George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Besides bestowed with a measure of shelter from Forrest’s well-directed artillery-fire, the von Lossberg Regiment also gained some added strength. Out of breath after their long dash on the double-quick north from the south side of Assunpink Creek, the von Lossberg fusiliers of the von Hanstein Company, led by Captain Friedrich Wilhelm von Benning, finally reached the regiment. This contingent hurriedly took position on the regiment’s left wing, adjacent to the von Loss Company, at the west end of Church Alley near King Street. Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer’s Lossbergers were proud of the lengthy, distinguished lineage of their elite fusilier regiment, which had been long headquartered in Rinteln, Hesse-Cassel, on the picturesque Weser River that flowed into the North Sea. The regiment’s impressive combat record extended back to the 1600s and included the battle of Minden, northern Germany, in August 1759. These von Lossbergers were tough, reliable soldiers who knew how to kill rebels. Quite simply, they were the best fighters of the Rall brigade. Tenacious fighting men, these Lossbergers had been already hardened by prewar lives as lower class farmers and from months of arduous campaigning in a strange, new land that they called Amerika. Even more than Rall’s grenadiers and contrary to the popular stereotype, Scheffer’s von Lossberg fusiliers were the true elite troops of the crack Rall brigade.

  To make sure that his verbal orders were not misunderstood in the noisy tumult of an escalating battle, Rall personally assisted in organizing the von Lossbergers, who were now situated just northeast of his northernmost grenadiers on King Street. Then Rall galloped a short distance down snow-packed King Street and down the slope toward the town’s lower end, where four companies of Rall’s grenadiers, under senior regimental commander Colonel Balthasar Brethauer, had been quartered in three large buildings designated by Rall as “alarm houses.” Brethauser’s battalion of four companies of the Rall Regiment had formed rapidly in the upper part of the lower town, benefitting from the fact that their designated “du jour” regiment was more fully prepared for action this early morning than its two sister regiments.

  Fired from smoking guns and down the gradual slope, Knox’s cannonballs that were no longer hurled at lucrative von Lossberg targets at a closer range smashed into the foremost troops of the Rall Regiment’s northern battalion, while other projectiles whistled harmlessly overhead to unnerve less resolute Hessians: Washington’s rude wake-up call for Rall and his grenadiers on this hellish morning. Besides a direct fire, Knox’s meticulous, experienced gunners also unleashed a ricochet fire. With telling accuracy because this tactic eliminated over-shooting, they skipped six-pounder cannon shot off the snowy street—a natural bowling alley—before the Rall Regiment’s dense ranks to bounce downhill and continue their destructive path into the midst of their blue-colored formation. Forrest’s artillerymen watched the lethal effects with glee, after having correctly gauged the exact range for a deadly display of ricochetting rounds.

  Here, just below Rall’s two-story headquarters at Stacy Potts’s house, Rall and Lieutenant Colonel Baltasar Bretthauser, Rall’s right hand man, united the four grenadier companies in the lower town with the northernmost Rall Regiment companies positioned in formation on King Street. With both battalions now linked together, the disciplined Rall Regiment grenadiers were aligned in King Street in the northern part of the lower town just south of Rall’s headquarters, to meet the anticipated attack from a yet unknown number of Americans. With his grenadiers in neat lines and braced for Washington’s anticipated assault, Rall then led his own regiment a short distance up through the snow of King Street and straight through the hail of projectiles from Knox’s booming guns.

  Meanwhile, these battle-hardened grenadiers advanced with discipline while cannonballs and shells smashed into their ranks. To escape the incessant fire of Captain Forrest’s six-pounders and five and a half-howitzers, as he had earlier done with the von Lossberg Regiment, Rall then adroitly shifted the foremost half (his northernmost battalion) of his grenadiers—east off King Street and into Pinkerton’s Alley, a block below, or south, of Church Alley and the stationary von Lossberg Regiment. Once positioned in the Anglican Church’s rear and behind a row of tall popular trees, thin and appearing skinny without leaves that swayed in the gusty northeaster, this new location provided some shelter from the rain of cannonballs from Forrest’s Pennsylvania guns, both howitzers and long six-pounders. By having positioned so many troops east off King Street, Rall was now attempting to buy time, anticipating that the Knyphausen Regiment would advance north from Queen Street in the lower town to reinforce him and his two regiments to unite the entire brigade on King Street.

  However, in the smoky confusion and noise, Colonel Rall was not yet fully aware of how much pressure Sullivan and his onrushing First Division were applying to the south. Indeed, Flahaven and Stark’s aggressiveness focused most of the Knyphausen Regiment’s attention on the more immediate threat from Sullivan’s Division in the lower town to Rall’s southwest. Nor was Rall cognizant that Major Dechow, a highly respected commander who had gained solid experience as a captain under Frederick the Great, was less supportive than anticipated. Dechow hailed from Ratzeburg, surrounded by four lakes in today’s northern Germany. Rall and Dechow were at odds personally and professionally at a crucial time when complete unity was essential for the Rall Brigade’s survival. But the fact that Washington had struck from two directions simultaneously most of all sabotaged any hope of close and effective cooperation of all three regiments.

  Despite his careful tactical calculations, Rall was not to benefit long from his wise decision of shifting most of his troops just off King Street to minimize losses. A far more serious and closer threat for Rall suddenly emerged—yet another surprise on a morning full of surprises for the Hessians—in a new direction, when the first American musketry rattled loudly from west of King Street, when Mercer, at the head of his brigade, struck. This swiftly developing emergency situation called for yet another a new tactical deployment by Rall to meet this escalating threat. While the foremost Rall Regiment battalion faced north along Pinkerton’s Alley in the rear, or south, of the Anglican Church, and east of King Street, Rall was now forced to redeploy his troops. Reacting quickly, he turned his southernmost battalion of four companies—a Hessian regiment consisted of two battalions—along King Street to face west, after ascertaining the emerging threat of the foremost attackers of Mercer’s Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts brigade swarming forward through the open ground of snow-covered fields and meadows west of town. Rall’s swift tactical adjustment was timely since the Hessians would have been forced entirely from King Street and then from Queen Street to the east, with Rall brigade positions falling like dominos when systematically outflanked by Mercer’s attackers from the west.

  While the von Lossberg troops continued to look north along Church Alley, Rall Regiment’s grenadiers now simultaneously faced both north, via Pinkerton’s Ally (the northernmost battalion), and west, via King Street (the southernmost battalion). Pinkerton’s Alley ran east-west a short distance to link King and Queen Streets and was located just below, or south of, parallel Church Alley and below the von Lossbergers. At the snowy intersection of King Street and Pinkerton’s Ally, Rall’s newly formed defensive right angle, with its apex in King Street, now protected the Rall Regiment on two sides to face simultaneous threats from multiple directions, north and west.

  Even though facing west toward Mercer’s growing threat to the west meant that the Rall Regiment’s southernmost battalion’s right flank on the north in King Street was exposed to Forrest’s artillery fire from the high ground, it was yet located sufficiently far enough south of the von Lossberger’s position, to the northeast in Church Alley, to partly negate the effectiveness of Forrest’s Pennsylvania field pieces. Both of these narrow alleys were situated just above, or north, from where the River Road entered King Street from the west.

  To Rall and other Hessian officers and despite the initial left flank pressure applied by Mercer, who could not
bring artillery (fortunately for Rall) across rain-swollen Petty’s Run because no bridge existed on the town’s west side, increasing from the west, the main threat to the Rall brigade yet remained to the north, where Washington’s lengthy row of artillery continued to roar. Seasoned Hessian officers, who wore Prussian-style bicorn hats unlike their men, automatically knew that so many deployed American artillery pieces—ascertained only from a angry chorus of rhythmic booming, a deadly cadence that seemed to grow steadily louder, and from fiery muzzle flashes and puffs of smoke rising on the northern horizon—had to be supported by large numbers of infantry: hence, the main threat to the Rall brigade’s existence clearly loomed to the north on the heights above the town.

  Indeed, if this yet unknown American force was in fact larger than anyone yet imagined, then it could pour south off the high ground and down King Street to outflank the von Lossberg Regiment on its left and the Rall Regiment’s southernmost battalion on its right and divide the two regiments, if the bulk of the two regiments remained mostly in relatively sheltered positions just east of King Street. But worst of all with American fire echoing louder from three sides, Rall now entertained the shocking possibility that he was in the process of being surrounded: Sullivan’s attackers firing to the southwest; Mercer’s men blasting away to the west; Forrest’s cannon roaring to the north at King Street’s head; and to the northeast at Queen Street’s head, where Hamilton’s two six-pounders rapidly fired south toward the Knyphausen Regiment. Believing that he was all but trapped and realizing that Washington was employing a masterful double envelopment to his utter disbelief, Rall remained not only relatively calm, but also now decided to make a determined bid to reverse the day’s fortunes. Cantering back and forth on his horse before his aligned veterans, he knew that he must attack north up King Street in a desperate attempt to break out of Washington’s entrapment before it was too late.

  At the west end of Pinkerton’s Alley, consequently, Rall now realigned his southernmost grenadier battalion in King Street to face north, regardless of Mercer’s flank fire. He then ordered his own grenadiers to advance a short distance north to extend the southern battalion’s northern head to touch the von Lossberg Regiment’s left flank at Church Alley. After the grenadier battalion advanced a short distance up King Street, then the other Rall grenadier battalion in Pinkerton Ally was quickly shifted west and back into King Street to form behind the Rall Regiment’s lead battalion, which now became the northernmost unit. In relatively short order, both battalions of the Rall Regiment were now once again in King Street and faced north and the primary threat.

  Eager to unleash his troops on the offensive in the finest Prussian tradition of linear tactics, Rall prepared to order his grenadiers, now aligned in an assault column spanning from one side of the street to the other, straight north up King Street, and literally into the eye of the storm, both man-made and natural. However, Rall’s adroit tactical maneuver of having smoothly faced both battalions north in an assault column and advancing a short distance up King Street, the Rall Regiment’s compact ranks now offered a better target to the opportunistic Pennsylvania gunners at the head of King Street. Consequently, wide-eyed artillerymen responded with a higher rate of fire, and casualties among the grenadiers steadily rose like the snow that covered the ground.

  With cannonballs from the six-pounders and five and a half-inch shells from Forrest’s howitzers “flying down the street and breaking into their ranks,” additional Hessian soldiers fell into nature’s white carpet, now splattered and stained with red. Handfuls of other grenadiers in dark blue uniforms immediately dropped out of formation to help their wounded comrades, including those unfortunate men hit by “shrapnel” iron fragments from the exploding howitzer shells that cracked like thunder when they burst overhead. Injured Hessians were then assisted southeastward to the increasingly busy brigade hospital, which was located at the parsonage of the Presbyterian Church at Second Street and Queen Street. As so often in the past with his aggressive instincts rising to the fore despite having been caught so completely by surprise, Rall now planned to rely upon what he knew best and something that had never failed in the past: the most successful Hessian tactic of all, the bayonet attack, as demonstrated so effectively against the hapless American soldiers at Long Island, White Plains, and Fort Washington.4

  Besides the inherent disadvantages of having been taken by surprise and with his grenadiers suffering under fire from a greater concentration of American cannon and more deadly than they had faced on previous battlefields, the overall tactical situation now faced by Rall could not have been more disadvantageous. Able to see only a few yards distant because of the pelting snow and sleet that blew into their faces while they peered north toward Knox’s blazing field pieces along the high ground, Rall and his men were yet blind in regard to Washington’s exact dispositions and positions, especially in regard to Sullivan’s attack to the southwest, in part because no information was forthcoming from members of the Knyphausen Regiment, which was situated before their regimental headquarters in the lower town toward Queen Street’s southern end.

  In contrast to Washington and Knox’s gunners who looked south upon a panoramic view from their high ground perch with the winter storm raging to their backs, Colonel Rall was also at a disadvantage since he and his troops were situated at a much lower point: the bottom of a natural bowl. Rall, consequently, now had to rely on his own fighting instincts, intuition, and tactical skills to get his brigade out of an exceptionally bad fix, while the sharp sounds of escalating American fire exploded around him from three directions. Hit head-on by the scorching fire of Forrest’s guns, meanwhile, more finely uniformed grenadiers continued to drop out of formation, falling either dead or wounded in snowy King Street. Unknown to him at this time, however, Colonel Rall was now losing something even more significant and precious than some of his most prized grenadiers. In Lieutenant Wiederhold’s words, the Hessians had already “lost the few favorable moments we might still have had to break through the enemy in one place or another with honor and without losses.” From his lofty perch overlooking the town, Washington could even view signs of the steady progress of the escalating attack of Sullivan’s column eastward by way of the noise of musketry, the sight of fiery flashes from muskets, and the rising smoke that was barely seen through the thick, whitish haze of falling snow.

  With the round iron balls from Forrest’s six-pounders and the shells from five and a half-inch howitzers streaming down King Street and knowing that getting his half dozen artillery pieces into action as soon as possible was essential for the town’s defense and to support his hard-hit grenadiers, especially after they had moved a short distance up King Street to halt beside his headquarters (Stacy Potts’s house) and opposite the west end of Church Alley, Rall raced over to his regiment’s two-gun section to his grenadier’s rear. Here, with the ever-increasing noise of battle swirling around him, this experienced colonel of middle-class background knew that he had to counter the blistering fire of Forrest’s guns from Philadelphia as soon as possible. Barking in the tumult, Rall ordered for his regiment’s finely uniformed gunners, who had gathered in King Street, to hurry the two three-pounders, which had been formerly parked in the snow-shrouded cemetery behind the Anglican Church, where the Rall Regiment cannoneers had been lodged, into action.

  Fortunately, the grenadier regiment’s two three-pounders were soon ready for action before Rall’s headquarters guardhouse on King Street, located just south of his personal headquarters, instead of now guarding the South Trenton Landing just on the Assunpink’s south side. Lieutenant Johann Engelhardt’s top lieutenant, Friedrich Fischer, should have commanded the early morning patrol, with the two Rall Regiment artillery pieces, until cancelled by the complacent Major Dechow.

  Amid the roaring noise of battle, Engelhardt’s and Fischer’s experienced artillerymen quickly manhandled one three-pounder into the exact position Rall designated. By hand and rope, the German gunners then hauled t
he field piece a short distance north up King Street to a point nearly opposite Rall’s headquarters. Here, the Rall Regiment’s cannoneers set up their gun in what initially appeared to be a good position. Aiming high for proper elevation to reach the heights north of town, the Hessian artillerymen then sent a screaming shot at Forrest’s intimidating row of artillery pieces that were busily blasting away down King Street. But the distance was yet too far for the Hessian gun to be effective. Nevertheless, the fact the one German cannon was finally returning fire lifted the spirits among the hard-hit grenadiers, who were emboldened to know that one of their regiment’s guns had gamely answered the booming American artillery at long last.

  However, Rall soon realized that these two bronze guns of the Rall Regiment had to be moved much farther up King Street if they were to be effective. Therefore, the never-say-die colonel, the son of a career soldier, ordered his German gunners to retrieve the artillery horses, stabled in a nearby barn, to quickly hitch up the two field pieces in preparation for advancing the guns north up ice-covered King Street and the lengthy slope leading to the fiery heights to get within closer range of the Pennsylvania guns. In frantic haste, cannoneers dashed to the barn around fifty yards distant from the King Street alarm house, located near Rall’s headquarters, to secure the eight horses for hitching to the Rall Regiment’s two guns. As part of his extensive precautions just in case of an attack, Rall had wisely ordered that the brigade’s artillery horses were to remain in full harness while stabled at night so that they could be more quickly hitched to artillery pieces. However, when Major Dechow cancelled the usual morning patrol due to the storm’s severity and the Yuletide Season, the artillery horses of the Rall Regiment’s two guns had been unhitched and then placed back in the stables.