1
Jun
1780
Continental Army Departs Morristown (Second Encampment)
Morristown, NJ· range date
The Story
The Continental Army broke camp at Jockey Hollow in June 1780, dispersing to various positions across New Jersey and New York. The departure was prompted by the approach of British forces and the need to defend the state against the raids that culminated in the Battle of Springfield. The second encampment had lasted approximately six months and had tested the army's survival more severely than any other period of the war. The army that left Morristown was diminished, hungry, and poorly equipped, but it had endured.
People Involved
George Washington
Commander who broke camp in response to British movements
Virginia planter and Continental Army commander-in-chief who owned and managed Mount Vernon's enslaved workforce. Absent from his estate for most of the war, he directed Lund Washington's management by correspondence and returned to find the plantation's human community shaped by eight years of wartime disruption.
Joseph Plumb Martin
Enlisted soldier departing after months of suffering
Enlisted Continental soldier whose published memoir provides the most vivid enlisted man's account of the Morristown winters, documenting starvation, freezing, and the daily reality of service in Washington's army.
Anthony Wayne
Commander of Pennsylvania Line departing Jockey Hollow
Continental Army general (1745-1796) whose Pennsylvania Line troops were stationed at Morristown and whose soldiers mutinied in January 1781 over unpaid wages and expired enlistments.