To the editor:
I am perfectly outraged by the destruction of hallowed ground at the Princeton Battlefield. That a part of our national heritage, where Americans fought, bled and died for our liberties should be forever lost to future generations for the minor convenience of a gaggle of visiting professors is nothing less than an atrocity.
For those who are unaware, and I’m certain that only due to a lack of publicity has this terrible destruction advanced this far, the property being destroyed is crucial to the integrity of the Princeton Battlefield. This is the site where Washington rallied the retreating American forces and, at risk to his own life, galloped ahead of them, directly into the massed fire of the British and turned defeat into victory.
From the famous Crossing of the Delaware and the capture of the Hessians at Trenton, to this last fight of the campaign at Princeton, the fate of America hung in the balance. Before Trenton, America was finished. After Princeton, the Americans would survive to fight another year and on to eventual victory, independence and nationhood. Everything hung in the balance on each moment of those 10 days. Victory at Princeton left the British confounded and sealed Washington’s greatness.
There is precious little of Revolutionary War America left for future generations to see and learn from. We here in New Jersey live among the scattered relics of the war that won our country’s freedom. We are guardians of that legacy for the entire country. None of that land should be lost for trivial reasons — not during our lifetimes, and not if we aspire to the title of “patriot.“
The Institute for Advanced Studies, which is not affiliated with Princeton University, has behaved very badly. It appears that they have impeded archaeological study of the central portion of the battlefield and that they may have played fast and loose with environmental reports on wetlands present on the site. It is certain that they have refused to even respond to an offer of $4.7 million by the Civil War Preservation Trust, an organization that for almost 30 years has worked to save tens of thousands of acres bloodied during that conflict from the developers bulldozers and asphalt and now working to save our Revolutionary War heritage.
I note that the institute opened the ground and began destroying the site in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. To me this indicates their awareness that this is an underhanded action. Raised in a construction family, I know that week is a “rocking chair“ week. No one starts a major construction project then, unless they are seeking to sneak it past an otherwise distracted press, populace and government.
I visited the site myself on the anniversary of the battle. The destruction is much worse than I imagined. Not only will the site of fierce fighting between elite British soldiers, U.S. Marines and American militiamen be destroyed, but the view-shed of the existing battlefield will be permanently degraded. You will have a row of faculty mini-mansions visible from every corner of the park. Visiting professors can sip their Merlot and chew their brie while overlooking the spot where Hugh Mercer, after whom Mercer County and everything else Mercer in this area was named, received his seven fatal bayonet wounds while fighting for our new country.
It was not just Washington and Mercer who risked and bled here. The very first United States Marine to die in battle on land for our country fell here. Is not Captain Shippen’s memory worth preserving? I believe that this is one of these events that calls upon the better angels of our nature. There are those who understand and those who will never get it. Without these men, these victories, these fields, we would never have become the United States. Those of us who are descended from these men, or from the many millions who came after them, and, indeed, the many millions yet to come, owe them a debt we can never repay. At the very least, we can preserve the memory of their deeds by preserving the last few remaining places where they where, as Lincoln so famously said: “they gave the last full measure of devotion. . .“
I urge all who read this and who cherish our heritage, who hope to preserve that Garden which is New Jersey or who understand the role of stewardship of our cultural and historical resources is a moral obligation, to contact your representatives and spur them on to the fight against this pointless destruction. Senator Kip Bateman has been forward in this fight. Contact him and encourage him. The Institute for Advanced Studies has been wholly unresponsive. Contact them and let them know what you think of them as fellow New Jerseyans and Americans. (I wonder if they think of themselves as such?)
Our last hope apparently lies with the Department of Environmental Protection. They are reviewing the wetlands status of the site. I can say that when I visited on Sunday evening, two full days after the rain stopped, I was able to take pictures of standing water on parts of the site as yet undisturbed by the bulldozers.
This is a matter of great urgency. Please act today. What is lost is lost forever.
Hugh Brennan
Hillsborough
HILLSBOROUGH: Battlefield site destruction outrages an historian-reader
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