Washington's Immortals
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19. After the battle, the Delaware officer did a roll call. Sipple had deserted and fled.
The Hessian grenadiers made the first attempt to cross, making it about halfway before the American fire stopped them. One militiaman reported, “They continued to advance, though their speed was diminished. And as the column reached the bridge it moved slower and slower until the head of it was gradually pressed nearly over, when our fire became so destructive that they broke their ranks and fled.” The Hessians lost thirty-one men in the attack, and twenty-nine surrendered.
But the defeat didn’t stop the British forces, who again tried to mount an assault on the bridge. “Officers reformed the ranks and again they rushed the bridge, and again was the shower of bullets pushed upon them with redoubled fury,” wrote one of the Americans. “This time the column broke before it reached the center of the bridge.” Elated in their triumph, the Americans raised a cheer at the site of the British retreat. “It was then that our army raised a shout,” recalled one man, “and such a shout I never since heard; by what signal or word of command, I know not. The line was more than a mile in length, and from the nature of the ground the extremes were not in sight of each other, yet they shouted as one man.” Still the Redcoats were undaunted. “They came on a third time,” noted one American artillerist. “We loaded with canister shot and let them come nearer. We fired all together again, and such destruction it made, you cannot conceive.” With that failed attempt, the British withdrew for the night.
The three attempted assaults had left the bridge stained with gore. “The bridge looked red as blood, with their killed and wounded and their red coats,” wrote one American. Another added, “Their dead bodies lay thicker and closer together for a space than I ever beheld sheaves of wheat lying in a field which the reapers had just passed.”
While they held the bridge and the rest of the field, Washington’s men were in grave danger of being encircled and destroyed by Cornwallis’s larger force and the British force about to march down from Princeton. But with nightfall approaching, Cornwallis confidently postponed the main attack and opted to wait till the morning. According to legend, he rebuked one of his officers who insisted that unless they attacked immediately Washington would be gone in the morning. Cornwallis retorted, “We’ve got the old fox safe now. We’ll go over and bag him in the morning.”
1777
Chapter 16
Princeton
In the dead of night on January 2–3, 1777, just hours after the Americans’ second victory in Trenton, a hushed order spread through the camp. As quietly as possible, the men passed the message from one to another: they were moving out once again.
Although the ragtag Patriot force had once again beaten back the British on the banks of Assunpink Creek, remaining near the Delaware would have been perilous. They found themselves backed up against the river with a much larger British force just a few miles away. Washington called together a council of generals to discuss the situation. If they attempted to retreat across the Delaware with the few boats they had available, it was likely that the British would attack before they made it to the other side, potentially destroying or capturing a large portion of the American army. If they stayed where they were, it was almost certain Cornwallis would attack again in the morning. Although they had a good position defending the bridge over Assunpink Creek, the enemy might use one of the fords up- or downstream and flank the Patriot army.
At some point in the debate, someone, perhaps Washington himself, suggested an audacious third plan. Instead of continuing their retreat, they would march north, moving as quietly as possible around the left flank of the British army. They could then strike at Princeton. That New Jersey town had a much smaller garrison of British troops, and with Princeton under American control, the army could move on to New Brunswick, where it could capture some much-needed supplies, including a massive war chest of seventy thousand pounds.
While this plan was appealing, it had a major flaw: a recent thaw made the muddy roads nearly impassable—especially for the artillery. But as night fell, the temperature dropped, freezing the sloppy roads solid. Washington seized the opportunity and roused the men to action. Because the desperate gamble could work only if the enemy remained completely unaware of their movements, the Americans left their campfires burning along the Delaware as they began the long, cold march. “Orders were given in a whisper; muskets were gingerly handled and footfalls lightly planted.” They even went so far as to wrap the wheels of their cannons in pieces of cloth to prevent any noise from reaching the ears of the sleeping enemy.
Though exhausted from the battle of the day before, the Continental Army reached a creek two miles outside Princeton around daybreak; in its wake it left a bloody track of footprints on the icy ground. The frosty weather had transformed the landscape, coating trees, fences, and each blade of grass in sparkling ice. One American officer recalled, “The morning was bright, serene, and extremely cold, with an hoar frost that bespangled every object.” There Washington split his force so they could surround the town from two sides, as well as hold the crossing at the creek in case Cornwallis decided to pursue them. The small group of Marylanders and the Delaware Regiment (at this time reduced to a handful of men commanded by John Haslet) were attached to Hugh Mercer’s brigade, who, along with John Cadwalader’s Philadelphia Associators, were in the vanguard of the attack.
Three British regiments and several troops of dragoons were stationed in Princeton. Most were under orders to march to Trenton in the morning to link up with Cornwallis’s troops. Having set out from Princeton before dawn, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War, was shocked by the sight of the Marylanders and the rest of Mercer’s men as they emerged from the woods. “We drew up on a woody eminence and looked at them for a considerable time,” recalled one of the British soldiers. “Colonel Mawhood had two choices, either to retire back to Princeton, where . . . we might have defended the works about it, or push on to Maidenhead where the 2d Brigade lay.” Mawhood with his initial force of approximately seven hundred men chose to fight. He ordered his troops to drop packs, fix bayonets, and form a line of attack.
Mercer and his men, including the “remaining fragment” of Smallwood’s Maryland Battalion led by Mordecai Gist, “rushed without reconnoitering into a thick planted orchard and were soon surprised to find themselves in the presence of a well [drawn] up line of infantry, with flanking [picket] and two pieces of cannon.”
In the ensuing battle, the British executed a vicious bayonet charge. As they surged forward, they shot Mercer’s horse out from under him and bore down on the Americans. Terrified, Mercer’s men fled, despite their officers’ cries. Now fighting on foot and forsaken by his troops, Mercer drew his sword, but took seven bayonet wounds to the belly and fell. Similarly, Delaware’s intrepid John Haslet, who survived nearly drowning in the icy Delaware during the crossing on December 25, attempted to rally the men until a bullet to the brain killed him instantly.
Now virtually leaderless, the remaining men of the brigade ran for their lives, pursued by the British. At that moment, Cadwalader’s much larger force of twelve hundred Philadelphia Associators arrived on the scene and joined the battle. Cadwalader rode to the front of the line and ordered his men to begin firing when the Redcoats were “too far off.” As they came forward, the Patriots reloaded but soon found themselves within range of the British, whom Mawhood had positioned “so that every man could load and fire incessantly.” Inspired by the Associators, some of Mercer’s men, including the Marylanders, halted their flight and resumed fighting. The few remaining officers—Gist and Steward among them—held the men together at this crucial moment. However, Cadwalader’s front lines quickly broke and “threw the whole in confusion.” The entire Patriot force was soon retreating in disorder.
Seeing the flight of his men, General Washington galloped toward the front lines. Each time he passe
d a group of men, he encouraged them to find their courage and stand their ground, waving his hat to them before moving on. He “expostulated to no purpose,” initially failing to rally the men. Eventually, he rode to within thirty paces of the British lines, presenting a tempting target to the Redcoats. A tremendous volley rang out as enemy marksmen aimed for the general. One of Washington’s aides covered his own eyes with his hat rather than watch, but when the smoke cleared, Washington still remained on his horse, calling on his men to join him in facing the enemy.
“Parade with us, my brave fellows!” he shouted. “There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly.”
His leadership inspired one officer to write home, “O my Susan! It was a glorious day, and I would not have been absent from it for all the money I ever expect to be worth.” The letter continued, “I shall never forget what I felt at Princeton on his account, when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as it were by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself.”
The Patriot forces and Marylanders rallied, and with Washington now directing the battle, soon overcame hundreds of British soldiers, many of whom threw down their arms and ran. Seeing the Redcoats in flight, Cadwalader shouted, “They fly, the day is our own.” Soldiers up and down the line soon echoed his cry and enthusiastically surged toward Princeton in pursuit of the enemy. Fighting alongside Cadwalader’s ranks were about 130 Continental Marines, the predecessors of the U.S. Marine Corps. Like the Marylanders, the unit could trace its origins to a tavern. The men had only recently left their ships. After conducting a raid at Nassau in the Bahamas several months earlier, they were fighting in their first major land engagement, the start of an epic 240-year legacy.
Washington, urging his men to pursue the British, repeated the humiliating battle cry that British troops had shouted when his men fled the field at Harlem Heights:
“It is a fine fox chase, my boys!”
As they progressed, a dismal sight met their eyes. The landscape, which had been glistening white with frost earlier, was now covered in gore. Because the ground was frozen, “all the blood which was shed remained on the surface.”
Alerted by the sound of cannon and gunfire, the British troops remaining in Princeton had positioned themselves for battle in Nassau Hall in today’s Princeton University. The Americans brought a cannon to bear and fired into the building, forcing the bulk of the Redcoats to surrender. Washington’s desperate plan to escape Cornwallis’s force at Trenton and seize Princeton had succeeded.
Although the Americans were as poorly equipped as ever, the victory raised the spirits of the men and the entire country. One Maryland private recalled the two victories at Trenton and Princeton: “Gen’l Washington . . . gained a victory, taking a great many prisoners, with the loss of but few men. My regiment and company was in this engagement, and done their duty. I remember, that this active and unexpected movement of Washington’s raised the spirits of the soldiers and people.”
For the British, the twin debacles at Trenton and Princeton ended the notion that the rebellion was nearly broken. Word of the victories spread worldwide and ended the assumption that amateur citizen-soldiers who just months earlier had been farmers, bakers, and blacksmiths could not defeat the most highly trained and experienced regulars in the world. Even Prussian King Frederick the Great sent his praise: “The achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots between the 25th of December and the 4th of January, were the most brilliant of any record in the annals of military achievements.”
Trenton and Princeton had changed the tempo of the war; now Washington seized the initiative. Instead of pursuing a defeated American army, the Redcoats heard rumors of new threats: an army of American troops (the corps formerly led by the recently captured Charles Lee) advanced from Morristown, and New Jersey militiamen harassed supply lines among the few fortified garrisons. Misinformation planted by Washington led the British to believe the American armies were bigger than their own. William Howe’s plan of offering pardons to Americans to attempt to win over the population of New Jersey was also severely damaged. Hessian Jaeger Captain Johann Ewald summed up the mood: “Thus had times changed! The Americans had constantly run before us. Four weeks ago we expected to end the war. . . . Now we had to render Washington the honor of thinking about our defense.”
After holding the field at Princeton, Washington pursued small elements of Mawhood’s routed troops about three miles toward New Brunswick. As he did many times during the Revolution, Washington called a council of war from the back of his saddle. He decided to give up the chase and also the prize: a war chest valued at seventy thousand pounds sterling, supplies, arms, and money stored in New Brunswick. Washington lamented that if he had only six or eight hundred more fresh troops they might have been able to take the town. But the men were exhausted.
Rather than push his luck and risk an engagement where he was outnumbered, Washington decided to continue on to the safety of the hills and broken wooded ground around Morristown, New Jersey, a small village containing “a church, a tavern, and about fifty houses of the better sort.” It was a prudent decision: Cornwallis had surmised that Washington was headed toward New Brunswick and was preparing to fight. Morristown, by contrast, represented a temporary haven. It rested on a high plateau with steep slopes on two sides. A natural fortress, its only approach was from the east through small, treacherous passages. Notably, the earlier harvest from the rich farmland that surrounded the area could sustain the army. In addition, the town’s location would allow the Continentals to move quickly if Howe advanced toward Philadelphia or the Hudson River.
Not long after reaching Morristown, Gist and the surviving Marylanders made the long trek home toward Baltimore. The officers needed to recruit men to refill the ranks. But first they had to crush an insurrection. Loyalists, including wealthy plantation owner James Chalmers, had revolted, creating an insurgency within the state. One of the Maryland delegates to the Continental Congress reported, “The Tories in Sussex [Delaware], Somerset and Worcester Counties, have been assembling for some days. They have 250 men collected at Parker’s Mill, about nine miles from Salisbury, and ’tis reported they have three field pieces, which they received from the Roebuck [a British warship], with some men, with intention to seize the Magazine and destroy the property of the Whiggs.”
Gist, William Smallwood, and a force of more than two thousand men marched to the Eastern Shore to quash the rebellion and imprison its leaders. The Maryland Assembly claimed that the region had set up “an armed force, and by erecting the standard of the king of Great Britain have invited the . . . enemy into their country.” The size of the Patriot force dispersed the Loyalists, forcing them underground. Through the authority of the Council of Safety, Smallwood offered the local inhabitants (except the fourteen leaders of the revolt) a full pardon if they gave up their arms and took an oath of loyalty. Only 287 people accepted the deal. Smallwood’s force captured a few of the leaders, but most, including Chalmers, got away and bided their time, waiting for the arrival of the British.
Eventually, some of these Loyalists formed the 1st Loyalist Maryland Regiment, a smaller mirror image of Smallwood’s Battalion, which at its peak included 336 men. During this phase of the Revolution, they were busy aiding the British in whatever ways they could. For example, Chalmers served as a spy for the Crown and participated in “their ravaging and plundering Parties.” He helped them secure horses and cows by seizing them from nearby farms. Another wealthy Eastern Shore landowner not only sold his own cattle to the British; he offered to let his neighbors keep their livestock in his fields “for protection” and then sold the lot of them to the British and “got for them a very large bagg of Gold.” And Maryland Loyalist Robert Alexander, a former member of the Continental Congress, went so far as to offer his home to General Howe for use as a headquarters.
Men weren’t the only ones who joined the Loyalist cause; Elizabeth Woodward claimed to have fought alongside her husband. She said that she was wounded in the leg while helping to fire shipboard cannon in a naval battle. Her fairly unbelievable tales also include helping her husband and twenty-two other men escape imprisonment. When the Patriots caught up with her, one shot her in the left arm, “but, undismayed, [she] took a loaded firelock and shot the rebel.” By her account, she then stole the dead American’s horse and sold it to one of the British officers. The Loyalist fervor in sections of Maryland continued to ferment for some time to come, but in the short term, Smallwood and Gist had helped tamp down the Loyalists’ activities.
In December 1776 Congress had called on each of the colonies to raise regiments based on its population. Maryland was required to furnish seven regiments, and Smallwood and Gist set about recruiting the necessary men. Congress promised those who signed up twenty dollars in cash, plus “a suit of clothes yearly” and one hundred acres of land to be awarded when the war was over. Despite the bounty, officers found it difficult to sign up recruits. Initially, six Maryland regiments took the field, with the veterans from the cadets and Smallwood’s Battalion forming the cadre of each regiment. Gist led the 2nd Regiment; Smallwood retained command of the 1st. Although he had been in British captivity in New York City, Otho Holland Williams also led one of the regiments—at least on paper. John Eager Howard accepted a commission as a major in the 4th Maryland Regiment, where he was joined by newly minted Lieutenant William Beatty, and captains Jack Steward, Nathaniel Ramsay, and Samuel Smith.