At one o'clock in the morning Washington had silently withdrawn his army from Trenton, and made his way, along a new road, * toward Princeton, ten miles distant. This circuitous route was taken to avoid a detachment of the enemy lying at Maidenhead, on the direct road to Princeton. The baggage was sent down to Burlington. The commander-in-chief ordered his camp-fires to be kept burning, and the patrols to march their accustomed rounds until near daylight, when those who fed the flames, and also the patrols, were directed to retreat hastily to the main body. The movement was made with great skill and order, for the pickets of both armies on the Assanpink were within speaking distance of each other when the fires were lighted and the guards set. Proceeding by the way of Sandtown (see map on page 228), Washington reached the upper bridge over Stony Brook, near Princeton, a little before sunrise, and arranged his column near the Quaker meeting-house. A brigade of the enemy, under Lieutenant-colonel Mawhood, consisting of the seventeenth, fortieth, and fifty-fifth regiments, with three troops of dragoons, had quartered in Princeton the previous night; and at the moment of Washington's arrival, two of the regiments had commenced their march for Trenton, to re-enforce Cornwallis. The main body of the Americans, after crossing Stony Brook, wheeled to the right, and advanced cautiously along a by-road, through low grounds, directly for Princeton. General Mercer, having under him Captains Stone, Fleming, Neal and others, with about three hundred and fifty men, many of them youths belonging to the first families in Philadelphia, was detached to take possession of the lower bridge at Worth's Mill, on the old highway to Trenton. This movement had a three-fold object; the securing of the bridge, the interception of fugitives from Princeton, and the checking of any retrograde movement of the rear of Cornwallis's army. It was an exceedingly clear, cold, and brilliant morning; every thing was jeweled with the hoar frost. As the Americans emerged from behind a piece of woods a little south of the Quaker meeting-house, their arms glittering in the bright sun, they were discovered by the seventeenth regiment of the enemy, then under march upon a hill (now Millett's) on the old Trenton road. Washington observed the enemy at the same moment, and both commanders prepared for an encounter. Mawhood wheeled both his regiments and recrossed the bridge, just as Mercer, by a quick movement, reached it. Both parties, by rapid evo-