George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Overlooking the Delaware’s turbid waters now filled with bobbing chunks of ice, this sprawling country estate of the wealthy Dickinson, who had purchased this property on July 30, 1776, was situated on the low ground of the river’s floodplain. The Hermitage was the home of this hard-fighting New Jersey militia general, delegate to the New Jersey provincial congress, and former Hunterdon County militia colonel, who had been raised as a Quaker. Most recently, Dickinson led the New Jersey militia brigade, consisting mostly of Hunterdon County men but also Burlington County soldiers, in unleashing guerrilla strikes that one modern historian has appropriately called “Dickinson’s Hunterdon uprising,” which helped to weaken the Trenton garrison.

  In yet another example of the tragedy of America’s first civil war, Philemon’s brother, John Dickinson, had refused to sign the Declaration of Independence as a conservative Pennsylvania delegate, which in part reflected his Quaker upbringing. Nevertheless, placing himself on the right side of history, John later led a militia brigade with a brigadier’s commission against his homeland’s invaders. As demonstrated repeatedly in those dark days before Christmas 1776, in waging his own personal guerrilla war much like General Stephen without Washington’s knowledge, Dickinson had enjoyed nothing more than harassing the stationary Trenton garrison this December. He had earlier driven Colonel Rall and his men, who viewed these guerrilla fighters as contemptible “peasant canaille,” to distraction, helping to wear down the Trenton garrison and make them more vulnerable to Washington’s surprise attack.

  With prior knowledge of exactly where the foremost Hessian pickets were quartered, Captain Flahaven’s first focus was directed at overwhelming the first Hessian picket position near the River Road, located just southwest of the River Road, and roughly parallel to Lieutenant Wiederhold’s Pennington Road picket outpost to the northeast. By this time, the Hessian picket headquarters on the snowbound River Road was more vulnerable than usual. The routine morning patrol of three jaegers, or light troops, had only proceeded as far north up the river as the John Mott (now at the head of Sullivan’s column) house, or “the rebel captain’s house” as it was known to the Germans, before retiring back to the Dickinson House with the report that all was well this morning, thanks to the storm’s intensity and the pervasive lax Yuletide mood.

  Like their stubborn picket comrades who fought gamely along the Pennington Road, Lieutenant Friedrich von Grothausen likewise attempted to make a defensive stand to buy precious time for the Rall brigade in town to rally. The veteran lieutenant rushed out of the Hermitage headquarters when the first crackle of gunfire erupted to the northeast on the Pennington Road at 8:00 a.m. Alerted jaegers then poured forth from their quarters at the Dickinson House, the dreary log cabin slave quarters that were certainly not unnoticed by the black soldiers in Sullivan’s ranks and two wooden barns that had provided shelter from the storm.

  Grothhausen posted some of his well-trained men in good defensive positions, taking necessary precautions. Shouting orders while the crackle of musketry echoed in the Pennington Road sector, Lieutenant Grothhausen then led a detachment of his jaegers northeast on the double with the intention of reinforcing Altenbockum’s pickets on the Pennington Road. Having no idea that Washington’s force had crossed the Delaware and assuming that only another Captain Wallis-like raid was now in progress, he acted aggressively toward the sudden threat, pushing north of the River Road. But Groththausen soon spied the lengthy lines of Sullivan’s Continentals pouring across the snowy landscape as far as the eye could see.

  Likewise, Ewing’s Pennsylvania artillery unleashed ten shots from the river’s other side upon the Hessian picket position at his own residence, causing more havoc in the lower town. Groththausen, therefore, wisely turned his picket detachment around, and the Hessians hurriedly backtracked through the snow. The fast-thinking lieutenant then formed his lithe, green-uniformed jaegers, the best marksmen of the Rall brigade, into a thin defensive line astride the River Road. Like Wiederhold and Altenbockum along the Pennington Road, Grothausen continued to perform admirably under pressure, especially in responding quickly to fast-paced tactical developments on the River Road.

  But for Grothausen and his elite jaegers, it was already too late to defend the River Road, the main artery leading into Trenton’s southwest edge and the Rall brigade’s left-rear. This band of Hessians now faced Flahaven’s New Jersey Continentals, whose fighting blood was up. And Colonel Stark and his New Hampshire troops surged immediately behind the New Jersey soldiers in steamrolling down the River Road in the hard-fighting frontier tradition of the rough-and-tumble Green Mountain Boys. With more of Washington’s First Division soldiers pouring through the flat river bottoms below the River Road, Grothausen’s isolated picket position was first outflanked on its vulnerable left by Sullivan’s lengthy line of onrushing New Englanders that extended west and almost to the swollen river. Astounded, if not a bit unnerved, by the incredible sight, Corporal Franz Bauer saw that “the rebels were coming in strong force [and] with bayonets fixed” and increasing momentum.

  With a shout and a flurry of well-aimed shots, Flahaven’s New Jersey boys descended upon Grothausen’s green-coated jaegers at the main picket post headquarters on the snow-covered River Road. Grothausen, facing far too many onrushing Continentals before him to count and knowing that he was about to be outflanked, ordered his outgunned band of pickets to retreat off the two hundred-acre Dickinson property and southeast down the River Road toward Trenton before it was too late. Clearly, Sullivan’s confident First Division attackers moved onward in an unstoppable tide, surging with confidence through the falling snow “towards the town firing.”

  Described as a “gallant” officer, Captain Flahaven now made the most of the tactical opportunity, exploiting his initial gains to the fullest. Shouting encouragement and waving his sword, Flahaven led his band of around forty New Jersey soldiers, who were engaged in their first battle, across the fertile lands of the Dickinson estate and down the icy River Road on the double. Viewing firsthand how this once-prosperous estate had been plundered by both the British and Hessians only reminded these New Jersey soldiers of the sad fate of their own homes and families in occupied territory. Such disturbing knowledge fueled the determination of Flahaven’s swift-moving attackers to continue to apply pressure on the Hessians, who fled from these Schnellentruppen, or fast troops. After having been forced out of their cozy river manor with its exquisite English gardens and greenhouses and stylish outbuildings now covered in snow, Lieutenant Grothhausen and his green-uniformed pickets fled southeast down the River Road under a hail of bullets. Never before defeated until this bitterly cold Thursday morning, the jaegers headed toward Trenton on the double, with the howling New Jersey Continentals close behind.

  Hundreds of First Division troops, loading and firing on the run, continued to push toward Trenton at a brisk pace behind Flahaven’s troops: first Stark’s New Hampshire regiment of veterans and then Sargent’s New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut brigade, which was followed by two full brigades—Glover and St. Clair, respectively—of mostly New Englanders, advanced behind the New Hampshire boys. The bundled-up soldiers of Sullivan’s surging ranks swept onward on both sides of the River Road, pouring closer to their long-coveted objective of Trenton with cheers that pierced the frigid air.

  Amid the white landscape tinged with an occasional scattered patch of brown stands of skeleton-like timber devoid of leaves, additional iron and bronze artillery pieces of Sullivan’s First Division were deployed on open ground near the road. Quickly loaded and primed by expert cannoneers, these guns of Knox’s Regiment then opened fire to additionally shatter Grothausen’s futile hope for making another defensive stand to buy time for the Rall brigade to rally.

  Most importantly by this time, the reassuring echo of the First Division’s cannon booming southwest of Trenton told Washington that all was going well in Sullivan’s attack, which served as the southern arm and right wing of his pincer movemen
t. Basking in the glow of realizing that his most audacious battle plan of the war had worked to perfection so far, the elated commander-in-chief now sensed the kill with his onrushing troops of both columns were making good progress in surging closer to Trenton.

  After the most advanced Hessians were hurled aside like chaff before the wind, the way was now wide open for Sullivan’s assault to continue unabated down the River Road and into Trenton’s southwestern end. As Washington had originally envisioned, his two separate columns were striking hard in unison from multiple directions in a near perfect double envelopment: the dual advance of Sullivan’s First Division, sweeping toward the town’s southwest edge, and Greene’s Second Division, descending upon Trenton from the northwest. Most significantly, these dual steamrolling advances were not only pushing aside all initial resistance, but also simultaneously gaining more ground and momentum that went entirely unchecked.

  Against all the odds and expectations of even the most optimistic soldiers, Washington’s two widely separated divisions managed to strike simultaneously. Near the head of the Second Division, Colonel Fitzgerald, one of the most respected members of Washington’s staff and a native of County Wicklow, Ireland, never forgot the dramatic moment, which lifted the spirits of Washington’s attackers all along the line: “The next moment we heard [Hessian] drums beat and a bugle sound [to the south to arouse the Trenton garrison], and then from the west came the boom of a cannon [a three-pounder of Captain Neil’s Eastern Company, New Jersey State Artillery and] General Washington’s face lighted up instantly, for he knew that it was one of Sullivan’s guns.”90

  As revealed in a most informative letter, Colonel Knox also described the dramatic moment when American spirits and fortunes skyrocketed to an unprecedented height not believed possible only a short time before, with the knowledge that Washington’s onrushing troops, despite the endless exertions and deprivations and a miserable, sleepless night that was the longest of their lives, successfully “arrived by two routes at the same time, about half an hour after daylight, within one mile of the town.”91

  Indeed, the sharp, crackling gunfire echoing over the snow-covered landscape from two different directions signaled the “remarkable” realization of Washington’s complex battle plan that had seemed totally unworkable only a short time before. With his Connecticut comrades of Glover’s mostly Massachusetts brigade advancing behind the foremost brigade under Sargent, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick, Nineteenth Connecticut Continental Regiment, recalled the fulfillment of Washington’s closely coordinated offensive tactics of a “brilliant encircling movement” that were so rarely achieved in unison by even the most experienced commanders, especially during the rigors of wintertime, when two separated columns struck simultaneously in a successful pincer movement: “it was not long before we heard the out Centries [sic] of the Enemy both on the road we were in and the Eastern road & their out gards [sic] retreated fireing [sic]” in return.92

  Like an electric current, consequently, a greater sense of confidence surged through Washington’s ranks in both sectors with the almost unbelievable realization, energizing everyone to continue charging to keep up unrelenting pressure on the fleeing opponent. Major James Wilkinson, the young Marylander of so much promise, never forget how Greene’s “attack . . . on the left [now] was immediately answered by Colonel Stark in our front, who forced the enemy’s picket” from the Hermitage and the surrounding area along the snowy River Road.93

  In describing this much-anticipated moment just after 8:00 a.m. (around forty minutes after daybreak) and the timely, close synchronization of twin widely separated movements of two divisions upon which decisive success hinged this morning, Major George Johnston, leading the Fifth Virginia Continental Regiment, Stephen’s vanguard brigade, perhaps said it best when he wrote how “Here our two Major Gen’ls, Green . . . and Sullivan, exhibited the greatest proof of generalship by getting to their respective posts within five minutes of each other, tho’ they had parted 4 miles from Town, and took different Routes.”94

  Indeed, with his two wings striking simultaneously, Washington had now achieved the most elusive and difficult of all tactical accomplishments by any commander in the complex art of war: the double envelopment. Washington’s intricate and masterful battle plan was based upon the time-proven concept of divide and conquer, with his two assault columns simultaneously striking opposite ends of town to ensure that the Rall brigade’s three regiments could not unite as one on this day. What Washington had now duplicated was in fact a classic double envelopment reminiscent of Hannibal’s tactical masterpiece at Cannae in 216 BC during the Second Punic War, when he and his Carthaginians, who were North Africans, annihilated a powerful, overconfident Roman Army and its allies.

  Washington’s dual simultaneous assaults of two separate wings in a brilliantly conceived pincer movement were working to perfection and as successfully as Washington had originally envisioned. That seemingly almost impossible dream—the most difficult and elusive tactical achievement on the battlefield—of catching a formidable opponent by surprise with a simultaneous, well-coordinated, and perfectly timed strike with multiple assault columns now became an almost unbelievable tactical reality for Washington. Perhaps in the end, only these militarily uneducated members, especially Washington, of a ragamuffin revolutionary army would have even considered for a moment the utter impracticality of even attempting such a seemingly impossible nighttime crossing of a swollen river and striking simultaneously with multiple assault columns, especially on such a stormy night, after a lengthy nighttime march of two separate wings across unfamiliar terrain. Indeed, these rustic amateurs in rebellion had known so little about warfare’s conventional rules that they simply had not known enough to realize that such an utter impractical and overly ambitious offensive effort should never have been launched in the first place.

  Fortunately, for America, neither Washington nor his top lieutenants had been professional soldiers or schooled in the art of the traditional axioms of war and European ways of waging conventional warfare. And, ironically, perhaps no one in this ragtag American army was more surprised by this remarkable tactical achievement of a double envelopment, so rarely obtained in wartime, especially after so much had gone wrong the previous night and then morning than Washington.95

  Major Wilkinson, who possessed solid experience as an esteemed member of Generals Greene, Benedict Arnold, Gates staffs, and most recently St. Clair’s staffs, recorded the initial success of Sullivan’s southern arm of Washington’s pincer movement: “in our front, [when Flahaven] forced the enemy’s picket and pressed it [toward] the town, our columns being close on [their] heels” of the Captain Grothausen’s fleeing jaegers, who now sought only to escape the sudden onslaught.96

  However, the capable Colonel Rall had yet to make his first tactical move in attempting to checkmate Washington’s masterful tactical design. Colonel Fitzgerald, the enterprising Irish Catholic who had migrated from just south of Dublin in 1769, marveled at the sight presented to the entrepreneurial Alexandrian, General Washington, and Captain Washington’s vanguard from the commanding heights overlooking Trenton from the north when he viewed the Rall and the von Lossberg Regiments in the process of attempting to organize on the lower ground of King Street to the south: “We could see a great commotion down toward the meeting-house [St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, which was Trenton’s first Anglican Church of England and known simply as the English Church], men running here and there, officers swinging their swords. . . .”97

  Stunned by the surprise attack that had burst so suddenly out of the blinding snowstorm and wintry New Jersey forests, the Germans gamely attempted to rally at their predesignated regimental points of assembly. Already uniformed grenadiers of Rall Regiment, the best-prepared unit—the “regiment du jour,” or the “regiment of the day”—continued to pour out of the dark rows of private houses. Indeed, making one of his most forward-thinking leadership decisions, Colonel Rall had his own grenadier regiment—
each separate regiment took rotating shifts for this assignment—on full alert in their King Street “alarm houses,” sleeping under arms with cartridge-boxes on and in full uniform, just in case the Americans pulled off the miracle of a surprise. Long minimized by historians, Rall’s wisdom, insight, and prudence meant that leather cartridge-boxes and other equipment remained strapped to sleeping soldiers to save precious time in assembling, which now paid dividends in meeting Washington’s sudden threat.98

  Despite the blinding storm, meanwhile, the two-pronged attack of Washington’s two divisions continued to gain more momentum with each passing minute. For the first time in this war of seemingly endless tragedies, frustrations, and disappointments, Washington’s tactical plan was working to perfection and ever so smoothly. Most significant, the resolute commander from Mount Vernon was now in the process of doing what almost everyone believed was impossible for him—or anyone else for that matter—to accomplish in such a crisis situation: catching a full Hessian brigade by surprise and finally breaking a disastrous, seemingly endless chain of personal tactical failures and fiascos that went all the way back to the French and Indian War, when he had doomed his own Virginia regiment by foolishly attempting to defend a “death-trap” at Fort Necessity in western Pennsylvania.99