George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  It was a wise precaution that this relatively faint illumination from these flickering torches bestowed some light around Washington’s precious field pieces to make sure that these invaluable guns were safely transported, because of the importance of their upcoming role in battle. In addition, Knox’s experienced artillerymen, at the head of each infantry brigade, needed to make sure that the tompions—or bore plugs—and vent plugs protecting vents, by which the black powder was charged to fire these guns, on iron and bronze barrels remained firmly in place, while the cannon labored slowly along the bumpy road leading northeast from Johnson’s Ferry and toward the ferry road’s intersection with Bear Tavern Road. If a vent plug was suddenly jarred loose or fell out, then the heavy deluge promised that ice, snow, and water would seep inside the cannon’s barrel.

  On foot and trudging through the snow like everyone else, Knox’s seasoned gunners also made sure that delicate wooden artillery wheels, already made brittle by the freezing weather, did not crack on fallen tree limbs or road ruts worn down by heavy farmer’s wagons transporting goods to market. Therefore, because of the fragility of the slender artillery wheels, these rough spots along the road were spotted beforehand by sharp-eyed cannoneers in the flickering torchlight, and then prudently avoided as much as possible. However, even some wooden gun carriages became increasingly weak by the ordeal of moving over rough terrain. Meanwhile, as the grueling march lengthened and the ground dipped gently once again and then rose to the high ground upon which the Bear Tavern, to the northeast, was perched, the eyes of Washington’s soldiers grew more acclimated to the night’s blackness. Therefore, visibility was slightly enhanced for the slogging men in the ranks, while the lengthy column of solemn-faced Americans eased northeast through the wintry, New Jersey woodlands of late December.

  Some, if not all, of Knox’s artillery horses were as unprepared for a winter campaign as Washington’s soldiers, however. Revealing one of the few mistakes that were made by Washington in regard to his otherwise thorough and careful operational preparations during what was certainly his best-planned campaign to date, most artillery horses were entirely “without shoes,” or “ice-shoes.” In consequence, these laboring animals, in pulling their heavy loads, often lost their footing and slid on the ice and snow, especially on rugged terrain. Therefore, the over-worked artillery horses, already ill-fed, cold, and weak, had to be closely watched by shivering cannoneers throughout the more than nine-mile trek to Trenton.21

  At this time, a special, close bond existed between Knox’s gunners and their cherished cannon; a feeling not unlike even the most cynical and battle-hardened cavalryman for his favorite horse. Captain Alexander Hamilton, the intellectual soldier-scholar who now commanded his own New York battery of two six-pounders with a sense of pride and authority that helped to mask his lowly background in the West Indies, had been often seen walking beside his favorite cannon, while “absent-mindedly patting it from time to time, as if it were a favorite horse or plaything.”22 Advancing at the head of Mercer’s brigade, Sergeant Joseph White, a member of Captain Forrest’s Second Company of the Pennsylvania State Artillery, possessed a special love for his “favorite” artillery piece, which he admired fondly as “the best in the regiment.” Orderly Sergeant White “loved” this field piece like no other gun with a passion not completely understandable to the average foot-slogging infantryman, who maintained a healthy rivalry with Knox’s gunners. Unknown to the busy gun crew at this time, the wooden support system of the heavy gun barrel of White’s cannon, creaking slowly over the snow and ice, was now already fatally compromised by the combined rigors of the crossing and moving inland over rough ground.23

  Most of all, none of Knox’s artillerymen wanted to see their faithful cannon left behind, which was not unlike abandoning a lover or family member. On this terrible night seemingly in the middle of nowhere, therefore, Knox’s artillerymen paid closer attention to their field piece’s welfare, because Washington’s cannoneers almost instinctively knew that the artillery’s upcoming performance at Trenton would separate winner from loser.

  Meanwhile, Washington continued to worry and fret, and for ample good reason. His overly optimistic schedule and ambitious timetable to launch the attack an hour before sunrise around 5:00 a.m., which had been based upon a rosy scenario of everyone and everything safely getting across the Delaware by midnight, was now even more of an impossibility, as more time slipped away in the blinding woodlands and cold darkness. Washington worried if the Hessian brigade at Trenton was now on high alert, especially with so many Tories, who might have informed the garrison, living in this Hunterdon County countryside? On Saturday December 14, a worried Washington had written with exasperation how, “I do not doubt but they are well informed of everything we do.” Had British or Hessian scouts spied Washington’s time-consuming crossing of the Delaware and warned the entire Trenton garrison by this time? No one, especially Washington, could be sure. But Washington knew full well that if his movements were discovered, then it would be “prove fatal to us,” as he penned to Colonel Joseph Reed.

  Pushing onward into the night’s biting cold, hundreds of Continentals from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Tidewater and from New England to the South continued to march generally northeast to gain the Bear Tavern Road as soon as possible. However, Washington’s column now seemed to have been practically swallowed up by the storm’s dark intensity that showed no signs of letting up. Moving across the frigid landscape and farther away from their muddy Pennsylvania encampments, Washington’s men eased deeper into the frozen blackness of New Jersey while trying hard to stay alert and awake. But the going was slow in part because so much of the narrow road gradually rose from the river, requiring the struggling men to trudge up a slippery slope, which was more challenging ascent because of creeping weariness.

  Meanwhile, the concentration of Continental troops in the column’s rear, the reserve brigades, were more encumbered than Washington’s lead brigades, which had churned up the roadbed into a slippery, muddy slush by the time that the latecomers marched by. Therefore, as if limited visibility was not enough of a severe handicap on this hellish march, the most rearward troops were forced to slog along the sides of the mud-slick road in thin files of ill-clad soldiers along the black woodline to escape the quagmire. All the while additional precious time was lost, slipping away into the cold New Jersey night like Washington’s opportunity to surprise the Hessians, or so it seemed. Not long after 4:00 a.m., the column of Greene’s and Sullivan’s Divisions stretched out for hundreds of yards in the cheerless, frozen darkness, with men struggling through the clinging mess that seemed to suck up and spitout not only more time, but also Washington’s fast-fading chances for success.

  After pushing generally northeast for a little more than a mile for what seemed like an eternity, Washington’s troops toiled up the final stretch of gradually ascending terrain to gain their next key objective: the obscure, little crossroads at the plain-looking Bear Tavern, blanketed in a fresh layer of snow, that stood out prominently like a beacon in the middle of nowhere. Now half-hidden amid a snowy expanse, this two-story wood-frame tavern, with a sturdy stone foundation and a wide front porch running across the length of the inn’s front, stood at the northeast corner of the barely discernable crossroads covered in white. Here, just northeast of Johnson’s Ferry and northwest of Trenton and at the intersection of the east-west running ferry road with the north-south Bear Tavern Road, the slow-moving head of Washington’s column suddenly appeared out of the blinding snowfall like some ghostly winter aberration.

  Mounted out in front as usual in leading the way, Washington then directed his troops, with flintlocks on shoulders and burdened with extra ammunition and rations, to turn sharply to the right, or south, onto the Bear Tavern Road. From the relative high ground of this little crossroads nestled amid the silent woodlands, this narrow road led straight south toward Trenton. Thankfully, for the exhausted common soldiers with sore, half-frozen feet, the
Bear Tavern Road led down gradually sloping terrain that made movement a bit easier for worn soldiers, horses, and Knox’s eighteen artillery pieces that were keeping up with the slogging infantrymen. However, the barely visible road, a mere path hewn through the hardwood wilderness, remained difficult to see for the soldiers (fortunately the New Jersey guides knew the area) caught amid the storm’s intensity. All the while, Captain Washington’s and Flahaven’s advance parties continued to push south as best they could, moving with firm resolution through the snow on opposite sides of the “slippery” Bear Tavern Road.24

  The Nightmarish March South To Trenton

  Meanwhile, with high hopes even though the storm continued to wreck havoc on Washington’s already badly fractured timetable, the toughened Continentals moved relentlessly down slightly descending ground from the snowy crossroads. With the nine-pound weight of muskets feeling heavier than usual, hundreds of young men and boys from New York to Virginia now headed south in the tempest. Then, Washington’s soldiers reached terrain that gradually rose, while maintaining discipline and silence as ordered. Veterans felt added confidence, because they now possessed leather pouches and cartridge-boxes, which initially kept cartridges dry, overflowing with sixty rounds per man.

  Reflecting the grim situation that seemingly bode ill for American fortunes, the usual joking, laughter, light-hearted banter, and nervous talk that had always distinguished this amateurish, ever-individualistic army of citizen soldiers whenever they were on the move were now eerily absent. Meanwhile, exhausted artillery horses continued to struggle onward through the heavy blanket of snow, growing wearier and steadily losing strength like Washington’s men in the ranks. Keeping pace with the trudging infantrymen in the inky blackness, Captain Forrest’s four artillery pieces from Philadelphia rumbled over the frozen ground at the column’s head, as Washington had directed in no uncertain terms.25

  Meanwhile, the howling nor’easter continued to unleash a menacing blend of ice and snow, mixed in with an occasional hard rain, despite freezing temperatures. However, at least the mere physical act of placing one foot in front of the other in marching south down the Bear Tavern Road increased circulation to make the bodies of fagged soldiers a bit warmer. But nothing could stop the cold from stinging faces, noses, hands, and ears. Veterans of the battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights, and White Plains that were fought under clear, blue skies, Washington’s soldiers of summer possessed neither gloves nor mittens in the dead of winter. But the feet of Washington’s men suffered the most severely from the combined effect of the omnipresent wetness, snow-covered ground, and the bitter cold. The icy mud and freezing slush which had been churned up by hundreds of marching feet that now filled the roadbed could not be avoided by exhausted men unable to see hardly anything before them. Already in bad shape even before the march began, worn-out leather shoes, if not falling apart by this time, became thoroughly soaked, along with thin socks and half-frozen feet of the common soldiers. All along the route, makeshift shoes on feet began to fall apart as the march lengthened into the night.

  But Washington’s hopeful revolutionaries had much more to worry about than just cold feet, faces, and hands on the most exhausting march of their lives. Most important, the Continentals had to somehow do the seemingly impossible in keeping firing pans, flints, and black powder dry amid the steady deluge. The winter warfare experience of the most savvy veterans, including those fortunate men who had survived the doomed attack through the cobblestone streets of Quebec last December and veteran New Englanders, especially those older individuals who had served in hard-hitting ranger companies, including Rogers’ Rangers, who were masters of winter campaigns against the French, Indians and Canadians in the previous war, now paid off.

  More so than in the case of the average farm boys in the ranks who had not fought in wilderness regions, these French and Indian War veterans of winter warfare’s rigors understood the importance—literally life-or-death—of keeping firing mechanisms water-free. Savvy frontiersmen had long protected their firing mechanisms from water, snow, and dirt with greased deerskin stock scabbards, known to westerners as “cow knees.” But relatively few of Washington’s men now possessed these invaluable protective coverings because they were not issued by Continental quartermasters, who distributed only standardized equipment based upon European models and knew nothing of the stern challenges of winter warfare.

  However, to counter the wetness and snowfall, some experienced common soldiers began to wrap firing mechanisms with the edge of their thin, woolen blankets, but even these precious commodities, dirty and torn, were in short supply. Reflecting the rapid rise of apathy, defeatism, and Loyalist sentiment, only a mere 113 blankets had been donated to Washington’s Army from America’s civilian population, despite the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety and Robert Morris’s best efforts. Philadelphia’s citizens also sent only a trickle of blankets to Cadwalader’s Philadelphia militiamen, who gained additional coveted blankets only a few days before because these troops were their own local boys, while Washington’s Continentals hailed from faraway regions, especially Virginia and New England. Therefore, the majority of the Continentals went without blankets when needed the most.

  However, a few Continentals rejoiced at having been issued a number of “woolen blankets”—sent by the hard-working, dedicated Morris, “very simple in his manners, but his mind is subtle and acute,” wrote one observer, in Philadelphia and to “his everlasting credit”—just before the Delaware crossing. Ireland-born Colonel Edward Hand, one of the commander-in-chief’s favorites, had recently complained to Washington that many of his crack Pennsylvania riflemen, the army’s best marksmen, were entirely shoeless and without blankets. Therefore, Washington had dispatched details of soldiers to scour Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to beg, borrow, or confiscate blankets for his elite riflemen of the First Pennsylvania Continental Regiment. Not ordered to do so by officers, however, a good many soldiers, especially novices unfamiliar with the demands of winter campaigning, failed to sling their around five-foot-long muskets facing down so that no water seeped down musketbarrels.26

  Meanwhile, from the Piedmont’s rolling hills and the lower-lying Tidewater to the east, mostly yeomen, who knew more about growing profitable crops of corn and wheat than the hard-learned lessons of frontier and winter warfare, possessed relatively little knowledge of the urgent necessity of protecting muskets in winter. Captain John Mott, from Gates’s northern army and now one of Washington’s trusty guides, whose own home stood on the River Road near the Delaware’s east bank just northwest of Trenton, was now forced to improvise out of dire necessity. Without a blanket to use as a cover, Mott tried to keep a thin handkerchief, perhaps made of silk, over the firing mechanism and priming pan of his fusil, a light flintlock musket carried by fusiliers, in a futile bid to keep his weapon and powder dry.27

  Meanwhile, many of Washington’s young soldiers were nagged by dark thoughts, falling prey to equally pessimistic doubts about what lay in store for them at Trenton. If killed in the upcoming battle with the much-dreaded Hessians, whose combat prowess was legendary, they knew that Congress, now exiled in Baltimore after fleeing Philadelphia, had not passed a single act to support widows and families, who would have to fend for themselves in hard times. Even worse, the frontiersmen in Washington’s ranks, including Hand’s crack riflemen, also felt concern for their families’ welfare because they were isolated on the western frontier of Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland, which were now vulnerable to Indian attack, while their menfolk marched toward a rendevous with destiny at a river community of which they had never heard, Trenton.28

  Leading the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Continental Regiment, Glover’s brigade, Colonel Loammi Baldwin, who lamented that he was “without any great coat” like the rest of his Bay State soldiers, suffered severely from the bone-chilling cold that now felt more severe than winter in his native New England. With a dark premonition of what might happen to him in the upcoming battle upon
which so much depended, Baldwin had recently promised his wife in a letter how, “I must return” to you and their young son, “if I live through this [winter] campaign” so far from home.”29

  Perhaps a worried Washington now thought about the last time that American troops had mounted a winter offensive effort against garrison troops defending an urban area. Ironically, this desperate attack occurred at the end of last December, when Ireland-born General Richard Montgomery led an ambitious winter offensive. Montgomery’s ragtag forces had advanced through an intense snowstorm in multiple assault columns, meeting a bloody repulse amid Quebec’s narrow streets and the greatest disaster to American arms to date. During America’s first invasion of foreign soil, the thirty-eight-year-old Montgomery was killed, becoming America’s first national hero.

  Now hoping for the best with a badly shattered timetable, Washington almost certainly reflected on that earlier snowy fiasco in Canada, while leading his troops south down the white-shrouded Bear Tavern Road, ever-closer to Trenton. On this frigid, early Thursday morning, Washington knew that he now had only five more days left, before that ever-encroaching fateful Tuesday would come when most of his Continental soldier’s enlistments expired on December 31. At that time, Washington’s army would practically disappear before his eyes.

  Clearly, for Washington, the army, and America, it was now or never. But what almost certainly now haunted Washington during the difficult and agonizingly slow march down the Bear Tavern Road, swept by bone-chilling northeast winds, was the haunting memory of his own lengthy, personal losing streak. Seemingly nothing had ever gone quite right tactically for this Virginia planter on the battlefield against professional opponents, stemming all the way back since his very first days as a young soldier in the service of Virginia. As a newspaperman had summarized what seemed to be a most ill-fated destiny stemming as far back as the French and Indian War, Washington possessed “a high Reputation for Military Skill, Integrity, and Valor; tho’ Success has not always attended his Undertakings.”30 Even his own mother, the quite formidable Mary Ball Washington, with an iron will all her own, yet regretted that her son had ever engaged in military pursuits, looking down upon him in consequence.31