Intersection, road through RR underpass and Main Street

After the battles of Trenton and Princeton, the British went into winter quarters in New Brunswick, while the American Army, arriving in Morristown in January of 1777, remained there for the winter. With this disposition of the two opposing forces, there was need to protect the farmers and their property from British raids out of New Brunswick. Accordingly, Washington dispatched General Lincoln with 500 men to Bound Brook. There Lincoln took up a position near the northern approach to the Queen's Bridge and constructed a block house in that vicinity to guard it and the roads leading to it. To afford protection to as many of the inhabitants; as possible, his patrols covered the three river crossings from the
Landing Bridge six miles east to the Van Veghten Bridge four miles to the west.
Learning of this over-extended disposition of Lincoln's force, Lord Cornwallis decided to-attack it. This he successfully accomplished on Palm Sunday, April 13, 1777. On that occasion, with a much superior force, his troops approached in three columns. Evading the American river guards and patrols and converging on the block house from three directions, Cornwallis attacked at daybreak. It was on a quiet Sunday morning, immediately following the Morning gun and the sentry's call, "Six o'clock and all's well."

With little or no time for the Americans to put up any organized resistance, a resort to flight was in the interest of all. Lincoln had scarcely time to mount his horse to get away. By making a rapid retreat to the wooded hills in the rear, his command escaped with a loss of 30 men and some 80 others taken prisoner. However, the following British account lists the losses differently: "Casualties - upward of 100; prisoners taken - 73, among them 1 aide-de-camp, 1 captain, I lieutenant, 70 men, and 1 man in irons who had been sentenced by the rebels to be shot; 3 brass cannon, a quantity of arms, 2 wagons loaded with ammunition, a number of horses, 120 heads of cattle, sheep and hogs, 300 barrels of flour, several hogsheads of whiskey and New England rum, and several other articles that the rebels cannot very well spare."

In either event, the Americans had as yet much to learn of the art of war.