the Short Hills, and he remained on the alert
expecting to be assailed in the morning; but in the morning no enemy
was to be seen. Knyphausen had experienced enough to convince him that
he had been completely misinformed as to the disposition of the Jersey
people and of the army. Disappointed as to the main objects of his
enterprise, he had retreated under cover of the night.

On the 17th of June the fleet from the South actually arrived in the
bay of New York, and Sir Henry Clinton landed his troops on Staten
Island, but almost immediately re-embarked them; as if meditating an
expedition up the river. Fearing for the safety of West Point,
Washington set off on the 21st June, with the main body of his troops,
towards Pompton; while General Greene, with Maxwell and Stark's
brigades, Lee's dragoons and the militia of the neighborhood, remained
encamped on the Short Hills, to cover the country and protect the
stores at Morristown.

Washington's movements were slow and wary, unwilling to be far from
Greene until better informed of the designs of the enemy. At Rockaway
Bridge, about eleven miles beyond Morristown, he received word on the
23d that the enemy were advancing from Elizabethtown against
Springfield. Supposing the military depot at Morristown to be their
ultimate object, he detached a brigade to the assistance of Greene,
and fell back five or six miles, so as to be in supporting distance of
him.

The re-embarkation of the troops at Staten Island had, in fact, been a
stratagem of Sir Henry Clinton to divert the attention of Washington,
and enable Knyphausen to carry out the enterprise which had hitherto
hung fire. No sooner did the latter ascertain that the American
commander-in-chief had moved off with his main force towards the
Highlands, than he sallied from Elizabethtown, five thousand strong,
with a large body of cavalry, and fifteen or twenty pieces of
artillery; hoping not merely to destroy the public stores at
Morristown, but to get possession of those difficult hills and defiles
among which Washington's army had been so securely posted, and which
constituted the strength of that part of the country.

It was early on the morning of the 23d that Knyphausen pushed forward
toward Springfield. Beside the main road which passes directly through
the village toward Morristown, there is another north of it, called
the Vauxhall road, crossing several small streams, the confluence of
which forms the Rahway. These