George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Meanwhile, Engelhardt and Fischer rallied eighteen able artillerymen, who prepared to advance two artillery pieces up King Street and straight into the path of Forrest’s withering artillery fire. Rall planned to have his regiment’s two guns hauled by his well-trained gunners up King Street in order to inflict damage—hopefully even silencing some of Forrest’s cannon—to pave the way for a hard-hitting infantry breakout from what Rall correctly considered a fatal entrapment. Amid the confusion swirling through King Street and around Rall’s headquarters at Stacy Potts’s house, teams of horses were quickly hitched by artillerymen to the two guns. Feeling that he could yet turn the tide of battle despite having been caught by surprise, Rall then screamed, “Artillery forward!” In a desperate bid to reverse the day’s fortunes before it was too late, the two three-pounders were hurried north up King Street with “no [infantry] escort whatever for the cannon,” because neither the artillerymen nor guns of either the von Lossberg or Knyphausen Regiments were ready to enter the action at this time. Clearly, the spunky Colonel Rall was attempting to do his best by adhering to the old adage that the best defense was a bold offensive in an almost impossible situation.5

  Hampered by his disadvantageous position on lower ground and with a northeast wind blowing snow unceasingly hard into his soldiers’ faces, Rall faced a crisis situation that now tactically required the immediate unity of all three regiments, especially the Knyphausen Regiment in the town’s southern end in the Queen Street sector near the wood-frame Quaker Meeting House, to maximize offensive capabilities. Unfortunately for Rall, because his men faced multiple threats from three directions, simply too much time had been already lost by all three regiments to assemble and unite as one: the high price for having been caught by surprise and underestimating their opponent. All the while, hundreds of Americans had hurriedly not only deployed with discipline in excellent positions for action, but also had taken the initiative to gain more advantageous ground that Rall desperately needed to retain. This was especially the case on the Rall Regiment’s vulnerable left flank west of King Street, where Mercer applied increasingly more pressure from the west.

  Worst of all for Hessian fortunes, Rall now possessed relatively few troops who were truly combat ready and prepared for their supreme challenge. Indeed, Rall was severely handicapped by the fact that the vast majority of his enlisted soldiers—more than three-quarters of his brigade and artillerymen—were now unfit for duty. Unable to join their regiments in the town’s defense, many ailing men were either housed in makeshift infirmaries, or in private houses that now served as hospitals much to their owner’s regret. Additionally reducing the overall chances for reserving the day’s fortunes, Rall’s officer corps had been likewise thoroughly decimated by disease and illness more than battle since their arrival in this strange land known as America. These Europeans, especially those men from well-maintained German cities, hundreds of years old, where sanitation and hygiene were excellent out of necessity because of crowded conditions, were unacclimated to America’s more underdeveloped environment, especially unfamiliar germs and bacteria that infected bodies which had relatively little resistance. Therefore, many leading Rall brigade officers were now either sick or dying because they now fought on American soil.

  Nevertheless, many stricken men gamely answered the call to duty during the Rall brigade’s moment of supreme crisis. Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer, a fifty-four-year-old married man who commanded the von Lossberg Regiment, now encouraged his troops, who hailed principally from Hesse-Cassel towns like Rinteln, Bassum, and Ucht, into action, despite having been in a sickbed for most of the last week. Although ill-clothed in only summer uniforms, a number of sick Hessians, both officers and enlisted men, had also already hobbled into line to do their duty as best they could. Rall’s overall combat-ready strength was drained by other factors as well. Overcome by panic as Washington had planned, some Rall’s grenadiers had already fled down King Street to cross the Assunpink bridge, escaping what they already saw with ample justification as a no-win situation for the seemingly doomed Rall brigade.

  In truth, Rall was not yet surrounded as he feared, however. By this time, the initial success in the simultaneous striking of both Greene’s and Sullivan’s columns was not sufficient to secure a complete victory for Washington because the pincers of his double envelopment had not yet closed shut. For one, the extreme right of Stirling’s brigade, Colonel John Haslet’s Delaware Regiment, had to yet link with the left of Mercer’s brigade to fill the gap in Washington’s line on the town’s northwest to ensure that Stirling’s and Mercer’s brigades linked together on their respective flanks to present a solid front. In addition, what also now needed to be accomplished in overall tactical terms for Washington’s plan to succeed was for the right flank of Greene’s troops, Mercer’s Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts brigade, to link with the left flank of Sullivan’s attackers to the south for the initial meeting of the First and Second Divisions to complete the entrapment of the Rall brigade on three sides, north, south, and west. While Washington’s veteran troops and much of his best artillery units were poised on the commanding terrain north of town, hundreds of other Americans continued to surge upon Trenton from the west (Mercer) and southwest (Sullivan). Additional numbers of Mercer’s fast-arriving attackers, including more than eight hundred soldiers of the Twentieth Connecticut Continental Regiment, the Twenty-Seventh Massachusetts Continental Regiment, the First Maryland Continental Regiment, a small unit of Connecticut State Troops, and a Maryland Rifle Battalion, continued to gain advanced positions just west of King Street.

  Here, on the town’s western outskirts, they took cover in buildings, behind fences, and in the snow-covered lot openings between the two-story wood-frame houses, where the biting northeast wind was funneled between wooden structures to howl louder. In an urban environment and out of necessity, some of the usual tight brigade and regimental formations broke down, with companies, small groups of men, and even individuals on their own taking the best firing positions, including cellars. Initiative, adaptability, and flexibility now rose to the fore among Mercer’s veterans, paying off. A good many of Mercer’s foremost soldiers found good protective cover in the rear of Potts’s tannery, located near his house.

  From this vantage point and despite fingers numb and stiff from the cold, Mercer’s infantrymen raked the Rall Regiment’s left flank in King Street at close range with a stream of bullets. Gaining good firing positions in the relatively warm houses on King Street’s west side immensely benefitted these Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts veterans, who secured dry shelter from the incessant deluge of falling ice and snow. This advantageous situation finally allowed Mercer’s men to dry their firing mechanisms, flints, and priming pans of their flintlocks. Consequently, these veterans now maintained not only a heavy but also a sustained fire from the west. This increasing volume of fire from the veterans of Mercer’s brigade presented additional proof to Rall and his hard-hit troops that an audacious encirclement by Washington’s suddenly daring movements was not only underway but also nearly complete, or so it seemed.6 Especially after having suffered so many past defeats and humiliations, Washington’s men had long considered themselves “lucky” for the opportunity of “killing a Hessian grenadier,” and this now applied to the famed Rall Regiment.7

  And the Americans “delighted” in nothing more than killing an aristocratic, high-born Hessian officer in a distinctive Prussian bicorn hat, eliminating a representative of the detested European ruling class. Most significantly, while the Hessians had been trained to shoot on command to unleash a volley from a neat line, the Americans knew how to kill on their own with a deadly expertise. This key difference (so significant for the eventual outcome of this urban battle) was most important, reflecting not only the Frederick the Great and Prussian tradition, but also the difference between the cultural, historical, and environmental backgrounds of Trenton’s antagonists. While the average Hessian of humble origin hailed fr
om a background where only the wealthy and social elite possessed extensive lands and engaged in the luxury of hunting in Teutonic forests as a sport, the common people of America, especially on the frontier, had early learned to stalk game, fire from cover, and shoot in order to put food on the table to survive. This notable difference began to rise to the fore in the struggle for possession of Trenton.8

  Understandably, in such a no-win tactical situation of facing a deadly crossfire—round shot and howitzer shells from Forrest’s Pennsylvania artillery from the north and Mercer’s musketry at close range from the west—signs of shakiness began to ripple through the disciplined German formations. Additionally, not all of Rall’s frantic orders could be heard in the tumult, leading to more confusion in the ranks now raked by multiple fires. All in all, the combined effect of the surprise attack, Knox’s booming guns, and Mercer’s escalating flank fire from the west provided an even greater psychological shock, because Rall and his over-confident men had been long so “sure the rebels could not,” wrote grenadier Johannes Reuber, an enthusiastic teenager of the Rall Regiment, possibly launch an offensive strike, especially in such horrendous weather conditions.

  Clearly, Rall now found himself in an increasingly desperate situation, with the rapid fire of Knox’s artillery sweeping south off the high ground and Mercer’s flank fire steaming from the west. All the while, iron round shot from Forrest’s busy six-pounders, aimed to fire at a lower angle of trajectory, continued to bounce and ricochet down the sloping ground of King Street, smashing into wood-frame houses and into the dense Hessian ranks to send unlucky men flying like rag dolls. Incredibly, displaying individual initiative, some of Mercer’s boldest soldiers on his brigade’s left flank at the town’s northern outskirts even dashed across King Street above Rall’s northernmost formation to take advantageous firing positions in the rear of William Smith’s and William Tindall’s houses that fronted Queen Street. From these higher ground vantage points, the most opportunistic American marksmen then turned their muskets to the southwest and blasted away at foremost grenadiers in King Street, delivering a plunging fire from a new, lethal angle to cause more damage.

  And, as usual, Mercer’s eagle-eyed sharpshooters especially targeted Hessian officers, who stood tall before their taut formations in resplendent uniforms as dictated by unbending rules and regulations penned long ago in Hesse-Cassel. Caught in a raging cauldron of withering fires, Rall’s grenadiers on King Street were now simultaneously under escalating pressure from the west by Mercer’s brigade; a far lesser, but most irritating, fire from the northeast; southwest from Sullivan’s onrushing attackers in the lower town; and the cannon fire to the north from Forrest’s six-pounders and five and a half-inch howitzers. Facing these multiple, simultaneous fires that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, Rall knew that he had to quickly eliminate the heaviest firepower now punishing his exposed men with impunity, or all was lost. Rall, therefore, was forced to do something desperate in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide, and this most of all meant silencing the long row of Knox’s fire-spitting cannon as soon as possible.9

  While the beleaguered Colonel Rall was doing his best in an emergency situation, such was not the case with some of his officers. Not only were many officers now either sick and unfit for duty but also some of Rall’s junior officers had never fully recovered from the initial considerable shock of Washington’s surprise attack, especially the intense artillery-fire pouring down King Street. While Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer, with thirty-five years of solid service, had willed himself out of a sickbed to take charge of the von Lossberg Regiment along with Lieutenant Colonel Brethauser, who had been ill for nearly a week but yet now commanded the grenadier regiment while Rall led the brigade, a number of junior officers were not so conscientious or determined to stand firm this morning.

  Some Hessian officers failed to do their duty, remaining in their quarters and safely out of harm’s way. Other shell-shocked Hessians fled south out of town, following the fast-moving British light cavalry over the Assunpink bridge, taking the snowy road south to Bordentown, on the Delaware, to escape Washington’s clever tactical trap. Like the Knyphausen Regiment on Queen Street in the lower town, a number of isolated Hessian detachments also failed to reinforce Rall on King Street at this critical moment. Ensign Henrich Zimmerman, age twenty-one and born in Cassel, remained with his thirty-man detachment in the safety of the sizeable, brick William Trent House, which had been wisely bypassed by Sullivan’s foremost attackers because subduing the formidable structure, located near the river and below the Assunpink, would have been time-consuming, instead of rushing north to assist their King Street comrades, since he received no new orders to do so: a classic example of Hessian superb training and discipline backfiring in a key situation.

  Other German officers, like the commander of the Rall Regiment’s artillery, Lieutenant Engelhardt, were inexperienced in combat: liabilities that additionally hampered Rall’s overall efforts, including his “long-arm” capabilities. In such a disadvantageous situation, such novices, both officers and enlisted men, suffered from bad cases of nerves, or the shakes, with Washington’s troops seemingly descending upon them from nearly all directions. Even some veteran noncommissioned officers also proved ineffective under the debilitating stress of the demanding challenges of urban combat. Therefore, and especially as the battle lengthened this morning, Colonel Rall was now more on his own than in any previous engagement. After all, this was the first time that the Hessians had ever been caught by surprise and faced a crisis situation of such a magnitude. Most of all, they were forced to fight in a confusing urban environment, where high morale, personal initiative, and tactical flexibility meant more than conventional tactics and training along Trenton’s narrow streets under adverse wintertime conditions.10

  From his advantageous high ground perch at King Street’s head, a mounted Washington watched the desperate plight of the Rall brigade, now caught in its worst fix, with unrestrained amusement if not some measure of self-satisfying fascination. By way of his own intelligent tactical decisions, he had managed to ensnare an entire Hessian brigade and to get it in an incredibly bad situation, not unlike so many of his own tactical dilemmas, thanks to superior British generalship, that had confounded him throughout the course of the New York Campaign. For the first time, this customary role that had ruined Washington’s reputation had now been reversed.

  With considerable satisfaction, therefore, Washington surveyed the Rall regiment’s quandary in the middle of King Street: seemingly unable to either advance or retreat amid the tempest of the combined effect of falling snow and the hail of Captain Forrest’s artillery projectiles. Viewing how even these disciplined Hessians were disoriented by the raging snowstorm, hit by multiple fires, and surrounded by the dark buildings of a seemingly deserted, haunted Trenton, Washington described with sheer delight how “we presently saw their main body formed, but from their motions they seemed undetermined how to act.”11

  However, despite its intensifying dilemma for which there seemed no solution, the Rall brigade was yet very dangerous if suddenly unleashed, like a wounded, cornered beast, especially since the battle had fairly only begun, and with the capable Rall firmly in command. Most of all, Rall’s veteran brigade possessed the will, discipline, and capabilities to strike back exceptionally hard. All the while, the northeaster continued to blow sleet and snow into Hessian faces, bestowing Washington’s troops with a decided advantage in what was shaping up to be a dramatic showdown in a little river town that had suddenly become the most important in all America. As Colonel Knox, the former Boston bookseller who had “used to amuse himself in reading military books in his shop,” described the significant advantages bestowed by the blessings of geography around Trenton, Washington’s tactical audacity, and even the white deluge that tumbled down incessantly from black skies: “The storm continued with great violence, but was in our backs, and consequently in the faces of our enemy.”12

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p; In one of the battle’s great ironies for the men defending Trenton, Washington had more vigorously studied the military manual known as the “King of Prussia’s Instructions to his Generals” than any other.13 And now a faithful adherence to that same set of Prussians instructions in the art of war was now in the process of dooming the Rall brigade, because Washington had learned his lessons well. Indeed, in a classic paradox, even the Hessians’ own superior discipline in maintaining a neat, tight shoulder-to-shoulder formation, as if back on a sunny drill field in Hesse-Cassel, in King Street was also now proving self-defeating. Along with Mercer’s relentless pressure from the west and the scorching fire from multiple directions squeezing the two German regiments like a vise and the snowstorm yet fiercely raging over Trenton, the Hessians’ overall relative tactical inflexibility and iron discipline continued to prove to be Washington’s forgotten allies during this climactic showdown, while American troops, especially regimental and brigade commanders, continued to exhibit tactical flexibility and initiative. Frederick the Great had long emphasized to his Prussian troops that their actions on the battlefield should be “the work of a single man,” and “no one reasons, everyone executes” among the rank and file, and Rall’s troops were now obeying these axioms to the letter.