777, displays Washington in the foreground with Hugh Mercer lying mortally wounded in the background, supported by Dr. Benjamin Rush and Major George Lewis holding the American flag. This portrait is the prize possession of Princeton University. Peale painted a version of Battle of Princeton, whose background shows a very indistinct portrait of Mercer being helped from the ground.
|- |+ Notable descendants of Hugh Mercer |-
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