As the sun set on Christmas Day, Washington’s army, including Mordecai Gist and the bedraggled remnants of Smallwood’s Battalion, made its way toward the Delaware River. Once again, the unflappable John Glover and his Marblehead Mariners, who had orchestrated the brilliant East River crossing, led the amphibious operation to cross the river. Asked if the plan was doable, Glover confidently reassured Washington “not to be troubled about that as his boys could manage it.”
Washington settled on a complicated plan to envelop Rall’s garrison. Four independent columns would attack the town. He placed the Marylanders under the command of General Hugh Mercer, a Scottish army physician who had fled to Pennsylvania after the British defeated the Scottish, or Jacobite, uprising of 1745. They would be part of the main force, which would cross at McConkey’s Ferry. Once ashore on the other side, the group of twenty-four hundred men would split into two columns. Farther south, two additional forces would cross the river below Trenton—one led by Colonel John Cadwalader of the Philadelphia Associators (a militia unit inspired by Ben Franklin in 1747 to defend Philadelphia) and the other by Brigadier General James Ewing, who commanded elements of the Pennsylvania militia. Although Washington did not know it, neither Cadwalader’s nor Ewing’s force would cross that night because the icy conditions made the river impassable.
The water had begun to freeze near the shore, and even sections in the center of the river were covered in ice. Yet the men followed their general without complaint. Henry Wells recalled that after the men reached the assembly point and before they boarded the boats, “our General halted his Army and raising on his stirrups made us such an animating speech that we forgot the cold, the hunger and the toil under which we were ready to sink and each man seemed only to be anxious for the onset. The Snow & Slush ice covered the firm ice in the River, yet when our brave commander gave the word and turned his horse’s head across the stream, no one complained or held back, but all plunged in emulous who should next touch the Jersey shore after our beloved.”
By 11:00 p.m., a harsh storm pelted the men with snow, sleet, and biting wind as they crossed the Delaware in flat-bottomed ferry boats and Durham boats. The Durham boats were between forty and sixty feet long and unique to the region. They usually transported freight. Each of the boats could hold forty men—if they stood shoulder to shoulder as the small craft made the treacherous eight-hundred-foot journey. For the troops, many of whom could not swim, falling over the side would likely have meant death in the icy currents. At least one man did fall: Delaware Colonel John Haslet plunged into the icy river and was quickly fished out. Despite the risk of frostbite and hypothermia, the indefatigable Haslet and the Continental Army pressed on.
General Adam Stephen’s Virginia Continentals were the first to make the dangerous crossing that night, followed immediately by General Mercer’s brigade, which included most of the Marylanders. Marylander John Boudy, who was with Jack Steward and Gist, made the crossing “but thinly clad, and entirely barefoot all the while.” He added, “The winter was now sitting in, and extremely cold.” The Delaware Regiment and the rest of Lord Stirling’s men came in the next group. Washington reported that the men experienced the “greatest fatigue” when “breaking a passage” through the solid ice. Much of the hard work was handled by the Marbleheaders, who manned the long poles used to propel the boats across the ice-packed river.
Miraculously, the Americans didn’t lose a single soldier in the crossing. However, the storm had put them far behind their original timetable. Washington had planned to have everyone over the river by midnight, but his army wasn’t reassembled on the far side of the Delaware until nearly four in the morning. Not knowing that the other troops hadn’t made it across, Washington ordered his exhausted, shivering men to proceed at once on the nine-mile march to Trenton.
Through snow and sleet driven nearly horizontal by the punishing winds, the men and horses trudged through drifts and slid across the icy roads. As always, the Americans were poorly equipped, and few had clothing equal to the conditions. “Many of our poor soldiers are quite barefoot and ill clad,” wrote one of the officers on the scene. “Their route was easily traced, as there was a little snow on the ground, which was tinged here and there with blood from the feet of the men who wore broken shoes.” Another officer remarked that the men bore the hardship well. “It will be a terrible night for the soldiers who have no shoes,” he noted. “Some of them have tied old rags around their feet; others are barefoot, but I have not heard a man complain.” Boudy recalled, “Our Army was destitute of shoes and clothing — . . . It was snowing at this time and the night was unusually stormy. Several of our men froze to death.” Not wanting to lose any more of his troops, Washington shouted encouragement to the men: “Soldiers, keep by your officers. For God’s sake, keep by your officers!”
As they neared their goal, word came from General John Sullivan that the ammunition had become so wet from the storm that the Patriot guns would no longer fire. But by that time, Washington had little choice but to continue with the battle plan. “Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton,” he told the messenger. Throughout the night, the commander in chief remained determined and resolute; adversity brought forth his best qualities. “Press on! Press on, boys!” he shouted as he rode up and down the line encouraging his men.
Washington’s plan called for the Americans to split apart and attack both sides of the city simultaneously. For once, things went according to plan. The Americans arrived on the outskirts of Trenton just before eight o’clock in the morning.
Thanks to the reduced visibility from the storm, they approached within two hundred yards before the sentries sounded the cry, “Der Feind! Heraus! Heraus!” (The enemy! Turn out! Turn out!)
Mercer’s brigade, including the Marylanders, was moving down a hill along the west side of the town, entering the village through the house lots and alleys. Shots were fired, and the Americans charged, some yelling, “These are the times that try men’s souls!” as their battle cry. The Hessians, disorganized, fell back from the onslaught that seemed to come from all around them. Small groups clashed throughout the city in the house-to-house fighting. Soon smoke from the cannons and muskets filled the streets and, combined with the continuing storm, added to the murk and confusion.
Very quickly after entering Trenton, Washington’s army captured several Hessian artillery pieces. In the thick of the fighting, Rall ordered his men to retake the guns because their loss was considered a dishonor to the regiment.
With drums beating, Rall shouted, “All who are my grenadiers forward!”
By this time, the Americans had infiltrated the entire city, and marksmen took up secure positions in houses and behind fences from which they could pick off the enemy fighters. The American artillery was commanded by Bostonion Colonel Henry Knox, the corpulent former bookseller who had miraculously transported sixty tons of heavy artillery some three hundred miles from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor in the winter of 1775–1776. Knox concentrated his artillery and continued to pummel the oncoming Hessians. The mercenaries reclaimed their guns—but at great cost. Knox later wrote, “Here succeeded a scene of war, of which I had often conceived but never saw before.” Another participant captured the macabre melee: “My blood chill’d to see such horror and distress, blood mingling together, the dying groans, and ‘Garments’ rolled in ‘blood’ the sight was too much to bear.”
After his guns had been recaptured, Rall tried to rally his men. Acting on faulty intelligence, he assumed that his only escape route, a bridge across Assunpink Creek (a tributary of the Delaware River that flows through Trenton), had been blocked by the Americans. Elements of Rall’s, Knyphausen’s, and Lossberg’s regiments attempted to make a stand, but Rall eventually ordered them to retreat through an orchard to the southeast. At that moment, two bullets struck the Hessian commander in the side. Mortally wounded, he
“reeled in the saddle.” His men attempted to evade the Patriot forces, but the Americans pursued them. On horseback, Washington led the attack, urging the Marylanders and his other troops forward, shouting, “March on, my brave fellows, after me!”
Hit from three sides, the Hessians, now leaderless, lowered their guns and their flags around 9:00 a.m. in a sign of surrender. Washington had just ordered another cannonade when the officer in charge of the field pieces informed him, “Sir, they have struck.”
“Struck!” replied the general.
“Yes, their colours are down.”
“So they are,” he replied, spurring his horse forward to meet with the enemy. The two groups greeted each other and “after satisfying their curiosity a little, they began to converse familiarly in broken English and German.”
Washington made sure the Hessian prisoners were treated humanely, stating, “[Prisoners] should have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of of our unfortunate brethen.” Through Washington’s leadership, the Continental strategy and tactics generally aligned with principles of the Revolution. This democratic army of amateur citizen-soldiers followed a code of conduct that John Adams called a “policy of humanity.” This policy governed everything from the way soldiers were supposed to treat civilians to giving quarter to enemy combatants who had surrendered—treating them with respect and not just executing them, as the British often did. To a large degree, these policies were followed in the northern department of the war (but not always in the South). Often these practices were diametrically opposed to the Crown’s way of treating prisoners.
Word of the surrender soon spread to the men still positioned throughout Trenton. A huge shout shook the town as the triumphant Americans threw their hats into the air and cheered the victory. In short order, they found forty hogsheads of rum and cracked them open. One observer noted the drunken rabble: “With [Hessian] brass caps on it was laughable to see how our soldiers would strut, fellows with their elbows out, and some without a collar to their half-a-shirt, no shoes, etc.” By the time Washington found out about the alcohol and ordered the casks destroyed, “the soldiers drank too freely to admit of Discipline or Defense.” Washington had intended to continue his push forward and to attack Princeton and New Brunswick after Trenton, but these plans for a further offensive had be be scotched owing to the state of the army. The victorious yet drunken men rowed back across the icy Delaware. The blizzard continued to rage, and this crossing was even more treacherous than the first, costing the lives of three men. It was noon the next day before all the Americans got back to their camp, some having been awake and fighting against the elements and the enemy for fifty hours. The next morning more than a thousand reported unfit for duty.
The Americans had killed 22 Hessians, severely wounded 84, and taken 896 prisoner, while suffering few losses of their own. Equally important, they had captured “as many muskets, bayonets, cartouche boxes and swords,” as well as the artillery, swelling their supplies. Washington ordered his men to treat the prisoners honorably. He even spoke to the Hessian commander, who lay dying in a nearby church. By Washington’s report to Congress, the American casualties were “very trifling indeed, only two officers and one or two privates wounded.” In actuality, more than that had perished from the harsh weather conditions.
The Americans had won a great victory, but they had little time for rest. Washington hadn’t intended to fight again in Trenton so soon, but actions taken by John Cadwalader and his Philadelphia Associators forced his hand. Unable to make it across the river on Christmas night, the Associators and other units tried again on December 27 and successfully made it into Trenton. The Americans now had about three thousand men stranded on the New Jersey side of the river, where they were vulnerable to the approaching enemy. Making matters worse, the enlistment period for the bulk of Washington’s men expired on New Year’s Day. Washington mustered his oratorical prowess and appealed to the men to continue fighting. “My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected,” he began. “But your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear. . . . If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.”
Moved by the general’s words and his “most affectionate manner,” the majority of the men decided to continue fighting. Washington once again ordered them to load up on boats and cross the icy Delaware River on December 30.
On January 2, 1777, the American army girded for Cornwallis’s counterattack, which it knew was on the way. The army camped on the banks of Assunpink Creek. Cornwallis was on his way to the city, leading a force of fifty-five hundred men with twenty-eight cannons; he left another force of about fifteen hundred men to guard Princeton. A bridge crossing the Assunpink was all that divided the two armies.
“Defend the bridge to the last extremity!” Washington ordered his officers in the hearing of the British nearby.
Colonel Charles Scott of the Virginia Regiment uttered a “tremendous oath,” before agreeing, “To the last man, excellency.”
On the other side of the creek, a small force of riflemen led by Pennsylvania’s Colonel Edward Hand was skirmishing with the enemy, buying time for the rest of the Americans to dig in at the creek and cover the key crossing points, including an all-important narrow wooden bridge, one of only a few nearby ways to get over the creek. Behind them, the nearly frozen Delaware River cut off any hope of retreat—and they had no boats for crossing even if it had been possible. In front of them, a much larger force of British and Hessian troops was inexorably approaching. Spoiling for revenge, the Hessian officers ordered their men to take no prisoners. The Patriots’ only hope was to hold their ground.
Though it had won a great victory in the very same place just a few days before, the American army now found itself in the grip of despair. “This was the most awful crisis,” wrote one of the officers present, “no possible chance of crossing the River; ice as large as houses floating down, and no retreat to the mountains, the British between us and them.” Another echoed the same sentiment, recalling, “If there ever was a crisis in the affairs of the Revolution, this was the moment; thirty minutes would have sufficed to bring the two armies into contact, and thirty more would have decided the combat; and, covered with woe, Columbia might have wept the loss of her beloved chief and most valorous sons.”
As the Virginians, Marylanders, and other men in Washington’s army waited on the banks of the creek, the situation looked dire. With the British bearing down on them, Washington’s army was in grave danger of being destroyed. One private summed up the situation: “On one hour, yes, on forty minutes, commencing at the moment when the British troops first saw the bridge and creek before them, depended the all-important, the all-absorbing question whether we should be independent States, or conquered rebels!”
On the bank of the Assunpink, Washington carefully arranged his troops, including the Marylanders, so that his most trusted veteran Continentals, with the invaluable artillery pieces, guarded the likeliest crossing places. He interspersed the less reliable militia among the regulars to bolster their courage and prevent gaps in the line. At the key bridge were Scott and his Virginians and the Marylanders led by Gist and Stone. Before the battle began, Scott gave his men a few last words of instruction:
Well, boys, you know the old boss has put us here to defend this bridge; and by God it must be done, let what will come. Now I want to tell you one thing. You’re all in the habit of shooting too high. You waste your powder and lead, and I have cursed you about it a hundred times. Now I tell you what it is, nothing must be wasted, every crack must count. For that reason boys, whenever you see them fellows first begin to put their feet upon this bridge do you shin ’em. Take care now and fire low. Bring down your pieces, fire at thei
r legs, one man Wounded in the leg is better [than] a dead one for it takes two more to carry him off and there is three gone. Leg them dam ’em I say leg them.
Washington himself also stayed near the bridge. The men in Colonel Hand’s harassing force could no longer hold their position and were falling back slowly to join the rest of the defense. As Hand’s men approached the bridge, pursued by the enemy, the general’s calm composure gave hope to the soldiers. One private later wrote,
The noble horse of Gen. Washington stood with his breast pressed close against the end of the west rail of the bridge, and the firm, composed, and majestic countenance of the General inspired confidence and assurance in a moment so important and critical. In this passage across the bridge it was my fortune to be next to the west rail, and arriving at the end of the bridge rail, I was pressed against the shoulder of the general’s horse and in contact with the general’s boot. The horse stood as firm as the rider, and seemed to understand that he was not to quit his post and station.
The British attack on the bridge followed swiftly on the heels of Hand’s arrival. Cannons fired a punishing volley from both sides of the creek. Cornwallis sent probing attacks up and down the line of the Assunpink, but the bulk of his assault fell on the bridge.
An officer in the Delaware Regiment recalled one of the assaults on the bridge: “The enemy came down in a very heavy column to force the bridge. The fire was very heavy, and the light troops were ordered to fly to the support of that important post, and as we drew near, I stepped out to the front to order the men to close up; at this time Martinas Sipple was about ten steps behind the man in front of him; I at once drew my sword and threatened to cut his head off if he did not keep close, he then sprang forward and I returned to the front. The enemy were soon defeated.”19
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