Battle of Springfield & John Basilone

Today in New Jersey history:

June 23, 1780, General Knyphausen made his second incursion of the month into New Jersey in hopes of capturing Hobart’s Gap and Morristown. This time he was supported by diversionary forces to the north. The British column moved through Connecticut farms but was slowed, then halted, in a stiff fight at Springfield, and Knyphausen withdrew once more.

The Battle of Springfield gave rise to a bit of New Jersey folklore, the tale of Reverend James Caldwell, a Patriot pastor whose wife was killed by British fire earlier in the month, handing out Watts hymnals on his church steps to soldiers for use as “wadding” in their muskets while crying “Give 'em Watts boys.” The story is best taken with more than the proverbial grain of salt. Continental soldiers, and by this stage of the war, militiamen as well, came to a fight with prepared musket cartridges including powder and ball wrapped in paper, and would likely have had no need for “wadding.” 

June 23, 1943: United States Marine Corps Sergeant John Basilone, of Raritan, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in Washington. A news report noted that “firing a machine gun and also using a pistol, Basilone piled up 38 Japanese bodies in front of his emplacement on Guadalcanal, October 24th, 25th 1942. He is the son of an Italian-born tailor and has spent more than six years in the U.S. armed forces.”

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