George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Dashing ahead before their fusilier regiment mired and floundering in the freezing creek bottoms, these desperate men, mostly of the Lieb Company, headed farther up the creek, struggling through flooded low spots, tangles of brownish-hued underbrush, and clinging mud along the north bank. After pushing farther east up the creek and then northeastward as the Assunpink turned and narrowed in that direction—roughly parallel to the Princeton-Trenton Road—and with Baum in front leading the way, this band of determined fusiliers finally reached the upper fording point. Here, the fusiliers prepared to enter the icy waters just beyond the reach of Sargent’s Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut troops to the southwest and Glover’s most advanced parties to the south. Those fusiliers who knew how to swim immediately stripped off cartridge-boxes and other cumbersome equipment. They then plunged into the cold waters without knowing its depths or strength of its currents. But the majority of Baum’s fusiliers were forced to turn back to the west bank because the swirling tidal water was too deep and they could not swim.

  Captain Baum, who knew how to swim, entered the freezing waters and escaped Washington’s tightening snare, reaching the steep bank on the creek’s other, or east, side. Lieutenant Heinrich Reinhard Hille, twenty-two and from Rinteln, also managed to reach the opposite bank, slipping away in the pale morning light to fight rebels another day. After looking back to the southwest to catch a glimpse of the heart-wrenching sight of ever-increasing numbers of Washington’s troops and cannon descending upon the doomed Knyphausen Regiment now trapped on the low ground along the creek, Baum and Hille then dashed across the snowy fields east of the Assunpink with other escapees. Basking in his good fortune, Baum retained his fine officer’s saber, honor, and sense of pride, accomplishing what his senior commanders had deemed impossible

  After having hurried his confident troops and artillery pieces south and southeast from the apple orchard (the surrender site) and down the snow-covered slope descending toward the low-lying creek bottoms just northeast of the intersection of the Delaware River and Assunpink Creek, Stirling prepared to deal a death blow to the Knyphausen Regiment with his veteran brigade. By this time, Stirling’s Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania troops were now aligned for action north of and only forty paces away from the Knyphausen Regiment trapped on the low ground of the Assunpink’s bottom. Here, Stirling shouted orders for the hurried deployment of Stephen’s Virginia and Fermoy’s Pennsylvania and Maryland troops in “two columns with two cannon directly in front,” presenting a most formidable front on the north and serious threat to the fusilier regiment’s fast-fading existence.

  Meanwhile, the never-say-die Biesenrodt was about to embark upon one last gamble. In a final bid to break out of Washington’s closing double envelopment, a frantic Captain Biesenrodt led the fusilier regiment farther east parallel to the Assunpink in the hope of fording the creek at a narrow point, the upper ford about a half mile slightly northeast of the bridge, where Baum and his men had escaped Washington’s converging tide and tightening grip. However, the ever-vigilant Glover spied Bisenrodt’s final bid for freedom in pushing farther east, which was yet unblocked except for a relatively handful of Glover’s men, to cross the creek.

  Therefore, in a checkmate maneuver, Glover ordered the bulk of his Massachusetts and Connecticut brigade even farther east to follow on the heels of his most advanced detachment on the east, which he had earlier dispatched across the Assunpink at the mill pond’s head “in order to cut off the enemys retreat.” Because the narrow ridge that paralleled the creek below the Assunpunk was open and the road extended east along the ridge-top, Glover’s troops moved faster eastward along more firm ground than the Knyphausen Regiment floundering through the mud, tangled thickets, and flooded low terrain on the Assunpink’s north side. After another long sprint, Glover’s troops finally poured across another narrow point of the Assunpink about an eighth of a mile east of the mill pond’s head, spilling across in large numbers and gaining the north bank. They then maneuvered to the north and turned to face west, effectively blocking the Knyphausen Regiment’s escape route, while the hopeful fusiliers yet followed their last fading chance to slip away from Washington’s clutches without fully realizing that this opportunity had already passed.

  Amid the low-lying creek bottoms filled with ice and snow, the Knyphausen Regiment’s head suddenly came face to face with the solid front of Glover’s Massachusetts and Connecticut brigade, which had spilled across this narrow point of the Assunpink about one-third of a mile to the bridge’s east. The closing tactical trap of the last surviving regiment of the Rall brigade was nearly complete. After advancing farther east, Captain Sargent’s experienced Massachusetts gunners, led by Lieutenants Isaac Packard, David Preston, and Joseph Blake, had taken good firing positions on high ground along the creek’s south bank, turning their aim northwest to inflict additional punishment upon the front of the hard-luck fusiliers.

  In his diary, Lieutenant Wiederhold, who would defiantly refuse to sign a parole paper, described the final entrapment of the fusiliers: “We sought to wade through the water but it was not practical at this point and as two enemy battalions, with four cannons, marched up close in front of us and seized the right flank, which was our only escape, the only possible means of rescue.” Indeed, the Knyphausen Regiment was effectively checkmated on the east, thanks to Glover’s tactical foresight and timely initiative. Biesenrodt, therefore, ordered his troops to march north away from the raging Assunpink and move inland over the frozen ground. But he soon ran straight into the long lines of Mercer’s and Stirling’s troops descending upon them from the northwest and north, respectively. Clearly, by having shifted so much infantry, with accompanying well-served artillery, first east and then to the creek’s north side, Glover had already eliminated any chance for the Kynphausen’s escape. Consequently, the tactical entrapment of the last remaining regiment was now complete.

  Sensing an impending meaningless slaughter if additional unnecessary fighting continued, young Major Wilkinson, on St. Clair’s staff, boldly walked toward Dechow’s fusiliers, emerging on his own from the Continental ranks of St. Clair’s New Hampshire and Massachusetts brigade to the west. The ambitious Maryland officer attempted to open negotiations with Captain Biesenrodt. However, Biesenrodt’s sense of pride and honor, and that of his legendary fusilier regiment, were now at stake. Not trusting heretical rebels who fought unfairly from behind any cover that they could find and from the safety of private houses, he also suspected an American ruse.

  By way of acting interpreter Lieutenant Weiderhold, consequently, Bisenrodt bluntly informed the promising teenager from the gently rolling tobacco country from southern Maryland not to advance any farther, or he would order his fusiliers to open fire. However, the battle-hardened Hessian captain soon softened his hardline stance, coming to his senses while literally looking down the barrels of a good many American cannon. Therefore, Biesenrodt dispatched well-educated Lieutenant Wiederhold, who spoke excellent English unlike himself, to meet Wilkinson to ascertain his exact purpose. No Hessian lieutenant had been more at the forefront of so many key developments in the fast-paced battle of Trenton from beginning to end than Wiederhold. He shortly returned to his hemmed-in fusilier regiment, informing Captain Biesenrodt of the Scotland-born St. Clair’s demand to surrender.

  While the hobbled regimental commander, Major Dechow, was helped west toward the lower town by two sergeants with a dirty white handkerchief tied to an uplifted musket’s end to signify submission, Captain Biesenrodt yet refused to comply. In fact, Biesenrodt earlier informed Captain Baum that he would fight his way out of Washington’s snare. A disbelieving Wilkinson then hurriedly reported back to St. Clair, who stood at the head of his mostly New Hampshire brigade west of the nearly surrounded fusiliers, with the resplendently uniformed Lieutenant Wiederhold in tow.

  St. Clair, a highly respected Continental brigade commander and a French and Indian War veteran, now learned to his dismay that the Knyphause
n Regiment had refused to surrender. Not to be tampered with unnecessarily given his deeply nurtured Celtic hatred of the British imperialism and mercenaries, St. Clair became incensed with the incredible news. The tough Scotsman was stunned by the Hessian defiance when further resistance was futile. Resorting to reason and suspecting that Biesenrodt was only trying to buy time in the hope that reinforcements might arrive, St. Clair informed Wiederhold that all the roads leading out of Trenton were blocked, the fords and bridge across the creek occupied, and, most importantly, that the Knyphausen Regiment was now completely surrounded. Indeed, Stephen and Fermoy’s brigades held the ground on the north; Mercer on the northwest; St. Clair on the west; Sargent to the south; and Glover to the east: the ultimate fulfillment of Washington’s double envelopment and the thorough closing shut of the two pincer arms from opposite directions.

  But St. Clair saved his most forceful argument for last. With the muskets of his New Hampshire and Massachusetts Continentals cocked and his seasoned artillerymen, with nerves taunt and their ears yet ringing from booming guns, about to fire loads of grapeshot and canister at point-blank range from the west, St. Clair presented his most convincing ultimatum that left no more room for negotiation, doubt, or debate in an increasingly touchy situation: “Tell your commanding officer that if you do not surrender immediately, I will blow you to pieces.”3

  No idle bluff, this ominous threat from the fiery St. Clair, who held no outdated romantic notions of a gentleman’s war, was immediately backed up in a more convincing manner, when he suddenly ordered his nearby New Hampshire and Massachusetts soldiers to unleash a high, close-range volley from the west. This explosion of gunfire echoed just over the heads of the dumbfounded, if not terrified, Knyphausen Regiment soldiers, who now saw that they were totally at the mercy of hundreds of Americans who seemed about to unleash a good deal of pent-up fury if an immediate capitulation was not soon forthcoming.4

  Therefore, Captain Biesenrodt finally relented. He sullenly gave up all ideas of attempting to fight his way out of Washington’s trap after the arms of Washington’s pincer movement had closed shut around the ill-fated Knyphausen Regiment on the low ground north of the eastern end of the mill pond about a quarter mile east of Queen Street. Biesenrodt agreed to discuss surrender terms with St. Clair and Stirling, while Wiederhold served as translator. Desiring to preserve a measure of honor and dignity, the feisty fusilier captain requested that his officers be allowed to keep their swords and his men their personal baggage stored in Trenton.

  Scotland-born St. Clair agreed to the request, sealing the ad hoc deal with a firm handshake. Without any hope remaining, the Knyphausen fusiliers, who wore their long hair in queues, threw down their weapons in a huge pile. The tall, pointed miter-shaped caps, with decorative brass front plates, distinguished by the majestic standing Hessian lion, which was the coat of arms of the princely house of Hesse-Cassel, soon became the homespun victor’s favorite souvenir. These treasured reminders of Washington’s one-sided success on a freezing New Jersey morning were kept as heirlooms in American families for generations.5

  Lieutenant Wiederhold described the fusilier regiment’s final humiliation just southeast of Trenton and located almost directly below the smoke-laced apple orchard in his diary: “We had to follow the other two regiments and surrender as prisoners of war. In so doing, we were able to arrange a sort of capitulation whereby we retained our swords and baggage and the troops their knapsacks [and] General Stirling promised this on his word of honor.”6

  The enthusiastic, free black soldier of Sargent’s brigade, Private Jacob Francis, had never seen so many white men humiliated and humbled before in his life, a shock in itself. No doubt, this incredible sight was a hidden delight for Private Francis in a host of complex, almost subconscious ways that transcended a simple sense of righteous patriotism: symbolically an unforgettable scene played out at a Delaware River town near where he had been born and, which had been founded by abolitionist Quakers, who helped to inspire Thomas Paine to likewise devote his energies toward destroying America’s “peculiar” institution. And now, this young African American Continental private, wearing little more than rags for a uniform, stood watching the Hessians’ supreme moment of humiliation as a jubilant victor of Washington’s republican army, which had battled all morning in blizzard-like conditions in the name of something that held very special meaning to Francis: equality. In disbelief, Private Francis described how several hundred “Hessians grounded their arms and left them there” in the downtrodden snow, ending the impressive winning streak of the elite Knyphausen Regiment, which had never previously known defeat.7

  Meanwhile, Washington continued to ride south over a landscape draped in a layer of freshly fallen snow, galloping past the downcast, mortally wounded Dechow, who limped painfully rearward with a mangled left hip. He continued to be assisted by two faithful fusilier sergeants, who supported and kept him upright. As a sad fate would have it, the major would never see his beloved Ratzeburg again. Dechow was destined to die far from his Teutonic homeland on December 27. At such a momentous time, Washington had no time to stop to exchange words with Major Dechow. Mounted on his favorite war horse, the commander-in-chief hurried forth to ascertain the most recent tactical developments and the exact situation of Rall’s last remaining regiment in the low-lying area to the south, where he had heard the final, sharp crackle of musketry from St. Clair’s New Hampshire and Massachusetts troops near Assunpink Creek

  With the Knyphausen Regiment’s final submission, Major Wilkinson, St. Clair’s young adjutant, was ordered by the elated Celtic general to carry the astounding news of the last surrender to Washington. Wilkinson mounted his horse and galloped north to inform Washington that the Knyphausen Regiment had finally submitted on the low ground located just above the Assunpink. Washington, now riding south, met Wilkinson near Queen Street’s lower end. Here, the aristocratic Marylander from the gently rolling, forested hills and tobacco country of Calvert County informed Washington of the equally unbelievable news of the Knyphausen Regiment’s capitulation to close some of the most intense fighting of the war.

  Incredibly, a complete victory had been won by Washington for the first time in his military career. To Washington’s way of thinking, it was appropriate that a dashing Southern officer reported the incredible news of the winning of the first thorough victory achieved by a much-maligned Southern commander-in-chief, who especially loved his Virginia boys. A beaming Washington shook the hand of the personable young man, who would one day betray the United States. Basking in his proudest moment as a military commander in this war, an ecstatic Washington then shouted to the ambitious Marylander that “this is a glorious day for our country.”8

  Exceeding Washington’s fondest expectations, all three regiments of the Rall brigade had surrendered at two different points across an eerie, snow-covered landscape that had now become cherished ground for America: one capitulation on the north and the other one on the south and separated by about a quarter mile, but at nearly the same distance east of Trenton. The Fifteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment was one of the last commands to belatedly dash into the apple orchard, after having pushed east all the way from King Street. These winded Bay State soldiers, sweating and sucking in the cold air, had not yet learned of the surrender of the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments.

  Despite some of Paterson’s Massachusetts soldiers “without a collar to their half-shirt [and] no shoes,” and with most men possessing few bayonets, wet powder, and soaked muskets, these highly motivated veterans were yet ready for additional combat. Fifer Greenwood recorded how, “After passing a number of dead and wounded Hessians we reached the other [east] side of the town and on our right beheld about 500 or 600 of the enemy paraded, two deep, in a field. At the time we were marching in grand divisions which filled up the street, but as we got opposite the enemy we halted and, filing off two deep, marched right by them, –yes, and as regular as a Prussian troop. When we had reached the end
of their line we were ordered to wheel to the right, which brought us face to face six feet apart, at which time, though not before, I discovered they had no guns. They had been taken prisoners by another party and we had marched between them and their guns, which they had laid down.”9

  Amid the handshaking, merrymaking, and back-slapping among the celebrating victors on the snowy ground below the apple orchard with the proud Knyphausen Regiment’s demise, none of Washington’s men noticed or even cared that Captain Baum and fifty fellow Knyphausen fusiliers, including two officers, had waded across the Assunpink to escape. From the creek’s other (east) side and before making for Princeton on the double, these fortunate Hessians watched the humiliating surrender of their proud fusilier regiment just north of the Assunpink. They naturally felt the sting of a “painful mortification” at the sounds of the American’s wild celebration, which rang as loudly as clanging church bells over the battle-scarred town of Trenton, while racing across the snowy fields to escape to safety. These fusilier survivors headed for Princeton with the sickening realization that the proud, once-invincible Rall brigade had been thoroughly vanquished by ill-trained citizen soldiers in the most improbable of successes.10

  Against all expectations of the most respected military leaders on both sides of the Atlantic and in one of the great ironies of fate, the day had been won by a former Virginia militia colonel and a resilient band of desperate, ill-clothed rebels, who had simply refused to accept the fact that they were already vanquished and that their revolution had been all but crushed. Quite simply, “it may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater or more lasting results upon the history of the world.”11