George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  For the rigors of winter campaigning, Stirling’s troops were now in overall bad shape, however. On December 13, Major Ennion Williams, a prosperous, handsome, and proper “gentleman” with piercing blue eyes that displayed a mixture of warmth and empathy, lamented how his “poor Distressed soldiers” of his First Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment were in need of “Shirts, Shoes, Breeches, Waistcoats, Coats & Stockings, and [of course] Blankets.” But dependable and top quality regimental leadership helped to partially make up for such glaring deficiencies among Stirling’s troops. But even superior leadership was not a permanent equalizer. Two of Stirling’s finest regimental commanders were Haslet and twenty-two-year-old Captain John Fleming, a young and “gallant officer” of Scottish heritage from Henrico County, Virginia, whose descendants had first migrated to the Jamestown Colony. Fleming now led the First Virginia Continental Regiment. He would not survive the battle of Princeton in barely a week.33

  Just as Stirling’s brigade was aligned in a good position to protect Forrest’s Pennsylvania guns on this poorly lit morning, so Stephen’s Virginia brigade was also situated to safeguard Forrest’s guns after having been aligned mostly to the west. With its right aligned around the head of King Street to the Third Virginia’s left-rear and at Queen Street’s head, Stephen’s Virginia brigade was also now formed up in the best position to either lead the advance of Greene’s Second Division straight down Queen Street into the town’s center or to extend the Old Dominion brigade’s left, now situated to the left of Queen Street, farther east to link up with Fermoy’s right flank.34

  All in all and most important for the mission of overwhelming the Rall brigade, Washington could not have possessed a better officer—his former second-in-command of his Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War—to lead the hard-fighting Virginia brigade than General Stephen. In fact, the Trenton Campaign was Stephen’s twelfth military campaign during the last twenty-two years. The Scotsman’s command experience went all the way back to 1755, when he had skillfully led Virginians during Braddock’s fiasco in 1755.

  Coinciding with an aggressive leadership style, the strong-willed Stephen seemingly had been always defiant of authority, British or colonial, including Washington himself. He was one of the most contradictory, but best, brigade commanders in Washington’s Army by this time. Single-minded and focused, Stephen often proved absolutely ruthless in the quest to obtain a goal, especially on the battlefield. Stephen waged a holy war against the Mother Country that was also a very personal one for him. When Lord North, the most anti-colonial official in London, boasted that “he has a Rod in piss for the Colony of Virginia” and Maryland, Stephen had responded with a typical Celtic flair and sense of humor: “Could I see him in America! In Spite of all the Armies of Commissioners, Custom house officers & Soldiers, I would make the meanest American I know, piss upon him.” Stephen had long made his sound tactical battlefield decisions on his own, excelling at independent action. In February 1776, he was appointed the colonel of the Fourth Virginia Continental Regiment by the fourth Virginia Convention, after more than two decades of military service. Stephen was promoted to brigadier general in early September 1776, enjoying Thomas Jefferson’s full support.

  Last October when America’s prospects were much brighter, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Virginia Continental Regiments—Washington’s crack vanguard brigade—had originally departed Virginia to reinforce Washington’s Army. And no regiment of Washington’s task force was better disciplined than Stephen’s own Fourth Virginia Continental Regiment. Marching north to join Washington until the Virginian’s repeated defeats around New York City altered the strategic situation, the Virginia brigade, of three regiments, was then assigned to remain in position along the Delaware River. Ironically, the Board of War ordered Stephen and his brigade to Trenton. Here, they became intimately familiar with the quaint river town and the surrounding terrain, including the high ground where they now stood near King Street’s head: another reason why Washington chose these hardened veterans from his home state to lead the advance on Trenton from McConkey’s Ferry.

  When Stephen’s soldiers had marched north to join Washington, more than three hundred sick Virginians, ill-clothed and unprepared for winter’s approach, were left behind in Trenton to recuperate. Stephen’s more than five hundred Virginia troops, including good fighting men armed with both small-caliber Long Rifles and larger-barrel, smoothbore muskets, had finally reached Washington Army at New Brunswick during the army’s retreat toward the Delaware. Almost immediately, Washington’s had effectively employed Stephen and his reliable Old Dominion veterans as rearguard troops during the retreat to Trenton, including to guard the Delaware crossing in the face of Cornwallis’s advance. The seasoned Fourth Virginia was under the able command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lawson, who now led 229 soldiers from Sussex, Isle of Wight, Charlotte, Berkeley, Price Edward, Southhampton, Brunswick, Nansemond, Surry, Princess Anne Counties, Virginia, and the Borough of Norfolk. Lawson’s Fourth Virginia was now the largest regiment of Stephen’s finely tuned brigade of experienced Continentals.35

  A proudly self-proclaimed “lover of liberty,” Stephen was eager for the chance to thrash the hated Hessians. He had fought against Indians, French, Canadians, former black slaves in British service, and the English in red uniforms, but never Germans before. In righteous indignation, he yet fumed over his fast-fading republic’s sad plight that he placed in Biblical-like terms: “The Enemy like locusts Sweep the Jersies with the Besom of destruction [and] They to the disgrace of a Civilized Nation Ravish the fair Sex, from the Age of Ten to Seventy.”36

  Stephen was even more motivated to perform exceptionally well this morning for another reason as well. Only a short time before on the march to Trenton, he had just suffered the stinging rebuke from an angry Washington, who only mistakenly believed that the element of surprise had been lost because of Captain Wallis’s strike—unauthorized by Washington but sanctioned by Stephen—on the advanced Hessian picket post along the Pennington Road late on Christmas evening. As Wallis’s regimental commander, he now wanted to wipe away the stain of that supreme embarrassment. In an attempt to ward off the biting cold and the commander-in-chief’s rebuke, Stephen might have taken a deep sip of rum or whisky, of which he was occasionally fond, from a personal flask, just before meeting the foe in the final showdown at Trenton.37

  Meanwhile, Colonel Charles Scott, commanding the Fifth Virginia Continental Regiment of Stephen’s Old Dominion State brigade, briskly passed along the foremost ranks of his threadbare soldiers, who continued to suffer severely in Arctic-like blasts of cold air sweeping over the heights that overlooked Trenton. He now gave last minute advice and encouragement to his Virginia boys, whose half-frozen fingers, without gloves or mittens, ensured that firing weapons at Hessian targets would be difficult this morning: “Take care now and fire low. Bring down your pieces [and] Fire at their legs [because] One man wounded in the leg is better than a dead one for it takes two more to carry him off and there is three gone. Leg them, damn ‘em. I say, leg them!”38

  Fortunately, by this time for America’s fortunes, Washington’s men had been transformed by the war and its horrors that seemed to have no end. They fully realized, like their commander-in-chief, that a more ruthless kind of war was now necessary for not only an ever-elusive victory for American arms, but also for an army and nation’s survival. Therefore, given their desperate situation, Washington’s soldiers instinctively understood that something entirely new was now required of them to reap the war’s most surprising success. All of the old established rules and rigid guidelines of conduct from the time-honored practices of conventional eighteenth-century warfare as conducted by well-educated aristocratic gentlemen from Europe’s great capitals no longer applied on this snowy morning at Trenton. Washington himself already fully realized as much, revealing how a harsher way of thinking was now absolutely necessary to secure victory over so many of these crack Hessian troops, because the fo
rtunes of war had already turned so drastically against America.

  Washington’s means of waging war, therefore, now possessed a much rougher and harder edge out of urgent necessity, because there was literally no tomorrow if yet another defeat was suffered by what little was left of the Continental Army. As he had emphasized in his orders for the attack on Trenton to Stephen’s vanguard and perhaps as he now reminded his foremost Virginia Continentals, that if the Hessians took defensive positions in Trenton’s houses and then if they were “annoy’d from the houses [then] set them on fire.”39

  Clearly, Washington had been seriously thinking ahead about what would be necessary to win victory at Trenton, including what was entirely new to him, the complexities and unique challenges of urban warfare for which there was no rule book or military manual: not unlike the fact that there were no rules for launching an attack in winter. Such no nonsense orders indicated that Washington fully understood that if his troops engaged in house-to-house fighting, then too much precious time, men, and momentum would be lost. Even though Washington was about to engage in the American Army’s first urban battle and its greatest challenge—urban combat—for military commanders to this day, he had already considered the unique requirements of urban combat and issued orders accordingly. Washington’s tactical achievement in having caught the Rall brigade so thoroughly by surprise was the fact that the Germans were unable to utilize the town for defensive purposes. Almost always an ally of urban area defenders, even the adverse weather conditions, which usually sapped an attacker’s morale and strength, had been utilized to Washington’s overall advantage. Therefore, in the end, Washington actually now possessed a better chance of achieving success in attacking an urban area or town, which ancient Chinese warfare theorist Sun Tzu had sternly advised “do not assault it.”40

  Most of all, Washington also realized that success now lay in maintaining tactical flexibility and the initiative, retaining the ability to react quickly to exploit any new developing battlefield situation. Demonstrating more versatility and flexibility as during the perilous crossing of the Delaware, Glover’s mariners now pushed forward along the River Road as infantry with Sullivan’s First Division column, serving as capably as infantrymen as boatmen. Fortunately, Washington benefitted from a long list of experienced brigade and regimental commanders, such as Glover, who possessed the ability to analytically and accurately judge tactical situations for themselves once unleashed on the battlefield.41 Even more important, Washington now possessed the coveted central axiom for success at Trenton: “Soldiers and leaders committed to urban combat . . . require inordinately high morale, steadfast will, and patience to endure the stress and grueling conditions of the urban environment.”42

  Most significantly for today’s fortunes, Washington realized that he now had the Hessian brigade right where he wanted it—on lower ground and unprepared for his attack—after having maneuvered skillfully to place his forces, including a good many cannon, into ideal positions on dominant terrain higher than the enemy’s position. Washington, consequently, now looked with satisfaction upon his lengthy row of artillery firing with rapidity down icebound King and Queen Streets. Meanwhile, the Hessians, wearing their tall, brass-plated miter caps, of Rall’s Regiment and the von Lossberg Regiment continued to pour from “alarm houses,” on King Street and private quarters, rushing into formation amid the falling snow, noise, and confusion.

  Thanks to touch holes of iron and bronze cannon barrels having been kept dry by well-trained artillerymen after so much effort to ensure that tompions had remained in place throughout the night, the roar of Knox’s cannon echoed louder over Trenton. Additional iron cannon balls of Forrest’s six-pounders were hurled down King Street, screaming overhead and causing havoc. In a letter to his lovely wife Lucy, Colonel Knox told how: “here, succeeded a scene of war of which I had often conceived, but never saw before [as]The hurry, fright, and confusion of the enemy was (not) unlike that which will be when the last trump[et] shall sound [because the Hessians] endeavoured [sic] to form in the streets, the heads of which we had previously the possession of with cannon and howitzers.”43

  Mounted on his warhorse near Washington with other staff members, Colonel Fitzgerald, who was yet as much of an Irishman (in the country less than a decade) as a true American, felt even more confident for success after Captain “Forrest [who was the senior artillery officer among Knox’s long-arm commanders had] wheeled six of his cannon [his own four guns and Hamilton’s two six-pounders] into position to sweep both streets,” King and Queen, and now blasted away as one.44

  Then, with time of the essence, Washington and Knox rushed additional guns forward to gain the high ground, including Captain Baumann’s three three-pounders. These newly arrived guns were manned by eighty well-trained “Yorkers” led by Lieutenants Joseph Crane, George Fleming, Jacob Reed, and Cornelius Swartwout. The last artillery unit in Greene’s column, Baumann’s New York guns and the artillery unit’s wooden ammunition carts rolled east over the snowy heights, now covered with a thinning layer of sulphurous smoke that was pushed steadily northeastward by the blustery wind sweeping off the Delaware, from Knox’s blazing guns. Positioned to anchor the artillery line’s left, Baumann’s three cannon extended the lengthening row of Knox’s artillery to the east, while Captain Forrest’s Philadelphia cannon, big six-pounder and five and a half-inch howitzers, held the right end of Washington’s noisy alignment of artillery.

  Washington, feeling more confident with each passing minute, now had nine artillery pieces set up in excellent firing positions, aligned across high ground, and rapidly firing down both King and Queen Streets to create more chaos and confusion among the Hessians in Trenton. The uplifting sound of the angry bark of Knox’s artillery pieces settled into a fast, steady rhythm that sounded like the sweet voices of the Angels to Washington.45

  Here, on the windswept heights amid the deluge of snow and ice, it can only be speculated what Captain Baumann, who had been born at the old Medieval town of Frankfort-on-the-Main in Hesse-Cassel, in today’s west-central Germany, might have felt during that eerie moment when he first barked out orders for his New York guns to open fire on his fellow countrymen below him. After all, these fast-forming Hessian troops included soldiers who hailed from his own picturesque hometown and bustling, ancient commercial and financial center situated on the right bank of the wide Main River. Baumann might have well momentarily reflected upon how shabby a wartime, half-deserted Trenton, appearing almost rustic with its mostly small, wood-frame houses, appeared compared to the cultured city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, or how the mysterious hands of fate had brought him to this obscure place and so suddenly placed him in a key combat situation in which destroying his fellow countrymen was now his foremost priority.46

  Meanwhile, below the right flank and southwest of Stirling’s brigade, Mercer’s Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts troops were aligned on high ground slightly closer to Trenton. They were ordered to close the sizeable gap on Trenton’s west, and as effectively as Fermoy’s brigade, of only two regiments, had blocked the Princeton-Trenton Road northeast of Trenton. After advancing south down gently sloping ground on the west side of the north-south running Petty’s Run and parallel to the little watercourse, Mercer’s troops halted on snow-covered terrain amid the snow flurries that obscured visibility. Here, Mercer’s veterans aligned in a neat formation on the windswept open ground on Trenton’s west side.

  On Mercer’s orders, they then smartly shifted east to face toward King Street and Trenton’s western outskirts: the vulnerable left flank of Colonel Rall’s troops now busily aligning in King Street. Without wasting time that was now precious and with a key tactical mission to fulfill, Mercer ordered his boys forward once again. They surged over the snowy terrain that gradually dropped toward the lower-lying Trenton. With the Scotland-born Mercer leading the way, the Continentals pushed east down the gently sloping ground and headed toward the Hessian brigade’s left flank without meeting oppo
sition, advancing upon the town from the west. With flintlocks on shoulders and in high spirits, Mercer’s confident troops surged through the white, open fields on the run, kicking up little tufts of snow behind them. Swarming closer to Trenton’s western outskirts, the emboldened soldiers of Mercer’s brigade pushed down the gentle slope.

  The Twentieth Connecticut Continental Regiment, under Windham, Connecticut-born Colonel John Durkee, a French and Indian War and Bunker Hill veteran who possessed the unusual of nickname of “bold bean hiller,” Lieutenant Colonel Ware’s First Maryland Continental Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Moses Rawlings’s Maryland Rifle Battalion, Yale College graduate Colonel Phillip Burr Bradley’s Connecticut State Troops, and Colonel Israel Hutchinson’s Twenty-Seventh Continental Regiment then splashed across the rain-swollen waters of Petty’s Run on the double.

  Flowing straight south to enter the Delaware, this little creek located just beyond the town’s western outskirts was now running over its ice-encrusted banks. After surging across Petty’s Run and with silk battle flags flying in the snow flurries under a darkened sky, Mercer’s troops continued to push relentlessly toward Rall’s vulnerable left flank on King Street. In crossing Petty’s Run as in journeying across the Delaware, these veteran Continentals got their feet, already numb with cold, wet once again. Because of such a lengthy advance across so much open ground blanketed in snow, Mercer’s brigade struck later than Sullivan’s to the south.47

  Washington’s surging troops, pumped with adrenaline and optimism for success, became increasingly especially eager to reap “a noble revenge,” because Trenton presented the best opportunity to do so. Having long heard throughout London that Washington’s soldiers were nothing but “cowards and poltroons,” one American expressed a pervasive view that now existed within the hearts and minds of Washington’s often-defeated Continentals, who felt that now was the time to redeem themselves and set the record straight once and for all: “It is my earnest wish [that] the despised Americans may convince these conceited islanders [of England] that without regular standing armies, our Continent can furnish brave soldiers.”48