George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  And now on the morning of December 26, Washington’s Virginia soldiers now “were determined to fight to the last for their country,” and never were these young men and boys more resolute than on this sleety morning in Hunterdon County’s depths.55 Having grown steadily since crossing the angry Delaware, this representative heightened sense of optimism, elan, and fighting spirit had glowed unseen, but ever-so-brightly even on this darkest of nights in the hearts and minds of the surviving soldiers of Washington’s thinned ranks. This development was early expressed by Lieutenant Samuel Blachley Webb, Washington’s private secretary and respected staff member, who confidently penned in a prophetic December letter: “we shall drub the dogs.”56

  But no one in this little, ragged force of diehard revolutionaries was now more determined to reap a success against the odds this morning than Washington himself. Washington demonstrated that he was at his best when seemingly everything else was at its worst and against him. As never before in this war, he was now “prepared to die,” if necessary, to secure victory. Washington, therefore, had already made peace with his Maker, trusting in God during his greatest personal crisis of his life. During “this dangerous undertaking, justified by the deplorable state of our affairs and worthy [of] the chief who projected it [,] I have never doubted that he had resolved to stake his life on the issue” of capturing Trenton at any cost, wrote the analytical Major Wilkinson. An immensely complex, intriguing person on multiple levels and not unlike Washington himself, teenage Wilkinson was a walking contradiction. He was blessed with winning ways that masked a darker side that was decidedly Machiavellian. Less than two decades before, he had been born on a typical Southern tobacco plantation, just south of the slow-moving dark waters of Hunting Creek, nestled in the tobacco country of Calvert County in southern Maryland, located just three miles northeast of the picturesque little town of Benedict on the majestic Patuxent River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.57

  Mile after mile of pushing relentlessly toward Trenton and either glory or yet another fiasco, the desperate commander-in-chief felt the heightened burden and almost unbearable pressure in knowing that everything was now at stake for his ragtag army and America during this cold early morning. If Washington now suffered any kind of reversal at Trenton, not only Philadelphia but also this much-depleted Continental Army, especially with a swollen river to its back, and the American cause would be doomed. And any defeat suffered by Washington at Trenton would ensure a virtually unopposed march of Howe’s legions to the defenseless American capital to destroy the last lingering hope of French intervention that represented America’s salvation, delivering a certain death stroke to this people’s revolution.58 Consequently, as never before, the long-suffering Washington now relied and placed his faith upon the “interposition of Providence” to bring America her most badly needed victory of the war.59

  With heightened resolve and an iron determination unwavering, Washington ignored the haunting realization of an ugly, disturbing reality: “We could not reach [Trenton] before the day was fairly broke, but as I was certain there was no making a Retreat without being discovered, and harassed on repassing the River, I determined to push on at all Events.”60 Therefore, with the stakes so high for America’s destiny, a heightened degree of pre-battle apprehension and just plain nerves consumed the very fiber of Greene’s Second Division troops, with failed battles and fiascos yet fresh in mind while they pushed through the ice and snow showers just north of Trenton. Some of Washington’s soldiers might have now recalled the Old Testament words that had inspired faith among the God-fearing Israelite warriors to conquer the fierce Canaanites after the ancient Hebrew warriors crossed over their own strategic river of destiny, the legendary Jordan, which also ran north-south like the Delaware, for America: “Be strong and courageous [and] Do not be afraid or terrified because of them for the Lord your God goes with you” during their desperate bid to conquer Jericho.

  Precious time continued to slip away during Washington’s relentless march south down the windswept Pennington Road, while Greene’s grim-faced Continentals, with limbs sore and numb from the cold, trudged steadily through the blowing winds and swirling snow in a last-ditch effort to conquer or be conquered. Most important, the Hessians at Trenton were not yet alerted to Washington’s stealthy, improbable approach on such a horrendous night in western New Jersey that no one would ever forget.

  No Continental soldier of either division had heard a single bugle blast, drumbeat, or signal gun to shatter the stillness from the lower ground around Trenton, and hardly anyone, especially Washington, who rode forward at the column’s head with Greene, the stocky, former Quaker who was likewise wrapped in a military cloak, could believe that their good fortune for both divisions had lasted all the way to the day’s first faint light at around half past 7:00 a.m. Indeed, by this time, few members of the yet-comatose Trenton garrison’s more than 1,500 troops were up and stirring, as would have been the case if no severe storm had descended with such an unbridled fury upon the Delaware Valley.

  Meanwhile, along the empty streets hidden under a new layer of freshly fallen snow, the approximate one hundred wooden houses of Trenton remained dark and silent, as if deserted. Assigned to quarters in civilian homes located in the middle and southern part of the northern end—near the corner of King and Second Street—of King Street, also known as High Street, the grenadiers of the four Rall Regiment companies continued to sleep peacefully while the large flakes of snow tumbled down in silence on wooden rooftops. Trenton possessed two main streets, King and Queen Streets, which ran north-south through the town. Leading up from the lower ground along the river where the two parallel roads crossed Front (nearest to the river), First, and Second Streets, from south to north, these two primary arteries extended completely through the town to meet on high ground at the town’s north end to create a narrow wedge, spanning from lower to high ground.

  Meanwhile, to the east on the parallel street to King Street, the experienced troops of the four fusilier companies of the Knyphausen Regiment slept in the relative warmth of private houses along Queen Street, sometimes called Bridge Street that led to the stone bridge across Assunpink Creek, in the town’s southern, or lower town, and also in some little wooden houses situated below the creek, before continuing to Bordentown on the Delaware. And stationed above Rall’s grenadiers, the fusiliers of four von Lossberg Regiment companies rested in bliss in the Anglican Church and in darkened houses located along both sides of the north end of King Street—including in the Micajah How house on the east side and in the Thomas Barnes, Rebecca Coxe, and Isaac Smith Houses on the street’s west side. Since most of Trenton’s largest houses, including brick structures, were situated along King Street, Hessians quartered along this main artery benefitted from more relative comfort than their comrades now sleeping in the smaller wooden houses off King and Queen Streets. Taverns and even the town’s jail also provided quarters for Rall’s troops. Appropriately, Rall’s headquarters, the two-story Stacy Potts’s house, was located on King Street in the heart of Trenton.

  However, thanks to Rall’s previous precautions, one fusilier company, under Captain Ernst von Altenbockum, was situated in small structures along the Pennington Road, guarding this vital artery on Trenton’s northwest. Rall brigade dispositions in part reflected the fact that the von Lossberg Regiment had been the last regiment of the command to arrive in Trenton, after the Rall and Knyphausen Regiments had already secured most of the finest houses as sleeping quarters.

  Meanwhile, Washington’s sudden good fortune, which had been so abysmal for so long, continued to hold up surprisingly well, longer than he had a right to expect. Despite the night’s long, torturous ordeal, things were shaping up for the distinct possibility of the forty-five-year-old Virginian, who was yet looking for his first true battlefield victory, exploiting what he now considered his long-awaited “lucky Chance” against a seemingly invincible opponent. Therefore, Washington continued to implore his troops, tir
ed beyond endurance and on rubbery legs, onward down the Pennington Road, while bitter winds and falling snow accompanied them as their constant, heartless companions that seemed determined to deny them success. All the while, Washington was nagged by the grim prospect and distinct possibly of meeting another abject failure in “surprising the Town” and overwhelming the Hessian brigade.61

  Numb with cold and tired from a long, sleepless night, Washington’s common soldiers were equally concerned as each hour had slipped away, along with the already slim chances for success at Trenton. Young Johnny Greenwood could hardly image how a complete surprise of Trenton could possibly be achieved by Washington, but “if we did, they must have been a lazy, indolent set of rascals, which is nothing to the credit of a regular army . . . But any who would even suppose such a thing must indeed be ignorant, when it is well known that our whole country was filled with timid, designing tories and informers of all descriptions and our march so slow that it was impossible but that they should be apprised of it.”62

  However, all of Washington’s good luck suddenly seemed to have burst when he was shocked to suddenly see a small American patrol headed his way, moving north through the falling snow! This bundled-up party of nondescript Continentals had approached close to the head of Greene’s Second Division column without having been seen because of limited visibility, returning lazily up the Pennington Road from Trenton’s direction. Incredibly, now going the wrong way, these soldiers never had been part of the army’s forward movement, even though they were from one of Washington’s own regiments now leading the Second Division’s advance, the Fourth Virginia Continental Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lawson, of Stephen’s brigade.

  This motley group of around thirty Continentals, with a handful of company officers, had crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day’s afternoon. They had done so not on their own initiative, but on General Stephen’s direct orders, issued from the Pennsylvania side of the river, to strike Trenton’s advanced pickets. These Virginians had attacked the advanced Hessian picket detachment, under the immediate command of twenty-six-year-old Corporal Wilhelm Hartung, who had been born in Elbingerode in the Harz Mountains, of Lieutenant Andreas Weiderhold’s advanced force on the Pennington Road just to the southeast. In true guerrilla fashion, this Indian-like strike by these adventuresome Virginia Continentals had resulted in the hot, but brief, firefight northwest of Trenton on the previous evening.

  Washington was completely unaware of this rather remarkable development of a top lieutenant waging his own personal war on New Jersey soil that threatened to sabotage his best-laid plans of gaining the element of surprise. Before Washington’s orders were issued for the Trenton operation to begin, the ever-independently minded General Stephen had been fighting the hated Hessians on his own hook and with a typical unbridled Celtic enthusiasm. To avenge the recent death of one of his beloved Virginia boys to a fatal German bullet, Stephen had ordered this small, highly mobile task force on its unsupported raid to strike Trenton’s advanced outposts: an audacious decision considering that Rall possessed not only a full brigade but also a readily available, experienced British cavalry detachment that could have cut such a small party of infantrymen, especially when stranded on the river’s wrong, or east, side, to pieces.

  Gaining a measure of pride and self-respect lost in the disastrous New York Campaign, these sharpshooting Virginians of Captain George Wallis’s company had inflicted a disproportionate amount of damage on the Hessian pickets on Christmas night. With skillful shooting from their barking Long Rifles as if hunting deer or turkey back home, they systematically cut down half a dozen soldiers of Hartung’s advanced force at long range with a ruthless efficiency. Now, after a job well done and after having been only belatedly pursued by the thoroughly aroused Germans, the Virginia boys had then returned wearily up the snowy Pennington Road to eventually recross the Delaware to the safety of Pennsylvania soil. They had inflicted yet another psychological blow to the increasingly nervous Trenton garrison. Amid the blinding snowstorm and cold that cut to the bone, they now ran straight into General Washington himself and Greene’s column descending relentlessly down the Scotch Road quite by accident.

  Revealing his heightened tension, taut nerves, and anxiety about not now being able to surprise the Rall Brigade after the Virginia riflemen’s ill-timed harassment, Washington’s legendary self-control and self-discipline momentarily vanished in thin air. He now snapped angrily for the first time during the harrowing ordeal of the march on Trenton: a long overdue, if not necessary, release of pent-up anxiety and frustration after his considerable mastery of self-control that had held up for so long since crossing the Delaware. An exasperated Washington immediately turned his wrath on a much surprised General Stephen, an old French and Indian War regimental superior who rode nearby the commander-in-chief.

  Clearly, Stephen was guilty of no simple breach of protocol, but a serious violation: he had not bothered to ask permission from Washington for his raiding party to cross the river and harass the Trenton garrison. Believing that the element of surprise had been lost, consequently, the commander-in-chief’s little remaining optimism for surprising Rall now sank to a new low. Washington feared that the entire Trenton garrison was now alerted, preparing to meet his advance, thanks to Captain Wallis’s ill-timed raid that had caused considerable excitement among the Trenton garrison the previous night.

  However, Washington was again most fortunate. He had no idea that Trenton was now even more vulnerable precisely because of the fact that this little raiding party of Virginia boys had been mistaken by the Germans for the main force attack that Donop, who spoke French fluently to reveal his fine education and upper class roots, had recently warned Rall about. As if still battling Indians along Virginia’s Blue Ridge or the Ohio Valley on his own, Stephen was certainly at fault for fighting his own personal war of vengeance. But to be perfectly fair, Stephen was correct in waging guerrilla war and wearing down his opponent on his own because he had not known about Washington’s decision to attack Trenton when he had ordered Wallis’s company to cross the river and reap sweet “revenge.” Despite his shortcomings that were more temperamental than tactical, Stephen was exactly the type of no-nonsense, almost fanatical, hard-hitting brigade commander who Washington now needed to lead the advance of Greene’s Second Division column just behind Captain Washington’s vanguard of Virginians when the battle opened in full fury.63

  But despite all his escalating concerns, Washington had no need to worry about the Trenton garrison’s alertness or preparedness this momentous morning that was destined to decide America’s fate. A snow-shrouded and undisturbed Trenton yet lay bathed in a frigid, eerie silence, presenting a serene appearance. In truth, what had settled over the little town was literally a great lull just before Washington’s man-made storm descended upon the quiet town with a vengeance seldom seen in this war. With fighting instincts and senses dulled by a sense of deepening complacency after the Virginia sharpshooter’s strike faded away and with the arrival of nature’s tempest, hundreds of worn Hessian soldiers reposed in deep sleep on this stormy night, forgetting all about threats, both real and imagined, to Trenton.

  All in all, these Germans were utterly exhausted from the combined effect of the New York Campaign’s rigors, the lengthy pursuit of Washington’s ghost army across New Jersey’s flatlands, and the escalating harassment from the resurgent New Jersey militia, which had repeatedly lashed out at targets of opportunity when least expected. So far from home on this sad and sullen Yuletide, Rall’s young soldiers, in frayed, dirty uniforms of summer, were now thoroughly tired of the nasty game of war while racked by illness, the horrors of guerilla warfare, and disillusionment. For brutal winter weather, the Hessians lacked almost everything that was necessary to cope because the Rall brigade was now at nearly the end of an overly extended supply line that stretched northeast and all the way to New York City. Rall’s men now slept soundly in part to forget their weariness, the nightma
re of a growing insurgency, the pain of being far away from home and family, and the war’s escalating brutality. In the words of one exasperated and weary Hessian officer at Trenton: “We have not slept one night in peace since we came to this place [and] The troops have lain on their arms every night, but they can endure it no longer.”64

  Because he was unaware of the true situation at Trenton, an even more apprehensive Washington, expecting the worst because of his wrecked timetable of having wanted to attack at 5:00 a.m., continued to hurry his soldiers down the Pennington Road. All the while, the snow and sleet continued to pelt the lengthy column of mostly Continentals, as if attempting to thwart Washington’s renewed attempt to hasten his soldier’s pace to reach Trenton as soon as possible. Trenton’s peaceful setting was about to be shattered by thousands of fast-approaching American soldiers, who were now fueled by a potent mixture of adrenaline, desperation, and revenge. Most of all, they were now motivated to fulfill Washington’s desperate, but supremely motivating, motto of “Victory or Death” at any cost. All the while, Washington’s inspiring leadership ensured that his men would follow him to hell and back, and in undertaking the greatest challenge of their lives.

  Additionally, Washington’s Continentals yet recalled Tom Paine’s inspiring words from the pages of The American Crisis, having taken them to heart: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the loves and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph”; an invigorating promise of achieving a sparkling success at Trenton that only fueled a more rapid push of Washington’s troops, of both divisions, down both the snowbound parallel arteries, the Pennington and River Roads. Now the most popular inspirational voice of the common people, the transplanted Englishman’s idealistic rhetoric fortified the resolve of Washington and his faithful followers to do or die this morning. Most of all, “I [was] determined,” wrote Washington, to now succeed at any cost. At this crucial moment for America’s fortunes, Washington and his men’s determination to reap victory at Trenton had evolved into what might be described as almost a viable, innate force of nature, much like the howling nor’easter itself, that had been pent-up for so long from the seemingly endless series of defeats and humiliating withdrawals, after so many self-inflicted wounds, incompetence, internal divisions, and even cowardice. And now this reenergized force of will that now fueled Washington’s troops was finally about to break loose in full fury upon Trenton and the unprepared Rall brigade.