Private George Fullerton, an Irish member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, was one such finely uniformed trooper from Philadelphia. As a sad fate would have it, he would be fatally cut down in battling for liberty during this winter campaign. Private Benjamin Randolph, a skilled cabinet maker who lived in a stately brick house on fashionable Chesnut Street, where Martha Washington had stayed during the New York Campaign, galloped down the snowy Scotch Road with the First Troops of the Philadelphia Light Horse. The trustworthy color bearer of these confident “gentleman-rebels” now carried a fine yellow silk battleflag, decorated with the colorful, hand-painted image of a holy angel blowing a brass trumpet and a dignified-looking American Indian facing each other in the banner’s center. Carried with pride and reflecting how this struggle was a religious-like crusade for freedom, the Philadelphian’s fancy battle flag was designed by artist John Folwell and hand-painted by James Claypoole in September 1775.
Washington also now possessed reliable infantry guardians of a special protective unit which was created in March 1776. With the mission of guarding Washington and his headquarters, this elite command consisted of 75 carefully selected, battle-tested soldiers, who were “the flower and pick of the army.” At this time, the Commander-in-Chief Guards, unofficially known as the Life Guard, protected the commander-in-chief with their lives. Born in Newport, Rhode Island, in late February 1748 and a former member of Glover’s Regiment, Captain Caleb Gibbs, who was now part of Washington’s close-knit “family” of staff officers and soon destined for a major’s rank, had been chosen by Washington to command his diehard protectors and personal guardians in early March 1776. Washington, therefore, affectionately called his Life Guard troops “my regiment” with an unconcealed fondness.84
Also galloping south in the mounted cavalcade down the slick Scotch Road with Washington and his cocky, if not slightly pretentious, Philadelphia troopers were the young, gifted members of his own personal staff, whom he affectionately called “my family.” Wearing his hair long and tied together in a queue behind his back—ironically like the Hessian enlisted men at Trenton—slender Lieutenant Tench Tilghman was one of the most respected members of Washington’s staff. The privileged son of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, he was a smart, energetic volunteer aide-de-camp from the Pennsylvania battalion of the Flying Camp. The popular Tench (a family name from his mother’s side of the family) Tilghman now served as Washington’s indispensable secretary: a coveted, prestigious position in which he served faithfully all the way to the siege of Yorktown in October 1781.
This young man of promise had been born thirty-two years before on this very day, making him older than most of Washington’s staff members, who were mostly in their twenties. Born on his father’s tobacco plantation, known as “Fausley,” in Talbot County on Maryland’s fertile eastern shore, southeast of Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay’s east side, Tilghman was one of Washington’s most indispensable men this morning. Like so many other Celtic-Gaelic soldiers in Washington’s Army, Tilghman was proud of his distinctive Irish heritage and antecedents on his mother’s side. Without hesitation, he had liquidated his assets and given up a lucrative profession as a Philadelphia merchant just to serve as a low-level officer in a Philadelphia militia company to fight for American freedom. Tench was also motivated to wipe a stain from the family name. His father, James Tilghman, who had been a prewar friend of Washington who occasionally had been a guest at the Marylander’s eastern shore home, had been a patriotic during the initial protest against England’s arbitrary highhandedness, until independence was declared, which was a step too far for him but not his son.
Without an active officer’s commission and refusing to receive any pay for his entire period of service—nearly five years—because of his “determination to share the fate of my country,” Tilghman’s seemingly limitless abilities, thanks to a fine education from today’s University of Pennsylvania, writing skills, and natural intelligence, had first earned him a permanent place on Washington’s staff in August 1776. Handsome, dashing, and a stylish dresser of the upper class, he was somewhat of a dandy. Blessed with winning ways, Tilghman was also an incorrigible ladies’ man. During the summer of 1775, he had eagerly eyed General Philip Schuyler’s enchanting daughter. She “was the finest tempered Girl in the World” to the smitten Tilghman, who only saw her best qualities from a distance. Betsy Schuyler later became the wife of another one of Washington’s young rising stars and future indispensable staff member, who now commanded a well-disciplined New York artillery company at the head of Stirling’s brigade in Greene’s Second Division column: Captain Alexander Hamilton.
While flirting with the attractive, captivating Betsy, Tilghman had served as a secretary to the new nation’s commissioners, who signed a treaty with the Onondaga tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy from northern New York to keep them from siding with the British. Tilghman learned to respect the Indians like few whites. Not blinded by race, culture, or upper class status, the young Marylander from the eastern shore admired Indian values, especially their stoicism, wisdom, and strength of character. In consequence, he was adopted into the Onondaga tribe, earning the affectionate name Teahokalonde.
Most of all, the gregarious Tilghman was a social creature, and even before the beautiful Betsy was about to depart with her father after the treaty signing, he had already turned his romantic sights upon not only the readily available Onondaga girls, but also on the more attractive—in a true connoisseur’s elevated opinion—Stockbridge Indian maidens. By December 1776, the capable Lieutenant Tilghman was highly esteemed throughout the army, and by no one more than Washington. This contrarian, complex Marylander openly disdained selfish concerns and the only too-frequent behind-the-scenes scheming for personal advancement like so many other officers, desiring only to perform his patriotic duties to the best of his ability.
Like many families across America in what was in essence a civil war, the revolution had torn apart the Tilghman family. This independent-minded planter’s son hailed from one of Maryland’s leading Tidewater families that was mostly Loyalist, including his father and his brother, Philemon, who now served in the British Navy. Tilghman would fall dangerously ill at Valley Force next winter, which eventually led to an untimely death in 1786.
As Washington’s longest serving aide, Tilghman would be dispatched by Washington to inform Congress of America’s 1781 victory at Yorktown. Although they were technically enemies, this distinguished graduate (1761) of the College of Philadelphia continued to write letters to his loyalist, but “honored father,” James. However, this delicate correspondence was continued only under the mutually agreed condition that they broach nothing on “the score of politics” that might permanently sever ties between father and son. In his letter describing the march down the Scotch Road and through the wind-whipped snow, Tilghman marveled at the common soldier’s stoicism and iron discipline, writing how: “the Night was excessively severe, both cold and snowey [sic], which the Men bore without the least murmur [after] We were . . . Much delayed in crossing the River,” on such a terrible night.85
As revealed in a letter, young Colonel Knox was also amazed at the combination of discipline and hardy fortitude of Washington’s infantrymen, who kept trudging onward with a resolve not previously seen in this war. He described how: “The night was cold and stormy; it hailed with great violence [but] the troops marched with the most profound silence and good order.”86 The firm resolution and silent suffering of Washington’s men now verified the words of Sam Adams, who emphasized in an August 1, 1776 letter how, “The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing,” and could be only now fulfilled by victory at Trenton.87
During their silent march down the Scotch Road, Washington’s troops of Greene’s left wing (Second Division) very likely contemplated many things, while caught in the icy grip of the bitter nor’eastern. For the large percentage of
Irish soldiers, both Catholic and especially Scotch-Irish Prostestants from Ulster Province in the ranks, they might have now reflected on Ireland’s longtime tragic fate, because the repeated people’s uprisings had been crushed by British might. So many Irish fighting men from the “Old Country,” and mostly from the Middle Colonies, especially Pennsylvania, served in Washington’s Army that this common people’s struggle in America was viewed by London’s officials as little more than just another Presbyterian or Ulster Rebellion.
Hundreds of Washington’s soldiers yet retained their distinct Celtic-Gaelic cultural values, pride, belief systems, and characteristics, including even some men yet speaking ancient Gaelic. All in all, around 40 percent of Washington’s main strike force now consisted of seasoned Irish and Scotch-Irish soldiers, whose hatred of England knew no bounds. No doubt some Emerald Islanders on the march to Trenton almost certainly thought of the new American nation’s first martyr and fellow countryman, General Richard Montgomery. So that Americans “Might Live and yet be free,” as one popular song went, the Irishman had been killed on a snow-covered Quebec street on a comparable December morning only last December.
Perhaps Washington’s Ulstermen from northern Ireland also drew moral strength from the 1,646 words—that yet applied to the stern Trenton challenge—of a liberty-loving Scotch-Irish freedom fighter, who had spoken encouraging words to his Irish warriors before launching a headlong attack upon the English to reap a dramatic victory against the odds: “Know that those that stand before you ready to fight are [your oppressors and] Now you have Arms in your hands as good as they have, and you are Gentlemen as good as they are. You are the Flower of Ulster, descended from an Ancient and Honourable a Stock of People as any in Europe.”88
Throughout America’s struggle for liberty, a high percentage of Irish and Scotch-Irish soldiers served disproportionately as the hard-hitting “shock troops of Independence.” And symbolically an equally high percentage of Celtic-Gaelic soldiers now served as the “shock” troops of Washington’s main strike force in both divisions, while moving relentlessly south on a parallel course toward Trenton and a full Hessian brigade, whose combat prowess was unmatched.89 Washington’s ranks now overflowed with never-say-die Irish, including large numbers of immigrants, who were now fighting America’s battles. Indeed, the “fiercest and most ardent Americans of all, however, were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their descendants.”90 Even while the falling snow continued to pile up and the blustery gales cut through the ranks like a knife, Washington’s Irish and Scotch-Irish marched on Trenton in what was essentially a resurrection of “The Spirit of the truly brave/From thy obscure Sequestered grave/Montgomery arise.”91
And Washington’s Scottish soldiers, who perhaps noted the irony of trudging south toward Trenton down the Scotch Road that had been named after some early Celtic settler, might have now reflected upon the painful lessons Scotland’s bloody wars of independence. However, Washington’s Scots now had no idea that their strategic objective on December 26 had been named for a fellow Scotsman, William Trent, whose stylish, two-story brick mansion stood near the river on Trenton’s south side. Symbolically, Trent hailed from the picturesque Scottish Highlands, whose freedom-loving people had long resisted English oppression. In a strange twist of fate, some of Washington’s Irish, Scotch-Irish, and Scottish men, or their immigrant ancestors, had been first brought to America’s shores by Trent’s sailing ships that had carried large numbers of indentured servants and immigrants to Philadelphia.
Washington’s Scotsmen had never forgotten how their Celtic homeland so far away had been so ruthlessly conquered by the English, despite heroic resistance from fiery Scottish leaders like William Wallace, of Elderslie, Scotland, who led a popular uprising when Scotland’s own future had been as dark as America’s own on December 26, 1776: a deep-seated revolutionary source of inspiration for Washington’s Scotland-born and Scotch-Irish troops, because the humble Wallace had led the common people to one victory after another over superior English forces. Like Washington’s Scots, Wallace had fought with the heart, waging a holy war “to do or die.” He was a famed Scottish nationalist and holy warrior, who quoted Psalms and spoke Gaelic, and led his popular uprising when it appeared “Scotland was lost” (now the exact situation in regard to America) to the English.
Consequently, even in the windswept snows of Hunterdon County, the enduring revolutionary example of two thousand years of heroic Celtic defiance and armed resistance against foreign invaders yet inspired Washington’s revolutionaries, especially the Scots, during an equally dark hour of America’s desperate struggle for life. In many ways, the Scottish Wars of Independence were comparable to America’s own struggle in 1776, with a free people attempting to remain free of foreign domination and to determine their own destiny.
Besides Generals Mercer, Stephen, who was described as “a Scotchsman,” and St. Clair, the most respected Scottish general in Washington’s ranks was Lord Stirling, the son of a Scottish immigrant. He described the Scotch Road “so slippery” that footing was maintained only with great difficulty. Although he gained his lofty military appointment primarily because of powerful New Jersey political connections, this Scotsman was anything but a typical political general. In fact, he was one of Washington’s hardest fighting commanders. Although an aristocratic, wealthy native New Yorker married to the sister of New Jersey’s governor, Stirling was every inch the authentic Scottish warrior determined to make America free.
Ironically, Lord Stirling, who hailed from a lowland Scotland family, had early envisioned the distinct possibilities of attacking not only Trenton, but also very likely the main British base at Brunswick (Washington’s early January 1777 ambition after capturing Trenton), where General Grant served as the overall commander of Hessian and British forces in New Jersey, in part because Grant was a fellow Scotsman: another case of a civil war between Scots on American soil. The portly Grant had been born in wealth and privilege, basking in his elevated social status as the privileged lord of Ballindalloch Castle. Finely educated at private schools in New York, where he had been born, and a principal founder of the first lending library, the New York Literary Society, in New York, Stirling was the proud owner of a considerable estate, including slaves, at Basking Ridge, New Jersey. He had early gained military experience by serving as the aide to General William Shirley during the French and Indian War, leading to his 1775 appointment by Congress to a general’s rank.92
But why so many Americans had honored Stirling’s dubious title of lord has remained somewhat of a mystery. An amused, sardonic French aristocrat in the service of America simply wrote how Stirling’s “birth, his titles and pretty extensive property have given him more importance in America, than his talents could ever have acquired him. The title of Lord, which was refused him in England, is not here contested with him: he claimed this title from inheritance . . . he is accused of liking the table and bottle, full as much as becomes a lord [but] He is brave” as a general.93
Despite his lofty title of “Lord,” this New Jersey aristocrat now commanded one of Washington’s finest combat brigades, and he handled it with consummate skill. Forged in the fire of battle, Stirling’s seasoned brigade consisted of durable Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Delaware troops. They had served as Washington’s dependable rear-guard on more than one occasion during the long, cheerless withdrawal through New Jersey. Beginning at Princeton before crossing into eastern Pennsylvania, Washington had assigned Stirling’s and Stephen’s brigades—significantly five of seven regiments consisted of Virginians—as his rearguard to face Lord Cornwallis’ dogged pursuit.
One of Stirling’s best regiments was the crack Third Virginia, now leading the brigade’s advance, consisting battle-hardened men. These well-trained Third Virginia Continentals were led by Colonel George Weedon, who was extremely popular with the rank and file. He had been the merry innkeeper who had long operated the town’s most lively tavern, located on main street, today’s Caroline
Street, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Weedon was also Mercer’s neighbor, and a friend of Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” fame. These Virginia Founding Fathers had often patronized Weedon’s popular meeting place, the Rising Sun Tavern, which he had owned since 1766. Here, with other members of his rarified gentleman’s dining “Club,” Washington had often drank rum, discussed race horses—Weedon’s favorite topic after damning Great Britain—and played cards so recklessly that he complained of losing “as usual” in his diary.
Weedon was also the Tidewater town’s postmaster who conveniently worked out of his tavern, and also the respected colonel of Virginia troops. At the Rising Sun Tavern before the war’s beginning, Washington had met with other Virginia officers, including Weedon, who one patriot-hating Englishman condemned as “very active and zealous in blowing the flames of sedition.” Weedon and Washington had long made a good natural team, both in regard to revolutionary politics and insurrection hatched out over potent drinks at Weedon’s tavern, which was now reunited on the eve of America’s most important battle to date. Symbolically, Washington, Mercer, and Weedon’s destines had been long intertwined in war and peace. Upon relocating from western Pennsylvania to the Virginia Tidewater on Washington’s recommendations, the Scotland-born Mercer had first stayed at Weedon’s busy Fredericksburg tavern, where he and Washington had early and often talked about the remarkable concept of an independent American nation. Mercer then married a sweet, young Virginia girl named Isabella, Weedon’s sister. Therefore, the Scotsman named his fourth son George Weedon Mercer in honor of his close friend.
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