George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  With sword in hand, the colonel from Hesse-Cassel then ordered his neatly aligned grenadiers to open up on Paterson’s menacing mass of highly motivated New Englanders, who was yet half-obscured by the density of the falling snow. Positioned in a east-west formation across King Street, these southernmost Hessians unleashed a volley, which caught St. Clair’s northernmost Continentals, who could see relatively little with the northeast wind and snow blowing in their faces, by surprise. However, the grenadier’s volley sailed high in firing downhill at Paterson’s Massachusetts troops, ascending ground along King Street, negating the Hessians’ advantage of finally benefitting from the storm to their backs and blasting away from a higher elevation. Although not able to see a great deal in the snowstorm, Greenwood described how “They made a full fire at us, but I did not see that they killed any one.”15

  Indeed, the grenadier’s blast of musketry erupting out of the snowy haze proved harmless to St. Clair’s Massachusetts troops on their lower position down the icy slope on King Street, thanks also to the fact that so many Hessian muskets were unable to function properly in the driving storm. In contrast, a blistering fire of riflemen from the right of Stirling’s brigade and Mercer’s men, who had pulled back, north and west of Scheffer’s fusilier troops, respectively, continued to wreak havoc on the gallant last stand of the von Lossberg Regiment, now positioned just northeast of Rall’s heavily pressured grenadiers on King Street.

  The deep penetration of the von Lossbergers so close to King Street and so far within Trenton’s smoke-wreathed depths only made them more vulnerable to the hail of lead from multiple fires. All the while, additional veteran fusiliers of Scheffer’s regiment went down, tumbling into the snow to rise no more. Because the von Lossbergers had not quite pushed far enough west to reach the open expanse of King Street, like Rall’s grenadiers just to the southwest thanks to Rall’s inspired leadership and their own determination, they were relatively safe from the fire of Captain Forrest’s six-pounders and five and a half-inch howitzers that yet dominated the high ground at King Street’s head just to the northwest. Nevertheless, Scheffer’s fusiliers continued to pay a frightfully high price for their audacity and courage in nearly reaching King Street and in waging an intense, close-range urban battle while confined and surrounded by rows of houses filled with American marksmen, who took no mercy on their opponent exposed in the open streets. Trenton had become a certain death trap.

  But this high, if not heroic, sacrifice of von Lossbergers, both officers and enlisted men, was not in vain. Here, just north of Church Alley, this determined defensive stand of the defiant von Lossbergers, whose blood of its most unfortunate members was now splattered on their fine scarlet uniforms, just northeast of Rall’s headquarters, bought some precious time “to delay and, if possible, to prevent a retreat” that very likely would have ensured either the annihilation or capture of one or even both German regiments. And as equally important just below the position of the von Lossberg Regiment, the disciplined volleys of Rall’s well-trained grenadiers also bought additional time to solidify both hard-hit regiments. After Rall’s first “full volley” had suddenly poured south and down King Street too close for comfort when it sailed just high over Bay State heads, Major Henry Shelburne, a seasoned commander from Newport on Aquidneck Island in southeast Rhode Island, and now leading the northernmost portion of Colonel Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment, shouted out a set of new orders to his boys.

  He now directed his Bay State troops, who were much too close to Rall’s southernmost formation of grenadiers thanks to the lack of visibility amid the snow flurries, to fall back and ease south out of deadly range. Also a withdrawal was now absolutely necessary because the Massachusetts regiment’s combat capabilities were greatly eroded with many soldiers unable to fire their weapons because of wet muskets and damp black powder. Here, on lower ground farther down King Street south of Pinkerton’s Alley after retiring south down the gentle slope that led to the lower town, this popular Massachusetts major then shouted for his Continentals to take off their packs and knapsacks, full of three days’ rations and extra gear, in preparation for again soon meeting the Hessians, but only when they were better prepared for tangling with the tough grenadiers in close combat.

  Only in his mid-thirties and a gifted graduate (Class of 1759) of the College of New Jersey at nearby Princeton, Shelburne now employed a masterful psychological ploy to inspire these troops in this key situation on the southern flank of Rall’s counterattack. These Massachusetts soldiers were convinced that “a braver man never was made” than the tough-as-nails major, and they loved him like a father, despite his strict martinet ways that had created a very good regiment and even better fighting men. At this key moment, Shelburne shouted carefully chosen words to fortify his Massachusetts soldiers’ resolve for the next attack north up King Street with the bayonet to meet the Rall Regiment grenadiers once again, but at much closer range: “Now, my boys, pass the word through the ranks that he who is afraid to follow me, let him stay behind and take care of the packs!”16

  As planned, the major’s cleverly calculated taunt made his Fifteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment boys, including Fifer Greenwood who already possessed a year and a half of experience despite only age sixteen, only more determined to demonstrate their worth to their esteemed commander. Consequently, the Massachusetts soldiers could hardly wait to be unleashed and led forward by their beloved Major Shelburne in another attack north up the gentle slope and upon the southernmost Rall’s grenadiers aligned across King Street near Stacy Potts’s house, Rall’s headquarters, despite wet powder and muskets that could no longer be fired.

  Meanwhile, Washington prepared to hurl larger numbers of Stirling’s infantry on the brigade’s right down King Street to sandwich Rall’s finely uniformed grenadiers between them and the foremost, or northernmost, of Sullivan’s troops lower down on King Street, especially after more damage was inflicted upon Rall’s grenadiers by withering musketry and Knox’s artillery. Indeed, Rall’s northern most grenadiers in King Street were fully exposed to the bitter wrath of Washington’s most lethal artillery unit, Captain Forrest’s big six-pounders and five and a half-inch howitzers. After having watched the Rall Regiment grenadiers overrun their two lost three-pounders in King Street with a shout of triumph that raised their ire, the well-trained Philadelphia gunners blasted away at Rall’s northernmost grenadiers deployed and exposed in the open street from the north, while the von Lossberg Regiment made its last stand in a less vulnerable position situated just north of Church Alley and just east of King Street.

  Therefore, severely punished by the terrible salvoes of canister and grape from the roaring Pennsylvania cannon, Rall’s northernmost grenadiers were finally forced south and a short distance down King Street, grudgingly giving up hard-earned ground now littered with equipment, headgear, and fallen soldiers from across their Teutonic homeland so far away. Thoroughly punished but not defeated, the grenadiers headed south down King Street—the avenue of broken Hessian dreams on this bloody morning—and closer to the foremost, or northernmost, of soldiers of Sullivan’s First Division, the Fifteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment, to escape the leaden storm. Then, rejuvenated by the sight of grenadiers giving ground, Stirling’s troops on the Virginia brigade’s right renewed the offensive effort down King Street in the hope of driving Rall out of Trenton’s principal westernmost thoroughfare for the second time this morning and once and for all.

  One lucky survivor of Rall’s Regiment, young Private Reuber described the resurgence of Stirling’s attackers, thanks to Washington’s timely orders, in surging downhill from the north in a determined effort to push the hard-fighting Hessians out of King Street. With more Continentals charging out of the howling snowstorm and off the dominant high ground, Colonel Rall quickly shouted orders to shift his regiment to face north to meet the new threat. In his diary, Grenadier Reuber, only age seventeen, wrote of the intensity of this second bi
tter struggle for King Street’s possession, which remained the primary bone of contention, when Washington’s soldiers “attacked us furiously [and] Near Rall’s quarters there was a barricade of boards and in front of that stood our two company [regimental] cannon [that the grenadier’s had captured]. As the Americans were attempting to reach the cannon [to capture them for the second time] we of Rall’s Grenadier regiment encountered them, directly in front of Rall’s headquarters [and] The fight was furious [and then] The rebels dismantled the barricade and now we lost the greater part of our artillery [once again] and the rebels were about to use them,” during some of the morning’s most bitter fighting.

  At the same time that Rall’s grenadiers were raked by musketry from the north by the westernmost of Stirling’s Second Division troops, they were simultaneously pressured from the south by the northernmost of the First Division’s soldiers, Colonel Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, of Sullivan’s First Division. Like the southernmost of Rall’s grenadiers before them, ironically, the foremost (northernmost) soldiers of St. Clair’s brigade were about to rely upon sheer force of momentum and weight of impact of their offensive effort, with weapons unable to fire and possessing so few bayonets. Despite these setbacks, Major Shelburne ordered his Fifteenth Massachusetts troops to attack north up King Street. As Private Greenwood wrote: “When we were all ready we advanced, and, although there was not more than one bayonet to five men, orders were given to ‘Charge bayonets and rush on!’ and rush on we did. Within pistol shot they again fired point-blank at us; we dodged and they did not hit a man, while before they had time to reload we were within three feet of them, when they broke in an instant and ran like so many frightened devils [and] we [went] after them pell-mell.”17

  Once again, the grenadiers on the Rall Regiment’s southern, or left, flank on King Street broke eastward just before the Massachusetts Continentals, elated by the sight of running Hessians, reached them. Just northeast of Rall’s northernmost grenadiers above Church Ally, meanwhile, von Lossberg Regimental cohesion and resistance were also rapidly breaking down, with spiraling losses and incessant fires raking them from multiple directions. Even some able-bodied common soldiers began to drop out of ranks, dashing east to escape the awful crossfires. In the von Lossberg Regiment alone, four company captains were cut down. And some of the best junior officers of the Rall brigade’s finest regiment were hit as well.

  After Lieutenant Ernst Christian Schwabe had been struck by a bullet in the thigh while leading the elite Lieb Company, he had been carried out of the hail of bullets to the relative shelter of a nearby tree by teenage Ensign Zengen. Despite his only four years of experience and age of nineteen, Zengen had then rushed back into formation to encourage the Lieb Company’s survivors, helping to solidify the last stand just north of Church Ally and northeast of Rall’s headquarters. Incredibly, the von Lossberg Regiment maintained not only its discipline but also its cohesion longer than the Rall grenadiers, even while taking severe punishment in the murderous snowbound streets ringed by gun fire and swarming Americans sensing the kill.

  In fact, greater adversity and spiraling losses only seemed somehow, in some inexplicable way, to bond and draw the surviving von Lossberg fusiliers closer together, as if by way of a collective survival instinct. Consequently, they continued to stand tall and firm under the merciless pounding: the epitome of a crack regiment’s toughness and character rising to the supreme challenge of a crisis situation. Here, the defiant fusiliers gamely faced up to their attackers in the most embattled sector that had been transformed into a pitiless killing ground where more good Lutherans from Germany met their Maker far from home.

  However, this once-fine fusilier regiment had no realistic hope of holding its advanced position with so many good men and officers, who were the heart and soul of the von Lossberg Regiment, cut down. Ensign Christian August von Hobe, born in 1743, had taken a bullet through the leg. Leaving a trail of blood splashes in the snow, von Hobe limped eastward through the whistling bullets and falling snow, hoping to escape a nightmare. He eventually made it all the way to Queen Street to gain the safety of the Methodist Church at the corner of Queen and Fourth Streets. Standing before his surviving fusiliers to inspire them to greater exertions, Lieutenant George Hermann Zoll, the Lossberg Regiment’s adjutant, fell with an ugly wound in the back.

  All in all, nearly seventy von Lossbergers were already cut down amid the scorching cross fires seemingly coming from all directions. Demonstrating a mixture of iron discipline and a fighting spirit that could not be broken, the most diehard fusiliers formed up in protective fashion with fixed bayonets to guard the bullet-shredded colors, clumps of fallen comrades yet alive, and the battered rear of what relatively little was left of Scheffer’s proud von Lossberg Regiment. Pressure was now increasing with Lord Stirling’s troops, on the brigade’s right, blasting away and attacking south down King Street to punish Rall’s right flank from the north, while St. Clair’s Fifteenth Massachusetts and Sargent’s Sixteenth Massachusetts, from north to south, respectively, advanced north and farther up the slope toward Rall’s left flank on the south. With more resistance collapsing and additional dazed soldiers of both Hessian regiments beginning to head east to escape a dying town that had transformed into a tragic graveyard for the Rall brigade’s ambitions and its brave followers, these hard-hit Germans, half stumbling in their weariness, horror, and agony, sought to escape the urban combat hell and certain destruction.

  But what line of retreat now offered the best avenue of escape amid the closing pincer arms of Washington’s double envelopment? By a process of elimination, only one answer remained for the reeling Rall brigade because the Assunpink Creek bridge had been captured by Glover and his Massachusetts and Connecticut troops as reported to Rall by Adjutant Piel. The thirty-four-year-old Piel had been almost killed in having reconnoitered too close to the bridge when he had mistakenly believed that Glover’s darkly clad soldiers guarding the Assunpink bridge were Knyphausen troops in the blinding snowfall. Ironically, the stone bridge, which had already served as the escape avenue for so many garrison members this morning, had remained open for only a relatively short time until permanently secured by Glover’s swift maneuvering and timely initiative. Therefore, by this time, von Lossberg and Rall Regiment survivors knew that they could not withdraw to the north, south, or west after they had stopped in their tracks during their deepest penetration to the west.

  Indeed, south of the struggle raging to new furies along King Street, meanwhile, the heavily pressured Knyphausen’s regiment was pushed by Sullivan’s First Division troops southeast toward Assunpink Creek. Major Dechow’s fusiliers headed for the bridge in an attempt to escape the punishing fire, especially the canister pouring east from the iron barrels of Captain Neil’s New Jersey three-pounders. Likewise, Captain Moulder’s French four-pounders were also served skillfully by veteran gun crews commanded by the capable captain and his top lieutenants, William Linnard and Anthony Cuthbert, from Philadelphia, and they blasted away at close range. Anticipating the approach of Dechow’s command, Glover had positioned some of his most reliable Massachusetts troops, now ready and waiting for the Knyphausen Regiment’s inevitable arrival, in good defensive positions around the bridge, effectively sealing off this escape route across the Assunpink. Clearly, Washington’s double envelopment and entrapment was becoming more complete, while the bitter end was drawing nearer for the most celebrated German brigade in America.18

  While Colonel Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts troops, St. Clair’s brigade, pursued the southernmost of Rall grenadiers first north and then east through the streets with victory cheers that split the frigid morning air, the Sixteenth Massachusetts soldiers, Sargent’s brigade, continued to surge farther north up King Street to drive more of the last remaining southernmost grenadiers off the street, which had been named after the English sovereign for which even more Hessians were now dying. Cheering African American soldiers now advanced side by sid
e with Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic attackers as members of the only Continental regiment of Sargent’s brigade, which now pushed up King Street behind Paterson’s Bay State men.

  Here, in the chaos of close-range urban combat made more surreal by the icy force of the northeaster and eerie half light of a dim December morning, the fiery forge of battle combined with comradeship bonds to now unite black and white soldiers of America more firmly together as one, transcending racial, societal, and class differences, with the hated Hessians having become the sole object of their pent-up fury. Advancing beside his Caucasian brothers-in-arms, Private Jacob Francis charged in the Sixteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment’s ranks, surging through the whizzing bullets and hail of ice pellets that swept body-littered King Street that now looked as if a tornado had raged through it. Like other African American Continentals battling in Washington’s ranks, Private Francis felt that he had much to prove this morning to himself, his comrades, and, most of all, the detested Hessians.

  This seasoned Continental regiment—the Sixteenth Massachusetts—now consisted of 152 Massachusetts men of Colonel Sargent’s old regiment that he had molded into an excellent command. Private Francis, a fortunate survivor of the disastrous battle of Long Island, was only one of Washington’s African American soldiers who fought with distinction in Trenton’s maelstrom this morning. A proud free black man, twenty-one-year-old Jacob Francis had already served for more than a year in the struggle for liberty. At the first opportunity, he had enlisted in Sargent’s regiment at the fishing port of Salem from where so many privateers sailed to wage war against English vessels. Here, in picturesque Salem, once consumed by the mass hysteria of witch trials, Colonel Sargent’s Massachusetts regiment had been organized in the fall of 1775. Ironically, Private Francis knew Hunterdon County, New Jersey, quite well, having been born and raised not far from Trenton.