As he had written to dignified Robert Morris on Christmas Day and just before crossing the Delaware, Washington was determined that for a beleaguered America, whose fortunes had sunk to her lowest depths, “the next Christmas [1777] will prove happier than the present” one.10 And this was now only possible by marching on and overwhelming Trenton. Ironically, at the war’s beginning in a letter, he had promised wife Martha Custis Washington (their eighteenth wedding anniversary was next month) at Mount Vernon that he would be home by Christmas 1775, believing that the conflict would be short.11 But the war’s harsh realities had changed Washington’s hopes and ambitions, and had even brought the nagging fear that the British planned on “seizing Mrs. Washington by way of revenge upon me.”12
Like some ghostly aberration appearing suddenly out of the sheet of snow and sleet, the commander-in-chief rode among his troops, speaking encouraging words to lift sagging spirits. As never before, Washington inspired his band of soldiers, who keenly felt the gnawing cold, by his dominant commanding presence and indomitability of his single-minded, if not stubborn, purpose to see the job through to the end. He now readied his troops for their greatest challenge to date in a classic case of do or die. More than ever before, Washington was determined out of “dire necessity” to proceed onward through the eye of the raging storm, and toward the potential promised land of Trenton to reverse his infant republic’s fate. Most of all, he was determined that the British would never “put Shackles upon Freeman,” in his own defiant words that he was now determined to back up with desperate action. As throughout this campaign, Washington continued to be resilient, adaptive, and creative.
Fortunately, Washington had already benefitted immensely from British and Hessian leadership failures on multiple levels, increasing his overall chances for success. Ironically, Washington had gained the Delaware’s east bank undetected in part because Colonel Rall’s repeated appeals to his superiors had been ignored. Rall had wisely requested General Alexander Leslie, on December 20, to garrison the hamlet of Maidenhead (today’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey), on the Princeton Road just northeast Trenton, with a small force, but more importantly to patrol Johnson’s Ferry, and Howell’s Ferry, to the south and located about half-way between Johnson’s Ferry and Trenton: an advanced warning system for the Trenton garrison.
Other experienced Hessian officers at Trenton likewise had early understood the urgent need to guard Johnson’s Ferry. Major Johann Jost, or Justus, Matthaeus, Rall Regiment, had informed Rall that Pennington, northeast of Johnson’s Ferry but located closer to the ferry than Maidenhead, should be “held by a detachment from which there could be detailed scouts to John’s [Johnson’s] ferry and in this manner they could watch the movements of the enemy.” However, Rall’s request to occupy Maidenhead was not only not acted upon, but also was openly mocked by General Leslie, at Princeton, for his timely, on-target strategic insights.
An experienced commander, Rall had been so firmly convinced of the urgent need to guard Johnson’s Ferry that he had even gone over the heads of Leslie and thirty-six-year-old Colonel Carl Emilius Ulrich von Donop, a wealthy German aristocrat of ability, by again requesting, also on December 20 but this time to General James Grant at New Brunswick, that reliable guardians should be positioned at this strategic location. Once again, Rall was not only ignored but also ridiculed. A member of England’s upper class and a career soldier, Grant was convinced that Washington possessed neither leadership skill nor offensive capabilities. Therefore, Johnson’s Ferry and the Delaware’s east bank was left entirely unguarded, without so much as a single mounted picket who could have sounded an early warning of Washington’s movements to the Trenton garrison.
In preparation for the march of nearly ten miles ahead in utter darkness, meanwhile, Washington hoped that his troops had now gained some extra warmth and vitality for the upcoming arduous demands. After all, to fulfill Washington’s demanding requirements, these soldiers now had to march onward for the night’s remainder in a raging storm. Therefore, the remaining reserves of strength of these ragtag revolutionaries needed to be conserved. Fortunately, Washington’s decision for his men to warmup by erecting bonfires paid dividends in the hours ahead. After the soldiers rested for about an hour and braced for an unprecedented degree of adversity and challenges, Washington ordered his sleepless troops into column just before 4:00 a.m.
It was nearly a full hour since the last of Knox’s artillery had been ferried across the river at around 3:00 a.m. By this time, Washington’s timetable was already nearly four hours behind schedule. He had originally planned to strike Trenton an hour before daylight at around 5:00 a.m. And he was yet nearly ten miles from his objective, while the energy-sapping northeaster had yet to reach its full fury. Consequently, Washington’s key to victory, the element of surprise, seemed to have been lost for good, but relatively few individuals, especially the determined commander-in-chief, thought about turning back.
Galloping up and down the lengthy column and through the snow flakes gently falling upon his dark military cloak, Washington “formed my Detachment into two divisions.” He then carefully checked his infantry and artillery units, making sure that everything was in its proper place and ready for the long march to Trenton. In a hurry to resume the march, Washington bestowed last-minute advice and instructions, before ordering the column to move out. After having made sure that heavy knapsacks and packs fit snugly to backs, Washington’s troops finally began to lurch forward through the cascading snow. With Stephen’s 549-man brigade of three Virginia regiments leading the way, Greene’s lengthy column of Second Division troops began to push east from the high ground plateau just above the Johnson Ferry House, marching through the driving showers of sleet and snow around 4:00 p.m. Consisting of veterans, Mercer’s Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts brigade advanced just behind Stephen’s Virginians, while Stirling’s brigade, of four regiments, followed the Scotland-born Mercer, the former Jacobite rebel now in his second revolt against British rule and domination.
As carefully arranged by Washington, Greene’s Second Division was followed by Sullivan’s First Division. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Matthias-Alexis Roche de Fermoy’s brigade of two regiments (638 men) brought up the rear of Greene’s Division. All the while, the omnipresent blackness and the biting cold wrapped up the slowly marching troops in a wintry shroud that seemed almost like an eternal tomb. As if pulled onward by some unseen, irresistible force, Washington’s soldiers were drawn deeper into the night’s haunting darkness amid winter’s icy grip, surging toward the enticing, but elusive, vision of a brighter day for America’s fortunes in the future. With well-worn flintlock muskets on shoulders, the veteran Continentals ventured farther into an alien countryside of dense woodlands engulfed in a snowy blackness, marching farther away from that nightmarish river known as the Delaware.13
Washington had just concluded an impromptu commander’s conference with his top lieutenants right before 4:00 a.m. inside the cozy Johnson Ferry House, where yellow flames from stone fireplaces warmed the small, plain wooden structure, with snow-covered roof, that retained the heat. Here, as an added precaution, Washington went over his final plans one last time to clarify missions in order to avoid any possible confusion about specific assignments and responsibilities. For Washington’s daring battle-plan to succeed this morning, the commander-in-chief’s top officers must now all be thinking the same way, with exact details firmly set in place and mind. After all, this little vagabond army could no longer afford any mistakes, bungling, or confusion as had occurred so often in the past.
To enhance the probability of his two columns striking Trenton simultaneously in a pincer movement from two different directions an hour before daylight, Washington ordered his leading officers to set their pocketwatches by his own watch. From the tiny village of Derby (named for a river and market town in England), Connecticut and founded in 1642 at the site of an Indian trading post in the Lower Naugatuck Valley and whose lofty legal am
bitions had ended abruptly with the “shots heard around the world” at Lexington, after recently having been admitted to the bar, the enterprising Captain William Hull served in Glover’s Brigade. Having attended Yale University with Nathan Hale—and who had earlier served in the ranks beside the promising young man—Hull was a respected officer of the Nineteenth Connecticut Continental Regiment. To ensure a synchronized offensive effort from Washington’s two divisions, the New Englander wrote how: “The General gave orders that every Officer’s Watch should be set by his, and the Moment of Attack was fixed.”14
Meanwhile, the two advanced parties of around forty dependable soldiers each of Captains Washington and Flahaven’s companies from two widely separated states that represented north and south, New Jersey and Virginia, continued to lead the way. Out in front of the head of Greene’s Second Division column, both contingents advanced in single file on opposite sides of the narrow road. Given dual key independent assignments by Washington, each advanced party continued to act independently ahead of the main column with instructions to establish secure points about three miles from Trenton and setup roadblocks on the two main roads leading to Trenton from the north. Armed with trusty hunting rifles, the battle-hardened westerners of Captain Washington’s contingent of Third Virginia Continental Regiment soldiers pushed east from the windswept plateau with the initial objective of first gaining the Bear Tavern Road, before turning and then moving south in the hope of securing blocking points north of Trenton.
Meanwhile, Captain Flahaven’s Jersey men, who were rookies, but highly-motivated soldiers and knew Hunterdon County well, trudged through the undisturbed snow with the equally important mission of eventually gaining the head of the River Road, where it met the Bear Tavern Road. Each advanced band of Continental soldiers surged onward at a steady pace to fulfill their orders and confirm Washington’s confidence in them.
Washington’s choice to assign a raw detachment of New Jersey men, under Captain Flahaven, on such a vital mission seemed like a questionable decision at first glance. However, what especially comforted Washington was the fact that these Jersey Continentals were eager to redeem their home state from enemy occupation, and that they were now led a most reliable captain, John Flahaven. In his late forties, Flahaven was proud of his Irish roots that included a revolutionary legacy against the hated English. His widowed father, Roger Flahaven, had migrated from Ireland’s green shores to Philadelphia with his six children, including young John, in 1728.
His devout Catholic family faithfully worshiped God and Ireland’s patron saint, St. Patrick, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, located on Fourth Street between Spruce and Walnut, Philadelphia, and not far from where the Declaration of Independence had been signed at Carpenter’s Hall, when America’s fortunes were so much brighter. Here, at the city’s first Catholic cathedral, built in 1763, many of Philadelphia’s leading Catholics worshiped with a quiet devotion. John’s father remarried a woman, perhaps an Irish immigrant as well, named Catherine in 1768, and their daughter Bridget, John’s half sister, was born in 1771, while John prospered as a thrifty Philadelphia merchant. With his Irish Catholicism faith having long thrived among family and neighbors at St. Mary’s Church, Captain Flahaven was now a holy warrior. As fate would have it, this promising Ireland-born Continental officer would be captured by British troops not long after the battle of Trenton.15
Meanwhile, Washington’s most rearward troops began to move out, following the foremost men in the silent ranks of America’s most faithful, resilient soldiers. After all their intense labor in rowing and poling the lumbering Durham boats across the Delaware for most of the night, Glover and his exhausted mariners received little rest. Worn-out Massachusetts officers barked out “Shoulder your firelocks,” and the weary Marbleheaders of Glover’s brigade (Washington’s largest brigade with 1,259 men) formed in line with their comrades just behind Colonel Sargent’s New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts brigade and before St. Clair’s New England brigade amid Sullivan’s lengthy divisional column with well-honed precision, as if performing maneuvers on the town’s training ground of Windmill Hill, which overlooked Marblehead harbor’s sparkling waters of blue. With Colonel Glover at the regiment’s head, the Fourteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment’s soldiers, stiff and sore, moved off within the cramped column of Sullivan’s First Division. With leather cartridge-boxes full of sixty rounds, Major Lee’s versatile Marbleheaders were prepared to fight on land as infantrymen now that their back-breaking amphibious mariner duties were finally over, much to their relief.
Exhausted from assisting Glover’s seamen in the hours-long crossing, Lieutenant Cuthbert’s contingent of young Philadelphia artillerymen of Captain Moulder’s company, consisting of a number of urban dandies with fine uniforms and fancy educations, but far more tough Scotch-Irishmen from the city’s seedy, rough-and-tumble waterfront district, moved out with their fellow Pennsylvania artillerymen. Delighted to be reunited with their four-pounders imported from France and Moulder’s other cannoneers, the Pennsylvania artillerymen now pushed forward with their “four long French” guns not far from Glover’s Massachusetts regiment, when the troops of Sullivan’s First Division column lurched ahead through the falling snow.
From their strenuous crossing efforts, the backs, arms, and shoulders of Glover’s mariners, like Cuthbert’s Philadelphia gunners, were racked by pain and soreness. Despite their mind-numbing weariness and aching muscles, the Marbleheaders marched over the frozen ground with a slightly different step from the landlubbers, without whistling merrily or singing traditional seafaring songs on this night of sheer misery. To the astonishment of one and all, Washington’s order for complete silence was respected and faithfully maintained hour after hour. Amid the cold gloom of Hunterdon County’s dark woodlands covered in a white, wintry blanket that was impenetrable, some of Glover’s men no doubt thought of the comforting memories of the beloved Marblehead, now three hundred miles away, which was one of the most beautiful ports in all New England, especially in the summer and early fall.16
Descending across gently sloping ground and initially straight east from the high plateau above Johnson’s Ferry, Washington’s troops continued to inch onward across unfamiliar terrain. In a December 27 letter, one of Washington’s officers described the suffering of the men in the ranks, from the highest ranking officer to the lowest private: “That night was sleety and cold and the roads slippery” in the darkness, resulting a slow, tedious march, while more precious time was lost to Washington.17
To avoid confusion in the blackened New Jersey woodlands through which the little road ran, Washington assigned a number of reliable guides, including trusty, local volunteers, who had recently joined his strike force upon learning of the river crossing, not only at the column’s head but also before each brigade, as an added precaution. Almost as if Washington was anticipating even more of the worst weather yet seen this winter in the Delaware River Valley, his farsighted calculation guaranteed that no combat brigade would wander off course, take the wrong road, or get lost amid the dense, uncharted woodlands in the storm’s limited visibility and the pitch blackness.
These reliable, local New Jersey men, such as John Muirhead, John Mott, an enterprising officer from Gates’s northern army who had been recruiting in this part of the Garden State for the New Jersey Continental Line, David Laning, and John Guild volunteered their services at considerable risk to themselves and their families, especially if Washington lost his risky gamble at Trenton. Out in front of the slogging troops who almost looked more like snowmen than soldiers, these knowledgeable mounted guides, whose well-shod horses, evidently with ice-horseshoes to cope with icy conditions, galloped down the road, leading Washington’s soldiers northeast and ever-deeper into the stormy woodlands.18
From the plateau just east of the Johnson Ferry House, Washington’s troops marched first east and then mostly northeast along the barely discernable Johnson’s Ferry Road. Now covered in a sheet of ice and
snow, this narrow artery, sometimes known as the Pennington Road because it led toward through the hardwood forests and to the small agricultural community—located about four and a half miles to the northeast—of that same name, led northeast to the Bear Tavern Road and then eventually to the Pennington Road proper. Washington hoped to eventually gain the Pennington Road, which led straight south to the northern edge of Trenton, located just south of Pennington.
From the plateau, the road from the ferry led over terrain that dipped slightly and then rose again amid a dense forest of mostly oaks and hickories. Only a relatively few evergreens, a mere scattering of cedars and pines, could be readily seen against a white background by the most alert and observant soldiers when marching by. Already the march’s pace was excruciatingly slow, causing Washington even greater cause for concern. Private Greenwood, the feisty New England teenager, described the difficulty in toiling up the slippery slope from the ferry and the painfully slow marching along the ferry road that passed through tangled woodlands, now bathed in pitch blackness and freezing cold: “After our men had all crossed—and there were not, as I could see, more than 200 of us—we began [to] march, not advancing faster than a child ten years old could walk. . . . “19
With the nearly full winter moon completely obscured by heavy clouds, the only visibility during the slow march across mostly ascended gradually terrain now came from a handful of blazing torches. In the hope of preventing a mishap, these flaming torches had been wedged by Knox’s veteran artillerymen on the wooden carriages of field pieces. Offering only slight illumination, these torches now jolted up and down with each rut encountered by the gunners along the road. In the ranks of Colonel Charles Webb’s Nineteenth Connecticut Continental Regiment, Glover’s brigade, that included hardy soldiers from New London, Fairfield, Litchfield, and New Haven Counties, which were all (except for Litchfield) located along the Atlantic coast, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick described how the improvised “torches of our field pieces [were] Stuck in the Exhalters [which] sparkled & blazed in the Storm all night.”20
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