James Caldwell was a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent role in the American Revolution.
James Caldwell graduated from the College of New Jersey (later called Princeton University) and became pastor of the Presbyterian church in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He was an active partisan on the side of the Patriots, and was known as the "Fighting Parson." Both his church and his home were burned by Loyalists in 1780.
While Caldwell was stationed with the army in Morristown, his wife Hannah was killed by British gunfire under disputed circumstances during the Battle of Connecticut Farms in what is now Union Township, an act which Union County immortalizes on their county seal to this day. His wife had been at home with their baby and a 3 year old toddler. As the British moved into Connecticut Farms, Hannah Caldwell was shot through a window as she sat with her children on a bed.
Shortly after Hannah's death, the British engaged the Continental Army at the Battle of Springfield. During the battle the Continentals ran low on the paper wading that was used to pack the powder and ball in the musket. Reverend James Caldwell went to the Springfield Presbyterian Church and came out with as many Isaac Watts hymnals as he could carry. He ran amongst the troops, handing out the hymnals yelling, “Give ‘em Watts, boys!” The Battle of Springfield was the last major engagement in the northern colonies and was a Continental victory.
Caldwell himself was killed a short time later, not by the British or a Loyalist, but by a Continental sentry when Caldwell refused to let the sentry inspect a package. The sentry, James Morgan, was hanged for murder, amid rumors that he had been bribed to kill the chaplain - a distinct possibility given the hatred between Loyalists and Patriots at the time.