As planned, Sullivan’s onrushing troops now exploited Stark’s success in sweeping aside all initial resistance. Colonels Sargent and Glover’s brigades, bolstered by the rapid fire of Neil’s New Jersey, Moulder’s Pennsylvania, and Sargent’s Massachusetts batteries, respectively, surged slightly northeast toward the Knyphausen Regiment’s left from the south just below Stark. Seemingly like a man possessed, Sullivan was now determined to smash through all Knyphausen resistance to gain Queen Street, the strategic artery just to the east and whose possession promised victory now that the Continentals had secured King Street, to cut off the Rall brigade’s escape south out of town by gaining the foot of Queen Street in the lower town and the Assunpink bridge—the only means of escaping across the rain-swollen creek.17
With a comparable strategic objective in mind and just north of Sargent’s and Glover’s eastward-surging brigades, respectively, Stark remained keenly focused on rolling up the Knyphausen’s left flank, which now defended the vicinity of Queen and Second Streets, while St. Clair’s New Hampshire and Massachusetts regiments surged ahead to Stark’s rear. Running a gauntlet of fire from nearby houses, Stark and his New Hampshire troops smashed into Dechow’s left with a vengeance, inflicting damage and knocking additional crack fusiliers out of action. More importantly in tactical terms, Stark was driving the westernmost troops of the Knyphausen Regiment gradually east toward Queen Street, driving closer to his primary tactical objective.
Young Major Wilkinson was part of Stark’s attack that steamrolled through the lower town to give the Knyphausen Regiment more than it could handle, describing how “the enemy made a momentary shew of resistance by a wild and undirected fire from the windows of their quarters [private homes] which they abandoned as we advanced, and made an attempt to form in the main street [Second], which might have succeeded.” With the fusilier regiment’s left now heavily pressured from the howling tide of Sullivan’s attackers, from both north (Stark on Second Street and with the rest of St. Clair’s brigade following) and south (Sargent and Glover, respectively, on Front Street), Dechow ordered his hard-hit troops to fall back before they were completely overwhelmed. Therefore, the northernmost fusiliers on the Kynphausen Regiment’s right began to withdraw east and then north up Queen Street with the objective of marching east out of the swirling urban combat into a broad, open field just east of the Quaker Meeting House, which was located about a block east of Queen Street.18
Feeling that victory was ordained by God, Stark continued to push aside every fusilier whom he found opposing him in the streets, alleys, and houses along Second Street and its dank environs. Destroying the enemy was simply a case of “doing my God and Country the Greatest service” to this Scotch-Irish holy warrior. Colonel Stark’s sustained pressure was strategically important and timely, ensuring that the Knyphausen Regiment was not initially going to link up with the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments, which had now continued to retire northeast to Queen Street’s east side, for an united offensive effort of the entire brigade to escape Washington’s entangling web: another key tactical requirement for the eventual fulfillment of Washington’s grand tactical design of a double envelopment. Therefore, all three regiments of the previously undefeated Rall brigade would never unite as one for either an offensive or defensive effort this morning.19
Most importantly by this time, Washington’s fast-moving infantry units of his unleashed First and Second Divisions on every sector of the field refused to relinquish either the initiative or momentum as if holding tightly onto something precious precisely because it had been so rarely grasped. Meanwhile, after having been thwarted in its determined counterattacks and even in regard to the permanent placement of its artillery in advanced positions on both main parallel arteries leading into Trenton’s center, the Rall Regiment and von Lossberg Regiments remained just east of Queen Street at this time while the Knyphausen Regiment fought on its own to the south against Sullivan’s Division, which continued to achieve significant gains in the embattled lower town.
While the Rall Regiment of grenadiers remained in the area just east of Church Alley on Queen Street’s east side, the von Lossberg Regiment’s left flank likewise remained on Queen Street, with most of this crack fusilier command aligned in the more open ground to the east. Here, the Hessians maintained stationary positions after having learned the wisdom of keeping formations out of the middle streets dominated by Knox’s artillery. Rall and other top officers restored order, despite consecutive offensive setbacks and spiraling losses. Begrimed in black powder and exhausted, these experienced grenadiers and fusiliers yet remained seemingly half-stunned from the recent punishment delivered by the salvoes of artillery and sheets of musketry, however. Never before had these crack fighting men seen so many American soldiers displaying so such aggressiveness, skill, and initiative, shattering long-existing stereotypes that had been long accepted without question.
Most shocking of all, Rall’s most determined offensive efforts had been twice thwarted: something that had never happened before to Hessian troops on American soil. Rall listened nervously to the escalating crash of musketry to the southwest with Sullivan’s troops pouring through the lower town with ever-increasing momentum. Now the exploding musketry from Washington’s onrushing troops echoed like a summer thunderstorm over Trenton from the north, south, and west. Even though the Hessians could see relatively little of what was exactly happening around them in the snowstorm and drifting clouds of sulphurous smoke, they knew from the cacophony of rattling musketry and crashing cannonfire that Washington’s encirclement was continuing to succeed as planned.
Since remaining stationary and idle in Trenton was a no-win situation, Rall’s faithful adjutant and conscientious bachelor, Lieutenant Jakob Piel, approached Rall, who continued his attempts to stabilize his hard-hit command. Knowing that the opportunistic Americans were making a determined offensive effort to gain Queen Street in the lower town below their position to cut off their main avenue of escape south from Trenton, now engulfed by Washington’s closing arms of a pincer movement, the lieutenant attempted to convince Rall that now was the time to withdraw south and escape across the Assunpink Bridge—by which many Germans, Engelhart’s gunners, the British light horse, and a number of fusiliers and grenadiers had already slipped out of harm’s way—at the foot of Queen Street. Even Grothausen’s elite “greencoats” had already fled across the bridge never to return, bursting the persistent myth that a single “jager is worth more than ten rebels.” Clearly, as Washington had planned with such care, his surprise attack had caused a paralytic sense of disorientation, bewilderment, and indecision among the Rall brigade’s veterans. Combined with the realization that his once-magnificent brigade had been victimized by the smooth orchestration of Washington’s double envelopment that caught everyone by surprise, discretion was now the better part of valor for a good many Hessian soldiers.
And now Rall finally began to understand as much, accepting the bitter truth that was now no longer possible to ignore. Out of tactical solutions and options, Rall reluctantly agreed with Piel’s advice that seemed like a sound tactical solution by this time. But was the Assunpink bridge even open with the troops of Sullivan’s First Division, especially with relentless Stark leading the way, advancing so rapidly to the south and pushing aside all resistance, as indicated by the ever-eastward rolling cascade of musketry?
Prudently, Rall had earlier sent word to Dechow to do whatever was necessary to keep the bridge open, but Sullivan’s First Division had gained much more ground in the lower town since that time. Rall, consequently, dispatched this experienced lieutenant (Piel), with fourteen years of service, south to the foot of Queen Street to ascertain if this vital stone bridge across the wide, rain-swollen, tidal stream, was yet free of Washington’s attackers, who now seemed to be swarming everywhere and as omnipresent as the flurries of snow descending upon Trenton nonstop.20
However, a host of pressing factors caused even this resourceful, never-say-d
ie German brigade commander, who had reaped victory on every 1776 battlefield, to now contemplate escape as the only solution. First and foremost, the most distinctive feature of this hard-fought battle that it was a savage, close-range urban struggle that continued to frustrate Rall’s best efforts. Rall and his men possessed no prior experience with the almost unfathomable challenges of the savage, close-range nature of urban combat. Nor had they faced so much well-serviced American artillery, which was having its finest day, placed in such advantageous positions.
To additionally confound the Hessians, Washington’s soldiers fought largely on their own hook and as individuals in true frontier fashion, advancing and fighting on their own without the usual conventional rules restricting their movements, initiative, and natural aggressiveness. Proving expert street fighters and natural brawlers in which they utilized their own good tactical sense, they battled Rall’s befuddled troops in an eerie, almost surreal setting of a nightmarish urban environment, during an intense snowstorm’s “unnatural darkness-by-day” atmosphere, made gloomier by the thick palls of battle-smoke hovering over Trenton like a cloud.
From the beginning in fighting by regiments, companies, squads, and individuals, Washington’s soldiers fully utilized this individualistic brand of warfare at which they now proved themselves masters. More like Indian raiders unleashed rather than conventional soldiers, the fast-moving Continentals advanced through the streets, alleys, and backyards before taking good cover to blast away at targets from behind fences, houses, and trees. Throughout this freezing morning, these young yeomen farmer-soldiers relied upon their own initiative, experience, and intelligence to repeatedly outmaneuver and tactically outthink their opponents, pushing aside Rall’s formations and overwhelming stubborn pockets of Hessian resistance.
In contrast, Rall’s Germans depended upon maneuvering, firing, and attacking in close coordination and as one in neat, tight formations for massed volley firing in the Prussian tradition of Frederick the Great: the antithesis of the individualist American soldier’s way of fighting. And in this regard, Rall and his officers were the key to keeping everything moving and flowing in a precise, disciplined, and correct manner. Knowing as much, consequently, Washington’s men naturally sought to eliminate these key linchpins of the smooth functioning of this businesslike Prussian system, focusing on shooting down German officers as soon as possible. The fact that lower- and middle-class American riflemen relished the opportunity to kill upper-class members in the name of God and country was yet another incentive to cut down Hessian officers without mercy.
Knowing how to keep their weapons dry, soldiers frantically chipped their newly issued musket flints to ensure sparks, recently issued upon Washington’s orders—another example of their commander’s foresight—to guarantee that most of their rifles and muskets would fire even during a raging snowstorm. Washington’s astute, versatile attackers also hurriedly loaded and fired while on the move, carefully picking out and cutting down targets, especially Hessian officers exposed in their resplendent uniforms. In the heat of battle, no officer had to tell Washington’s savvy veterans, especially frontiersmen from the wilds of western Maryland, Virginia, or Pennsylvania, how to keep flintlocks firing at a rapid pace, or which target to pick out and knock down with a well-placed shot.21
With the swirling combat reaching a crescendo in an urban environment that was alien for Rall and his troops untrained in the novel art of urban warfare that was not in the eighteenth-century European military manual, the American’s distinctive frontier style of fighting rose to the fore in Trenton’s streets. Most of all, the individual common soldiers and officers from New England to Virginia now relied upon their own well-honed instincts and skills in fighting as individuals who could think and act for themselves. In this way and most importantly for a successful double envelopment as envisioned by Washington, the elated common soldiers—from beardless teenagers to grizzled veterans with long gray hair—maintained the initiative and momentum throughout this morning of decision.
Meanwhile, the surging Americans gained additional ground by advancing on their hook and firing from cover. During this combat raging through Trenton, the natural inclinations, including killer instincts, took control of a good many individual Continental soldiers, who now battled in a Darwinian survival of the fittest showdown in Trenton’s narrow streets against the elite Rall brigade, as if yet confronting Indians in their own manner of warfare. Clearly, Washington’s fighting men benefitted immensely from the fact that the close-range combat swirling through Trenton’s avenues and alleys provided an ideal setting for the individualistic, free-thinking soldiers of a desperate American army that now needed to win a victory for its very survival.
Consequently, many Hessian officers and enlisted men were befuddled in attempting in vain to cope with this frontier style of fighting in a hellish urban environment. Few Hessians believed that these often-defeated Americans would have dared to attack a full grenadier-fusilier brigade, especially in the midst of a blinding winter storm. For Rall’s men, therefore, this vicious urban-winter combat raging through Trenton’s streets seemed like an ugly, surreal nightmare—much too close-range and personal—from which they seemingly could not awake. In the midst of a bitter winter storm (waging winter combat, especially siege warfare, was considered “impossible” in conventional and traditional European minds) at a time when European soldiers were normally sitting beside their warm fires in comfortable winter quarters, the elated Americans, yelling like Indians from the darkest recesses of a primeval wilderness, seemed to be everywhere and firing from behind every house and rail fence.
Taking careful aim and slowly squeezing Long Rifles and smoothbores with “ball and buckshot,” Washington’s soldiers blasted away from good cover to rake the exposed Hessians, who hardly knew where to turn amid the confusing din. To the Hessians’ endless lament, the Americans’ close-quarter style of combat was the very antithesis of traditional European warfare. Therefore, the Hessians were perplexed by this novel way of fighting, a blend of western frontier, guerrilla warfare, and urban combat mixed into one. All the while and as deemed by regulations, proud Hessian officers stood out before their formations in their fancy uniforms, wearing shiny regimental silver, copper, or brass gorgets which hung from necks and covered upper chests, and large bicornered hats, which only drew an accurate fire of sharp-eyed western frontier sharpshooters with trusty Long Rifles.
All of the old conventional rules for waging war, as ordained by the most respected European and German textbooks and military colleges, had said nothing about defending positions in a congested urban area during the most appalling winter conditions. Emerging suddenly out the snowstorm, the shocking sight of Washington’s cheering soldiers, loading and firing on the run, swarming off the high ground to the north and off the low ground to the south in overwhelming numbers was an almost mind-numbing, if not unbelievable, spectacle to disciplined Teutonic soldiers long trained and conditioned to confront conventional opponents in neat, straight linear formations on Europe’s open fields.
Almost as if hoping to demonstrate that the Old World’s traditional ways of waging war were really not yet obsolete at Trenton, young Hessian musicians played martial music in the midst of the raging battle. Even while under a heavy fire, the Hessian musicians played their most inspiring tunes almost certainly to the amusement, if not disbelief, of unsophisticated, illiterate American farm boys, who continued to shoot down additional German soldiers, especially finely educated and priviledged officers, with the ease of hunting white-tailed deer or turkeys in the dense, hardwood forests of western Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Under such circumstances, these German musicians, drummer boys and flutists, should have been ordered by officers to grab muskets and to assist in fighting off Washington’s swarming attackers from multiple directions, because every man was now needed in the hard-hit ranks if the Rall brigade was to survive its greatest challenge this morning in hell.22
While the t
alented German musicians of the fine brass band played their martial tunes that rippled eerily over a war-ravished Trenton, the thundering symphony of Sullivan’s cannon grew louder in the town’s southern end. In a strange way, the angry growl of Knox’s guns appropriately matched the fury of the wintry tempest in sheer intensity, while hundreds of Washington’s veterans continued to advance at a brisk pace through the icy streets, snow flurries, and suffocating clouds of battle-smoke. All the while and sensing victory as never before, the Americans moved relentlessly onward as if nothing could stop them.
Even though Washington possessed no comparable brass bandsmen to counter the playing of spirited Teutonic music that echoed through Trenton’s streets, the onrushing Americans were fueled by their own source of inspiration—more philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual—that fortified an even greater resolve. Shutting the door on the Rall brigade’s escape from the south, hundreds of Sullivan’s First Division troops surged ever-eastward toward the lower end of Queen Street, while shouting an invigorating war cry straight from the hallowed pages of Paine’s The American Crisis: “These are times that try men’s souls.” Amid the heat of battle, the shouting of Paine’s words by the common soldiers was a most symbolic development because the ever-contrarian Englishman, when General Greene’s volunteer aide, had shed tears upon the sickening sight of the fall of Fort Washington. After all, here, Colonel Rall and his elite brigade had reached the zenith of their success and lofty reputations for invincibility in reaping their most impressive battlefield success on American soil. At long last, the war was now coming full circle at a little New Jersey town nestled on the Delaware, and the haunting, searing memories of all those past defeats and humiliations now motivated Washington’s breathless troops as never before, inspiring them to keep charging through the snowy streets of Trenton, shouting, loading, and firing on the run.23
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