Princeton had been insulted by predatory American troops in recent months, but the king’s men pillaged with a methodical vengeance, felling apple and pear trees for firewood, burning gristmills, butchering sheep and milk cows, stealing horseshoes from farriers and leather from tanning vats. Nassau Hall at the College of New Jersey was ransacked—the stone cellar became a dungeon—and rare books from Leipzig and Birmingham vanished. “Our army when we lay there spoiled and plundered a good library,” a sergeant in the 49th Foot acknowledged. Farmers in nearby villages were beaten and robbed.
