The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: VA
Qualifying Service: Brigadier-General
Birth: 1720 / / Scotland Death: 12 Jan 1777 nr Princeton / Middlesex / NJ
Qualifying Service Description:
1776, appointed a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army.
1777, killed in action.
Additional References:
Heitman, Francis B, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution, 1775-1873, Washington DC: Rare Book Shop Publishing Company, 1914, pg 389, 703
Bounty Land file: BLWT #1527-850
Hazard, Samuel, Pennsylvania Archives First Series, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg: Joseph Severns & Co, 1854:
Volume 3, pg 27
Volume 5, pg 2
American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, pg 136
Watterman, Joseph H, With Sword & Lancet, 1941, RSP Ga 14901
Spouse: Isabella Gordon Children: Hugh Tenant Weedon; Anne/Anna Gordon; Emma;
Photo used with permission of Michael B. Gunn, 185230, Cincinnati Chapter, OHSSAR
Gen. Mercer was originally buried at Christ Church Yard in Philadelphia. Remains were exhumed and re-interred at Laurel Hill on 24 Nov 1840
Directions to Cemetery / Gravesite:
Photo: 1 of 1
Author: President Gen John Thomas Manning M.Ed.
On this day in history, 12 January 1777, General Hugh Mercer died from wounds received at the Battle of Princeton. General Mercer was born in Scotland in 1726 and trained as a doctor. He served as a surgeon in the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie and was present at the defeat of his army at the Battle of Culloden, an army which was raised to put a Stuart King back on the throne of England.
This army was destroyed by the forces of Hanover King George II at the Battle of Culloden, Scotland, on 16 April 1746. George's forces massacred as many survivors as they could find, forcing Mercer into exile as a result. He eventually made his way to the colony of Pennsylvania, where he settled and resumed his medical practice.
When the Braddock Expedition was massacred in 1755, Mercer came to the aid of some of the wounded soldiers and was moved by the experience because it reminded him of the massacre of his countrymen at the Battle of Culloden. This caused him to join the British army, which he had once fought against, to fight the Indians during the French and Indian War.
He became a captain of the Pennsylvania militia in 1756 and was severely wounded during a raid on an Indian village that year. He was separated from his troops and marched across the wilderness for 100 miles alone to return to his fort, after which he was promoted to colonel. During the French and Indian War, Mercer became friends with George Washington, who was also a colonel at the same time. They were such good friends that Mercer moved to Virginia after the war and settled in Fredericksburg, resuming his medical practice.
When the American Revolution began, Mercer was appointed a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army by the Continental Congress. He directed the building of Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River to impede British access up the river.
After the Continental Army was driven from New York and across New Jersey in the fall of 1776, they stopped their retreat on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. Mercer is sometimes credited with coming up with the plan to attack the Hessian outpost at Trenton, which helped stem the discouraging tide of American losses. Washington's forces ferried across the river in the middle of the night on Christmas Day and captured 1,000 Hessians at the outpost.
This led to another victory a week later when Washington repulsed a counterattack from Lt. General Charles Cornwallis at Trenton again. After that victory, Washington's men marched through the night toward Princeton to capture the British outpost there and continue its string of victories.
Hugh Mercer led an advance party of 1200 men that ran into a large British force at an orchard along the way, and fighting began. The British force quickly defeated the green American militia units, and General Mercer was surrounded by British troops who mistook him for George Washington and demanded that he surrender. Mercer fiercely attacked his antagonizers but was struck to the ground, bayoneted seven times, and left for dead. He was attended by Declaration of Independence signer Doctor Benjamin Rush, but he died nine days later on January 12, 1777. He was buried at Christ Church in Philadelphia originally, but his body was reinterred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in 1840.
Author: Dr. Michael Bernard Gunn
Hugh Mercer, born on January 17, 1726 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on January 11, 1776, he was appointed Colonel of the 3rd Virginia Regiment. That June he was appointed Brigadier-General in the Continental Army. While Washington was building a fort on the New York side of the Hudson River—Fort Washinton—, Colonel Hugh Mercer oversaw the building of one on the New Jersey side, called Fort Lee. Fort Lee had to be abandoned when Fort Washington was taken by the British in November. Hugh Mercer was key in the Battle of Trenton, the famous American victory, and also in the Second Battle of Trenton, he was partly responsible for the defense of the city. On January 3, the army met two British regiments and a mounted unit on their way to Princeton, New Jersey. When Mercer's horse was shot from beneath him, he fell. The British thought he was Washington, surrounded him, and demanded his surrender. Rather than lose, he fought back with his saber. He was beaten down and stabbed seven times with a bayonet. The American victory at the Battle of Princeton caused the British to withdraw from most of New Jersey, after this third decisive victory in ten days. George Washington surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton on December 26 and took 1,000 captives. This was followed up on January 2 with a victory at the Battle of Assunpink Creek, where Washington was able to drive back three assaults from General Charles Cornwallis. After this failure, Cornwallis decided to call off the attack until morning, even though some of his officers believed Washington would try to escape in the night. Washington took advantage of the decision, but rather than running, he decided to attack the British rear guard left at Princeton. He took his army east and then to the north in utter silence during the night, approaching Princeton at dawn. In the morning, Washington dispatched Brigadier General Hugh Mercer to destroy a bridge on the post road between Trenton and Princeton to delay Cornwallis' pursuit. When General Mercer arrived at the post road, he ran straight into 800 men under the command of Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood, marching south from Princeton. Mawhood ordered a charge on the rebels, who were mostly equipped with rifles and no bayonets. Unable to defend themselves against a bayonet charge, they were quickly overrun, trapping General Mercer. Thinking they had cornered George Washington, the British soldiers shouted, "Surrender you damn rebel!" When Mercer refused and charged them instead, he was bayoneted and left for dead, causing the rest of his men to scatter. Another 1100 militia appeared just then, but when they saw Mercer's men fleeing, they began to flee as well. At this point, George Washington arrived with yet more troops. Seeing the fleeing militia, Washington quickly rode his horse straight into the battle, rallying the troops and shouting, "Parade with us my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy and we shall have them directly!" Following their leader, the Americans quickly gained control of the field. Now outnumbered, Mawhood ordered a retreat as his line began to dissolve under heavy fire. Knowing that Cornwallis was approaching from the south, Washington retreated back to Princeton where his men quickly captured the remaining troops who had holed up in Nassau Hall at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), surrendering themselves to a young Captain Alexander Hamilton. A Revolutionary War Continental Brigadier General. Killed at Battle of Princeton, NJ on 1/12/1777. Although his tomb is at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, since his remains were moved there in 1840, he is One of the 25 dead on the Princeton Battlefield Memorial, Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey. Type Marker: Gothic Stone Pillars with bronze plaque. www.theprincetonbattlefieldsociety.com Revolutionary War Graves Register. Clovis H. Brakebill, compiler. 672pp. SAR. 1993. Also SAR Revolutionary War Graves Register CD. Progeny Publishing Co: Buffalo, NY. 1998; SAR Patriot Index Edition III (CD: PP2210, Progeny Publ., 2002) plus data to 2004.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.
