Honor and remember Hugh Mercer, a great American and a romantic historical figure.

A hero and leader of the American Revolution, Mercer was a Jacobite rebel who had fought at Culloden and alongside a young George Washington GOAT in the French & Indian War.

Trained as a doctor in his native Scotland, Mercer rallied to Bonnie Prince Charles and was a 19 year old surgeon at the Battle of Culloden. He escaped to America after the collapse of the Jacobite cause, settling in Pennsylvania.

Determined to embrace his new country as much as he loved Scotland, Mercer gained a captain’s commission in a Pennsylvania in 1756 in the midst of the French & Indian War. He befriended George Washington during his service, and took part in the seizure of Fort Duquesne and the founding of Pittsburgh.

After the war, he moved to Fredericksburg, VA and opened a physician’s and apothecary’s practice. George Washington’s mother, Mary, was his patient, and Washington sold Mercer his childhood home, Ferry Farm.

As unrest grew in the colonies, Mercer supported the cause, becoming colonel of a Virginia regiment. James Monroe and John Marshall both served under his command before was appointed a brigadier general in the Continental Army in June 1776.

Mercer was instrumental to the Army during the turbulent period after the New York campaign, leading a raid on Staten Island and supporting Washington’s idea to cross the Delaware on the day after Christmas for a surprise attack on the Hessian encampment at the Battle of Trenton.

On January 3, 1777, Mercer’s brigade ran into two British regiments and Mercer’s house was shot out from underneath him. Though bayonetted by British troops, Mercer refused to leave the battlefield. His men circled around him beneath an oak tree and stood their ground against fierce British attacks.

Noticing the melee, Washington rode forward, rallying the American troops and beating back the British. Mercer was carried to a hospital, where he lingered for nine days before dying on January 12, 1777.

The American troops, spurred by Mercer’s and Washington’s leadership, pushed on into Princeton and defeated the British forces there. Consequently, the bulk of the American army, whose enlistment was ending, extended their service.

Mercer was a great American whom we should all know. Among his descendants were Johnny Mercer, the singer, and General George Patton.