George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Meanwhile, during the march to slip away from the escalating urban tempest that resembled a scene from Dante’s inferno, Rall sent an urgent order to Major Dechow and his Knyphausen Regiment, now positioned southeast of Rall’s headquarters and around the wood-frame Quaker Church, to link with his two roughed up regiments by moving north to gain the upper part of town, if Sullivan’s attackers could not be successfully resisted on the south. Most of all, Rall smartly realized that he had to offer solid resistance on both fronts—northern and southern—as long as possible to keep Washington’s pincer movement from closing in a Cannae-like double envelopment.37

  With Hessian initiative having lost steam in all sectors, thirty-eight-year-old Lieutenant Friedrich Fischer rose to the challenge on Queen Street upon Rall’s orders to protect the rear of the withdrawing von Lossberg and Rall Regiments, from north to south, respectively, and to prevent an advance of Stirling’s troops farther down Queen Street to protect his open left flank, after he crossed to the street’s east side. As the experienced senior artillery officer in this sector and Engelhardt’s top lieutenant, Fischer was now in command of the only available artillery which had accompanied the von Lossbergers after Lieutenant Engelhardt and his Rall Regiment gunners had fled across the Assunpink. Fortunately, a contingent of rearmost von Lossberg fusiliers was nearby to provide some initial, timely support to these defiant German gunners, but not for long. Shouting out instructions above the tumult, Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer ordered a number of red-uniformed von Lossbergers to assist Fischer, who was short on cannoneers but not on nerve.

  With the assistance of veteran bombardier Conrad Volprecht, Fischer took command of an ad hoc gathering of fifteen artillerymen and infantrymen-turned-gunners, amid the confused fog of war that had consumed all of Trenton and the hard-hit Rall brigade. While the battle roared to new furies and the deluge of snow and ice continued to descend from blackened skies unabated, they then pushed forward the Knyphausen Regiment’s two three-pounders farther north up Queen Street. Sweating despite the cold from their exertions, this united band of determined German infantrymen and artillerymen hauled the two guns north up the slope on this Thursday morning in hell.

  Once deployed by Fischer in an advanced position and a good distance north of the austere Quaker Church, but not as far north as the Rall Regiment’s guns had been set up just north of Petty’s Creek on King Street immediately to the west, these two cannon were now in a position to not only protect the rear of the withdrawing Rall and the von Lossberg regiments, while moving slightly northeast, but also to keep open one of the two main arteries that led through Trenton and to the stone bridge across the Assunpink and by which reinforcements from Bordentown could come, if dispatched in time. However, setting up the two cannon so far up, or north, slippery Queen Street without the protection of advancing infantry was a risky decision, especially with an unknown number of Stirling’s troops before them to the north and with the foremost of Haslet’s and Mercer’s surging men, to the west, having advanced east to reach Queen Street’s west side. One of Fischer’s three-pounders was placed squarely in Queen Street and the other artillery piece was situated on open ground just to the street’s left.

  As earlier when the Rall Regiment’s ill-fated two gun section had been positioned just north of Petty’s Run on King Street, Lieutenant Fischer’s two three-pounders now stood alone amid the omnipresent snowfall without sufficient infantry support because the Knyphausen Regiment was positioned too far south and farther down Queen Street in the lower town. With well-oiled efficiency fueled by a heightened sense of desperation, Fischer’s gunners went to work to respond to the barking New York cannon. Eight shots were quickly fired toward the high ground from the two three-pounders, even though they were no longer manned entirely by highly trained gunners of Engelhardt’s detachment, but by some versatile infantrymen, perhaps former gunners, detailed from the von Lossberg Regiment.

  Most importantly in tactical terms, Fischer’s timely advanced placement of the two Knyphausen cannon presented a formidable obstacle to the continuation of Stirling’s advance down Queen Street. Therefore, Fischer’s feisty band of Teutonic gunners and their two three-pounders had to be eliminated as soon as possible. From the high ground at Queen Street’s head, Captain Hamilton and his New Yorkers sighted his six-pounders on the two lone Hessian field pieces, now exposed in the open. Hamilton’s New York cannon bellowed angrily, raking the lower ground along Queen Street with an accurate fire. One well-placed iron cannonball ripped through and mangled three unlucky artillery horses, all but ensuring the impossibility of removing the gun in time with so many Americans converging from multiple directions.

  Hamilton’s keen-eyed New Yorkers had zeroed in on the exact range in record time. One Hessian gunner was cut down while other cannoneers experienced close calls amid the torrent of screaming projectiles. Then a three-pounder was disabled in Queen Street by an excellent shot from the New York artillerymen and the gun could no longer be fired. Simultaneously, the hail of American musketry from multiple directions increased in lethality to additionally reduce Fischer’s band, who were now the northernmost, and hence most exposed, Rall brigade members on blood-stained Queen Street. More Hessian gunners and artillery horses fell around the two isolated field pieces aligned in the snow. Lieutenant Fischer’s dwindling band of gunners was now in the process of being surrounded by the relentless advance of seemingly countless Americans.

  In grim desperation, therefore, Fischer ordered the sole remaining functional cannon to be loaded with canister in a last-ditch effort to keep Stirling’s encroaching troops, inching south down Queen Street and eager to capture Hessian artillery by killing all the gunners, at bay. However, only a single blast of canister was unleashed upon the swarming executioners, especially sharp-eyed riflemen, of Hessian artillerymen, just before Fischer’s horse was shot from under him. With some of his men already streaming south down Queen Street to either escape or rejoin their fusilier regiment under Scheffer, Lieutenant Fischer screamed orders to hitch up the surviving gun of the Knyphausen Regiment before it was too late.

  The able artillery lieutenant, filling Engelhardt’s shoes in excellent fashion, planned to escape east to link up with the von Lossberg and Rall Regiments. Providing solid leadership in a crisis situation, bombardier Volprecht, and a handful of Fischer’s surviving artillerymen of the Knyphausen guns, hoped to escape to join the cannoneers of the two three-pounders, the von Lossberg guns, now with the Knyphausen Regiment, while bullets hummed around them like angry bees among spring flowers on a sunny April morning back along the Rhine. Lieutenant Fischer, born in Niedernhausen and with two decades of military experience, had performed admirably during this showdown on embattled Queen Street in which his two guns had been silenced in less than ten minutes by the much-maligned Americans who were now fighting with a spirit not previously seen.38

  Chapter VII

  Bitter Struggle for the Lower Town

  General Sullivan, a thirty-six-year-old Scotch-Irish warrior and the son of immigrants from Ulster Province, northern Ireland, kept his First Division troops on the move, closing the southern arm of Washington’s pincer movement tighter around its reeling Teutonic victim. One observer wrote with some amazement how it would “astonish our European military men, to learn that General Sullivan was only a lawyer in 1775,” and now leading his unleashed First Division with consummate skill.1 Like Washington, the New Hampshire-born Sullivan was now having his finest day at Trenton, fighting like a man possessed.

  In overall tactical terms and as Washington fully realized, the key to keeping the Rall, Knyphausen, and von Lossberg Regiments from uniting and performing effectively as one—the only real hope for Rall to break through Washington’s tightening vise of a Cannae-like double envelopment—lay in striking from two directions and maintaining heavy pressure: the first phase of Washington’s encirclement and then annihilation of Rall’s brigade. Therefore, adhering to the sound tactical principle of divide and c
onquer, Washington’s elated troops of Greene’s and Sullivan’s Divisions were now “pressing in on every side” in a determined bid to seal the Hessians’ fate. Knowing that exact timing of Washington’s well-planned double envelopment was vital for achieving decisive victory, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick described Washington’s masterful tactical formula that all but ensured victory, because the two divisions of “our army . . . with a quick Step [were] pushing on upon both roads at the Same time entering the town” from two different directions and then orchestrating a pincer movement in an urban environment by hard fighting.2

  While Washington had initially halted Greene’s Division in a stationary position on the high ground north of town to await favorable tactical developments before launching his infantry attack down King Street, the assault of Sullivan’s Division was slowed because the advance covered a greater distance and initially entered a confusing tangle of snowbound streets in the lower town’s outskirts below and just southeast of the River Road. Mirroring the hard-hitting performance of the left of Stirling’s Brigade in sweeping aside resistance at Queen Street’s northern end and the Virginia Continentals on King Street, Sullivan’s New Englanders continued to surge into Trenton’s southwestern edge, battling through the darkened streets in the hope of reaping a dramatic victory “for the salvation of America.”3

  Fortunately, to achieve this lofty goal, Sullivan possessed a secret weapon in his sweeping charge into lower Trenton; Colonel Stark, a fellow Scotch-Irish warrior well-known for this aggressive style and tactical skill. Colonel Stark. Commanding the veterans of the First New Hampshire Continental Regiment, the irrepressible Stark, with his fighting blood up, continued to lead the surge of Sullivan’s division—with Sargent’s brigade in the lead, followed by Glover’s and then St. Clair’s brigades—through the snowy streets. On the double and backed by the booming cannon-fire of Captain Neil’s New Jersey two three-pounders, Stark and his New Hampshire troops, the first regiment in Sullivan’s column, surged ahead just behind Captain Flahaven’s band of New Jersey solders.

  The fighting spirits among Sullivan’s attackers was high after overcoming all initial resistance. These onrushing New Hampshire and New Jersey soldiers had already tasted victory in having chased the green-uniformed jaegers out of Dickinson’s Hermitage and in driving back the foremost, or westernmost, Knyphausen Regiment’s fusiliers eastward. Meanwhile, Major Dechow had led his regiment from the Quaker Church area and to Queen Street’s west side in a belated attempt to meet Sullivan’s onslaught. As the southern arm of Washington’s pincer movement, Sullivan’s First Division troops charging into the darkened edge of the lower town were eager to prove themselves.

  After all, these same men of Sullivan’s First Division, mostly New Englanders, had been often mocked by British leaders as nothing but “a dirty pack of New England long-faces,” while upper class Virginians, especially the planter’s sons, felt a comparable contempt. Therefore, on this cold morning when so much was at stake for America, Sullivan’s New Englanders, ignoring tired legs, the biting cold, and mind-numbing fatigue, were determined to prove to the Virginians, the haughty British, and especially the equally arrogant Hessians that they were completely wrong about the prowess of the northeastern fighting man.4

  And fortunately for Washington, no New Englander was more determined to prove himself this bitterly cold morning than Stark himself. Now never so far from his heavily forested mountains of his New Hampshire Grants, Stark was a natural brawler blessed with considerable tactical ability. The straightforward, opinionated Stark had only recently strongly objected to Washington’s face (something no one ever did to America’s highest ranking commander who was called “His Excellency”) about having been ordered by him to erect defenses along the Delaware’s west bank because he believed that his New Hampshire boys could be more wisely utilized in attacking the enemy. In fact, an impatient Stark had even “boldly demanded to know [exactly] when Washington would order an attack” to redeem America’s honor. This bold, tactically gifted commander from New England’s frontier was now unleashed in the key role that he most relished and best suited him, leading the steamrolling attack of an entire division in America’s most important battle to date.5

  Overwhelming the Barracks

  Just a block below Stark’s New Hampshire attackers, who faced the foremost, or westernmost, Knyphausen Regiment soldiers, defending positions on, above, and below Second Street and after having earlier turned south off the River Road, meanwhile, Sullivan’s troops closed in on targets south of the River Road and Second Street, after departing the east-running River Road by way of a snowbound road leading south toward the Delaware. In his usual hard-hitting style, Sullivan led Sargent’s and Glover’s brigades south to gain the head, or the western end of Front Street, while Stark and Flahaven continued to surge eastward to apply pressure on the westernmost Knyphausen Regiment fusiliers in the Second Street sector. Here, at this intersection where the road descended to the right, or south, from the River Road met the west end of Front Street, the old barracks, the largest structure in all Trenton, stood to the road’s right about a block west of King Street.

  Located in the snow-covered river bottom just east of Petty’s Run before it entered the overflowing waters of the Delaware and just below where the River Road entered King Street, this imposing stone bastion could not be allowed to remain in Sullivan’s rear with the foremost troops, under Stark and Flahaven, now advancing east down the western end of Front Street. Therefore, after Sullivan’s First Division had earlier overrun the Dickinson House picket position on the River Road, the U-shaped barracks on the southwest corner of the town’s outskirts loomed as the most formidable objective of Washington’s right wing in Trenton’s lower part. To fulfill this key mission, Sullivan had already dispatched troops south below Second Street for the express purpose of neutralizing the barracks: a costly tactical diversion in terms of time and effort.

  Here, opposite the western end of Front Street, Grothausen’s breathless “greencoats” from the River Road had earlier reached the two-story barracks to link up with additional Hessian troops housed in these sturdy quarters. All in all, this barracks was an excellent place to make a defensive stand to slow up Sullivan’s steamrolling attackers because by this time “the Americans were thick in their front,” recalled one stunned Hessian. Therefore, Lieutenant Grothausen hurriedly organized an ad hoc defense before the barracks, which had been built by the Colony of New Jersey in 1758.

  In a highly questionable decision, Grothausen decided not to utilize the imposing barracks to make a last stand, however. Instead the green-coated jaegers and barracks troops formed a defensive line just before the barracks, evidently in the open parade ground on the barracks’ open side that faced east toward the town’s southern end and toward the road by which Sullivan’s Continentals poured down in the conventional manner, as prescribed by military textbook. Here, in attempting to defend yet another exposed position, the Hessians prepared to receive Sullivan’s attackers swarming southward with cheers. In a strange paradox, these jaegers, trained for dense woodlands fighting, were attempting to defend an urban position on open ground. This isolated band of Hessians had no idea that this formidable barracks had been originally constructed as part of a lengthy defensive line, that included New Brunswick, Elizabethtown, and other New Jersey communities for both British regulars and American militia, whose mission was to safeguard British Empire possessions during the French and Indian War as part of a global struggle between England and France for supremacy.6

  Situated on the low ground of the river bottoms not far from the ice-filled Delaware, the barracks, fronted by a full-length wooden balcony, was located just two blocks south of the River Road and only a block west of King Street. With sufficient space to house around three hundred soldiers in more than twenty rooms, the stout barracks served not only as quarters for the jaegers but also for relocated Tory refugee families from Burlington and Monmouth Counties and New Jersey and Hess
ian wives and their children. For the most part, these German women, or camp followers, were a tough, feisty lot, enduring months of active campaigning with their soldier husbands and lovers. They were known for their special hatred of American rebels, having been “abusive” toward Fort Washington prisoners back in mid-November. Presenting a formidable obstacle, the well-constructed barracks was Trenton’s largest structure, consisting of native undressed stone erected with skill by master craftsmen. Clearly, the barracks should have served as an ideal defensive bastion that would have been impregnable to delay Sullivan’s attack. The well-trained Lieutenant Grothausen, who had been long schooled to fight in conventional ways, thought otherwise, however.

  As Sullivan had realized upon first sight, the imposing stone barracks had to be overwhelmed as soon as possible. The barracks, looming like a menacing beacon against a snowy landscape within sight of the dark-colored Delaware, posed a threat that promised not only to slow up but also to sap the overall momentum of Sullivan’s attack. To fulfill Washington’s ambitious tactical vision of a double envelopment, Sullivan’s onslaught had to be continued east unabated down Second and Front Streets, from north to south, to maintain pressure on the Knyphausen Regiment, which was positioned on, above, and below Second Street, and threaten the rear of the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments, facing north in confronting Greene’s Second Division.

  Therefore, this sharp clash for the barrack’s possession was no simple or inconsequential tactical confrontation—although often overlooked or minimized by historians—when Sullivan’s onrushing soldiers descended upon a thin, green line of jaegers and other barracks troops deployed. Reacting quickly, the Hessians unleashed a concentrated volley when the foremost Americans, half obscured by a white veil of falling snow, surged forward. But nothing could stop Sullivan’s New Englanders by this time. Little, if any, damage was inflicted on the swarming attackers, who continued onward without even halting to return fire.