What were people reading in the newspapers on December 24, 1776, as General Washington prepared to send his troops across the Delaware River?
A planted story about Moorestown and surrounding towns, to lull the enemy into feeling safe on Christmas Eve. Learn more here.
The story was factually true that the troops had been in Moorestown on the previous Sunday, but it was the language and spin in the article that were pure strategy.
“(T)he enemy advancing with a considerable reinforcement, supposed to be about two thousand men with seven or eight field pieces, our little army was obliged to retreat (which they performed with great regularity) to preserve their being outflanked by superior numbers; and in the evening they had another skirmish at Mount Holly, …. Our army is at Moorestown, and that of the enemy is at Mount Holly.”
In the 1700s, Slab Town was located in what is now Jacksonville, Springfield Township, Burlington County, NJ. The area. The Black Horse, named after a tavern located there, is now called Columbus, in Mansfield Township, Burlington County, NJ.
