George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Fortunately, for the surviving Hessians who were most vulnerable in the apple orchard, Haussegger’s German Regiment remained in the forefront to the north, and additional sympathetic soldiers in Washington’s only Teutonic regiment continued to call out to their fellow countrymen, who were yet being cut down by a murderous fire streaming from Hand’s Pennsylvania marksmen, especially the non-Germans, to lay down their weapons. Clearly, this fortunate happenstance of the largest body of Washington’s Germans meeting the largest body of Rall’s Germans at the exact same time and location at the decisive moment might well have been a key forgotten factor that explained the lack of greater resistance at a time, when the troops of the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments still possessed the bayonet and could use it with a bloody expertise. Indeed, with the surrender summons in German repeatedly echoing across the snow-lined landscape from officers and enlisted men of Haussegger’s regiment, the Hessians felt more assured that these wild-looking men from across America would not inflict a brutal no-quarter policy upon them for past sins, both real and imagined, if they capitulated in the apple orchard.

  Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer, who had led the von Lossberg Regiment with distinction in capturing strategic Chatterton Hill at White Plains and on other hard-fought fields, suddenly stepped forward from his boxed-in fusilier ranks. He then shouted out in German to Haussengger’s troops to verify that the surrender summons was indeed legitimate, attempting to make sure that it had been sanctioned at higher levels and not by mere American privates without authority. Responding to the ringing chorus of calls for submission, Scheffer then formally requested that quarter be shown to his men if they formally surrendered.

  Knowing that time was now of the essence, Washington relayed liberal capitulation terms, fearing that Hessian and British reinforcements might now be marching rapidly toward Trenton to reinforce the Rall brigade. Not long thereafter, consequently, a young American officer, riding like the wind, “came galloping up” to Scheffer and his von Lossberg troops, whose aristocratic officers held bicorn hats aloft on sword tips as symbols of at least a temporary submission. Such timely gestures, especially from Hessian officers, had early convinced more adrenaline-flushed and excited young Americans, with loaded muskets and rifles and an eagerness to kill more Germans, to cease firing, saving a good many lives.

  Dispatched by Washington, this dashing, young officer who galloped rapidly through the snow as only a planter class and fox-hunting Virginian could ride on a momentous December morning was Lieutenant Colonel George Baylor. The twenty-four-year-old officer was destined to be commended for valor for his sterling Trenton performance. Baylor was one of Washington’s most trusted aide-de-camps, who had “to possess the soul of the general,” in Washington’s words, to be truly effective. In regard to Baylor, Washington had only one complaint. Back in November 1775, Washington wrote how “contrary to my expectation [Baylor] is not in the slightest degree a penman, though spirited and willing.” Clearly, Colonel Baylor, or “Mr. Baylor” in Washington’s words, was more of a man of action.

  Another privileged member of the Virginia aristocracy, like his revered commander-in-chief who personally knew this ambitious young man and his respected, upper-class planter family, including his brother Walker Baylor who commanded Washington’s Life Guards in 1777, Baylor was a most promising officer. He hailed from the agricultural community of New Market in western Virginia, nestled in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, which was safe from the enemy’s incursions.

  Most importantly for communicating precise details of surrender with Hessian officers, Baylor spoke German because his picturesque valley homeland was populated by many German settlers. Serving as adjutant general on Washington’s staff, the debonair Virginian conferred with Scheffer, senior brigade officer after Rall’s fall, and Major Johann Matthaeus, who had taken command of the mauled Rall Regiment. Amazingly, no anxious soldier on either side opened fire in this fluid, tense situation, yet half-obscured by the sulphurous smoke drifting through the bullet-pocked apple trees just below Petty’s Run. This bright Virginian of high expectations was fated to be badly wounded by a British bayonet through one lung in late September 1778, which eventually proved fatal. The popular Baylor died five years later in the West Indies, where he hoped in vain to recover from the wound’s effects.

  Loaded with grape and canister upon Washington’s specific orders, Forrest and Hamilton’s six guns were ready to fire from the north and three New York three-pounders commanded by German-born Captain Baumann were poised to fire on the east. And lengthy formations of veteran Continentals circled around the two Hessian regiments on the north, west, southwest, and east. In this nerve-racking situation, an ad hoc conference took place at the body-strewn apple orchard, while the snow continued to fall softly upon the silent ranks of anxious Americans and Hessians. Tension and anxiety could not have been higher. Speaking both English and German, Baylor offered liberal surrender terms as expressly emphasized by Washington, including fair treatment to all prisoners and good medical treatment for the wounded.

  To verify the promise of decent treatment for so many wounded Hessians, Baylor offered to immediately take the confirmed bachelor Captain Altenbockum, of the von Lossberg Regiment, back with him to town to receive medical care from two capable American physicians, including forty-six-year-old Surgeon John Cochran, who was much admired by Washington. From New Brunswick, New Jersey, now occupied by the British, and married for more than sixteen years to the widow of Peter Schuyler, Cochran was a Pennsylvania-born Scotch-Irish immigrant from Ulster Province. He possessed excellent medical experience gained from service as a “surgeon’s mate” in the British Army during the French and Indian War.

  The widely respected Cochran was also the principal founder and former president of the New Jersey Medical Society. As an able assistant to Cochran, the other American physician at the makeshift Trenton field hospital was the equally competent Dr. Rikker, a private New Jersey physician of German ancestry, who had joined Washington’s Army only the night before. By this time, both of these skilled physicians had already saved Lieutenant Monroe’s life. Captain Altenbockum, age forty, had suffered a nasty head wound during the doomed counterattack up bullet-swept Queen Street. But Altenbockum had remained in the ranks to lead his fusilier company to the bitter end, continuing to perform exceptionally well.

  After additional discussion, while the snow fell through the apple trees and a cold, blustery wind from the northeast cut like a knife, between Lieutenant Colonel Scheffer and Major von Hanstein, born in Obernhof nestled in western Germany’s Rhineland and the seasoned commander of the Fourth Company, von Lossberg Regiment, these highest ranking German officers finally agreed to Washington’s liberal capitulation terms. Mounting his fleet horse, Baylor dashed off toward Trenton with Altenbockum, now with a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his head and yet mounted on Rall’s war horse, to present Washington with the exhilarating, if not unbelievable, news: Scheffer agreed to surrender terms, and two-thirds of the Rall brigade had been systematically eliminated by some of the hardest fighting of the war. Meanwhile, the dedicated captain from Courland was treated by either Cockran or Rikker, or both. Altenbockum eventually recovered from his wound to serve with distinction in the Napoleonic Wars.

  Proud officers like Hanstein, with thirty-five years of experience and who had fought so tenaciously to stave off defeat this morning, never before felt a greater sense of humiliation than now at the snow-covered apple orchard just east of Queen Street and about halfway between Fourth Street, to the south, and the Trenton-Princeton Road to the north. Doing what these legendary fighting men had never imagined was even remotely possible, the formerly invincible grenadiers of the Rall grenadiers and von Lossberg fusiliers began to ground arms.

  Then, in the most painful act and ultimate display of capitulation for the vanquished Hessians, color-bearers lowered their cherished regimental and company battle flags of silk, now tattered from the torrent of bullets and
buckshot. These brightly painted banners, distinguished by the standing “golden lion” of Hesse, would no longer fly proudly at the head of Rall’s fierce bayonet charges as so often in the past. The Rall Regiment’s beautiful, bluish-green colors dropped to the snowy ground in the final act of submission, while exhausted grenadiers felt a searing anguish not previously experienced. Some of Rall’s men shed tears at the painful sight. Proud Hessian officers, who yet grieved at having lost their brigade commander in the bitter fighting on King Street, surrendered under the apple trees, which were now scarred with bullets, canister, and grapeshot that had been meant to kill them only a short time before.7

  Despite his well-served artillery having played such a key role making this surrender of two crack regiments possible, Colonel Knox could hardly believe the sight, writing in a letter how that after the Hessians “were formed on the plain [of the apple orchard] found themselves completely surrounded [and they] were obliged to surrender upon the spot. . . .”8 In a letter written only days after the battle, Connecticut-born Captain William Hull described the scenario that resulted in the sweetest of victories for Washington, when the “fire begun on every Side at the same instant, their Main body had just Time to form when there ensued a heavy Cannonade from our Field Pieces and a fine brisk and lively fire from our Infantry [and] This continued but a Short Time before the Enemy finding themselves flanked on every Side laid down their Arms.”9

  With a heavy shower of snow dropping gently over the surrender scene amid the apple orchard just south of Petty’s Run to present an eerie, if not slightly surreal, setting, the von Lossberg and Rall Regiment soldiers methodically laid down well-cared for weapons and equipment, which were far superior to those of Washington’s men. Overcome by the unbelievable sight of the surrender of two full regiments of the most feared fighting men in America, William Hull admitted in a letter how, “tis impossible to describe the snowy scene to you as it appeared.” Indeed, a strange graveyard-like silence dominated the submission scene in the apple orchard, with the Americans looking on seemingly in absolute disbelief, while catching their breath, and yet too tired to celebrate their most sparkling success.

  Appearing more like ragged scarecrows than the vanquishers of an elite German brigade, the threadbare victors marveled at the sight of such fine Hessian weapons and fancy accouterments of these legendary fighting men from across the sea. All surrendered German weapons, accouterments, and equipment conformed to the strict regulations of the autocratic Frederick II, who ruled Hesse-Cassel with a tight fist. The principal Hessian weapon, now tossed into the snow, which had unexpectedly played a role in Washington’s amazing victory by proving useless in a snowstorm was the smoothbore musket. Other weapons now surrendered included lengthy partizans—essentially a pike weapon—engraved officer’s swords, and the long officer’s spontoons (that designated rank), which could effectively dispatch American soldiers in close combat.

  Sturdy flintlocks, now either thrown down in anger or laid in piles by the grenadiers and fusiliers, were primarily Prussian model 1740 muskets manufactured in Potsdam, Germany. Short, light Jaegar rifles (from which America’s Long Rifle later evolved) of large caliber and other pattern muskets, which were made at large arms factories at Suhl on the edge of the mostly evergreen Thuringian Forest, at Herzberg in lower Saxony, and at Schmalkalden, on the Schmalkalde River, were also surrendered. The most fearsome of all these weapons were the Hessian bayonets, including sharp, six-sided implements, which had taken a good many American soldiers’ lives in the past. After their hardest-fought battle to date, Washington’s weary men must have breathed a great collective sign of relief upon the sight of hundreds of Hessian bayonets, mostly of the “Potsdam” pattern, being tossed in a pile on the snowy ground to ensure that they would kill no more American boys in the future.10

  While light, drifting layers of battle-smoke yet partly shrouded the final drama, including Baylor and Scheffer’s hasty negotiation, played out in the snow-covered apple orchard, Washington was not yet aware of the two regiment’s capitulation. Instead, the Virginian’s fighting blood was up when he was never closer to his most important victory of his lackluster career as the revolutionary leader of America’s Army. He, therefore, was not taking any unnecessary chances this unforgettable morning. Washington feared that the Hessians had only employed a clever ruse in a lengthy discussion of terms to buy time for either the Knyphausen Regiment or reinforcements from Princeton or Bordentown to come to the aid of the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments.

  As when an ambitious youth during the French and Indian War, Washington was still caught up in the excitement of battle. After all, Washington had never seen so many enemy soldiers, especially Hessians, on the run before, and the sight was exhilarating for a hard-luck leader, who was seemingly cursed with an excessively long losing streak. Therefore, throughout this morning in directing unit placements and maneuvering his troops, Washington had lingered too near the firing line for a prudent commander-in-chief. Making sure that the artillery was ready and loaded with grape (Forrest’s battery) and canister for a possible final showdown from two suddenly resurgent Hessian regiments if they suddenly resumed the offensive, he was now mounted near Captain Forrest and his smoking Pennsylvania guns.

  His trusty Irish Catholic aide, Colonel Fitzgerald, who no doubt now wore a crucifix, was by Washington’s side, sharing the same dangers with him on this morning of decision as on past battlefields. Eighteen-year-old Major Wilkinson was also mounted with other staff members near Washington, who had presented a perfect target on horseback throughout this morning because of his towering height, sheer recklessness, and bravery. The young Alexandrian described how earlier the commander-in-chief’s “position was an exposed one, and he was frequently entreated to fall back, of which he took no notice [and then] He had turned the guns on the retreating enemy,” hoping to inflict the maximum damage and force a surrender.11

  Washington, as if unable to comprehend that he was on the verge of reaping a remarkable success over a much-touted Hessian brigade and his first real battlefield victory of the war, was yet preparing to continue the fight, until Captain Forrest, whose confident Philadelphia gunners stood poised like statues in the snow beside their six-pounders and five and a half-inch howitzers loaded with grape, had ascertained the capitulation through the clouds of sulphurous smoke covering the field. The jubilant Pennsylvanian then shouted to Washington in excitement: “Sir, they have struck” their colors. Hardly believing that such a surrender was even possible, Washington merely responded with a single word in question form that betrayed his disbelief: “Struck?” No doubt with a smile on his face, the dashing Captain Forrest answered in regard to what had been truly unbelievable only a short time before: “Yes, their colors are down.”12

  At long last and after so many bitter setbacks, fortune had finally smiled upon Washington as a battlefield commander in this war of broken dreams and cruelly shattered illusions. A relieved Washington galloped down the snow-covered slope to formally receive the surrender of both regiments. Evidently he met fellow Virginian Adjutant General Baylor on his return. After some of the most intense combat waged almost entirely in a nightmarish urban environment, and as if both sides were too exhausted to continue the bitter contest any longer, the struggle for the possession of Trenton in this sector had finally sputtered to an end just east of town.13 One highly respected modern historian, Christopher Ward, emphasized the dominance of the urban combat of the battle, which “in detail . . . is indescribable [because the contest] was a grand melee, a great, informal ‘battle royal’.”14

  Ironically, perhaps even more shocking to Washington than the sudden surrender of two-thirds of the Rall brigade was the fact that with great “Pleasure observed, that he had been in Many Actions before, but always perceived some Misbehaviour [sic] in some individuals, but [at Trenton] he saw none.”15 Boston-born, Lieutenant Samuel Shaw, a twenty-two-year of Knox’s Artillery Regiment, scribbled in his journal without exaggeration, �
��I think it impossible for any troops to behave better than ours did.”16

  As Washington had first envisioned at his headquarters west of the Delaware both the von Lossberg and Rall Regiments had lost the ability to resist and the will to fight after encroaching American lines had coiled tightly around them like a giant anaconda to squeeze the life out of the will to resist: the tactical fulfillment of Washington’s masterful double envelopment. Knowing the extreme importance that the artillery arm had played in determining the battle’s final outcome, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick described the key equation that only highlighted the fact that Washington’s artillery had just enjoyed its finest day to date, in sharp contrast to the Rall brigade’s artillery that had experienced its worst day: “[T]heir artillery taken [by our troops] they resign’d with little opposition.”17

  Indeed and most significantly, two crack Hessian regiments had been forced to submit largely because of what Washington’s artillery had already accomplished in repulsing multiple attacks and overpowering resistance at every point. Survivors of the von Lossberg and the Rall Regiments surrendered only because they were ringed by seventeen artillery pieces, loaded with canister and grape, poised at close range and mostly on higher ground. And hundreds of American smoothbores, loaded with buck and ball, and rifles could have eliminated the survivors of both regiments in short order. Armed with Long Rifles, Colonel Hand’s veteran riflemen, including western soldiers with white buck tails angled in jaunty fashion in hats, stood within only fifty paces of their opponents: a most convincing argument to surrender.18