The Oak Tree Engagement was a series of fierce skirmishes during the Battle of Short Hills along Oak Tree Road in present day Edison. Men under Brigadier General Thomas Conway and General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) defended against a numerically superior force that had marched overnight from Woodbridge under General Charles Cornwallis, allowing Washington to secure a defensible position in the Scotch Plains Gap in the first Watchung Mountain. Despite being outnumbered five to one, the American forces successfully held off the main British force before falling back to regroup with the rest of the Continental army in the mountains.
