The Battlefield Battle

Graphic by John Milner Associates

Dr. Mark Peterson of the University of California, Berkeley pulled up a darkened yellow map of the Battle of Princeton on a projector screen at last Thursday’s meeting of the Regional Planning Board.  
 
“You wouldn’t want to use it to find yourself from Trenton to Princeton in the dark, but this primary document was drawn by an anonymous spy for General Washington,” he said. 
 
Dr. Peterson’s testimony is part of the debate between the Institute for Advanced Study and the Princeton Battlefield Preservation Society about whether the Institute can build a residential neighborhood on the land adjacent to the current battlefield.  Since the Institute proposed its plan in 2003, the Preservation Society has been arguing that if any military artifacts are found on the proposed site, the project should not continue. 
 
The Institute owns the land in question. 
 
Both the Institute and the Preservation Society have commissioned studies to determine exactly where the Battle of Princeton took place, but with few primary sources and even fewer sources that agree with one another, the history is up for debate.   
 
Attorney Bruce Afran for the Princeton Battlefield Preservation Society cross-examined Dr. Robert Selig, an historian from Berkeley University in Germany who studied General Rochambeau’s role in the American Revolution. 
 
Mr. Afran pulled up a map taken from the Berger Report, a document that summarized archeological findings on the land around the Battle of Princeton.
 
“What do you see in the project area?” Mr. Afran asked, referring to the array of red circles and black lines drawn on the map 
 
“I see troop formations, with crown forces as well,” Dr. Selig answered, referring to the red circles.   “Right here, as forces move over here, the Institute site becomes an integral part of the battlefield.” 
 
However, Dr. Peterson is not so certain.  He emphasized that it is almost impossible to know the precise location of Saw Mill Road, the supposed road that carried Washington’s troops on the night of the battle, the tracks long washed away by time. 
 
Professor Emeritus James McPherson said that he’s concerned about the “potentially harmful effects of the Institute’s plans.”
 
“The Battle of Princeton was the combination of an important campaign that saved the American Revolution from collapse and gave birth to the United States,” he said. “We’re not taking about something unimportant or marginal.”
 
But for Dr. Peterson, setting aside land may not even be the best way to preserve a historical memory.  He referenced the Cambridge Commons, a place where Washington’s troops stepped but gradually grew into a thriving commercial district. 
 
“The land was not treated as sacred ground--it was used carefully and consciously as a part of an ongoing living experience, and in doing so has encouraged the memory of the revolutionary war events that happened there,” he said. 
 
He added, “To set an additional portion of land as sacred space that will never be used, has the opposite effect: it shuts down interest, shuts down ability to connect to the past.” 
 
The Institute’s planned neighborhood would include seven single-family houses and eight townhouse units in an idyllic cul-de-sac on the land next to the Battlefield.   
 
Peter Madison, one of the members of the Regional Planning Board, questioned Mr. Afran’s analysis of the Battle.  
 
“I agree that the maps you’ve shown us do indicate that there may have been some activity at the Institute site--I say may because I read the Berger report, and there seems to be some dispute between a variety of the maps,” said Peter Madison. 
 
He added, “My interpretation is that most of the maps do not show activity on the site, so it seems to me that you are picking out maps from the Berger report to support your point.”
 
Towards the end of the meeting, a possible compromise was discussed.  If the Institute were to plant trees on the grounds east of the battlefield and leave fourteen out of the twenty-one acres of the site open, an agreement could possibly be reached. 
 
The debate will conclude on the last Thursday in January at the Township Hall at 7:30pm. 

About the Author

Lauren Wyman

Princeton University, Class of '14

Lauren Wyman is a member of the Princeton University Class of '14, with a  major in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.  She is from Cleveland, Ohio,  and her work has appeared in her high school newspaper, the Beachcomber, and in the NASA Glenn Research Center Internship Newsletter, the Glenn Gazette.