George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  In the end, consequently, Rall became the perfect fall guy for the lengthy list of glaring strategic and tactical failures of a fumbling British leadership at the highest levels. For generations of Americans, from schoolchildren to leading, respected historians, Rall has always served as the ideal foil that contrasted perfectly with the romantic image of a saintly, divinely inspired Washington: a most symbolic example of Old World decadence vanquished by New World virtue in what transformed into a moral showdown at Trenton. In truth, Rall was defeated for the most part because of the lack of support, reinforcements, and assistance from his superiors, both British and German. Consequently, Rall and his crack grenadier and fusilier brigade were largely doomed even before the first shot of the battle of Trenton had been fired. Rarely in the annals of military history have the reputations, popular images, and fortunes of two opposing commanders—Washington and Rall—been so more dramatically reversed during one of the war’s shortest battles, around forty-five minutes, that was distinguished by a hectic, fast-paced swirl of urban combat.

  Colonel Rall became the most convenient scapegoat for the loss of his three well-trained regiments and Trenton on both sides of the Atlantic not only at the time, but also well into the twenty-first century. During an official army court of inquiry that only ended half a decade after the battle of Trenton, surviving Hessian officers of the Trenton fiasco neatly shifted all blame from themselves to preserve their lofty reputations and future career prospects. In a gross injustice, they placed the disaster entirely upon the shoulders of a former colonel of so much merit, while he lay in his remote New Jersey grave far from home. By making Rall solely responsible for the Trenton disaster, the Rall brigade’s officers were acquitted of wrongdoing. The German officer corps exonerated, because they (except for Rall) “all done their duty,” as required and expected.

  Elitist, aristocratic British and German officer class (of a social class higher than Rall) possessed more than a vested interest in smearing the stainless reputation of a capable and fearless commoner, who died for their collective military sins. By heaping all blame on Rall, who was unable to defend himself, the names and reputations of three German regiments and the fabled Hessian officer corps escaped all tarnish. In the end, ironically, Rall’s spotless record and lofty reputation were unfairly stained by his own men, his British and German superiors, and generations of Americans and historians as the sole author of the “fatal affair” at Trenton. Significantly, when left on his own in the Virginia theater in 1781, Lord Cornwallis, the man most responsible for advocating the garrisoning the advanced, isolated, and exposed position of Trenton, would have no one else to blame for a far greater disaster but himself for his own considerable strategic errors and miscalculations that led to his entrapment and surrender at Yorktown in October.55

  While his superiors were left blameless for the Trenton defeat, Rall immediately became the fashionable whipping boy. By April 1777, the son of the langrave of Hesse-Cassel regretted how the “death of Colonel Rall has taken him away from my wrath which he so well deserved in allowing himself in so inexcusable a way to be surprised.”56 In contrast, a descendant of Colonel Rall correctly emphasized how it is now time—more than two centuries after the battle of Trenton—for the “dispelling myths [in regard to Colonel Rall because he] was a good soldier from a very young age . . . and quite a respected one among his troops [and] The portrayal of the ‘drunken boob’ at Trenton” is a myth.57

  Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, Declaration of Independence signer and a leading member of Congress, came closer to the truth of what really happened at the battle of Trenton and exactly why, refusing to lay solitary blame for the unprecedented fiasco on Rall. In a most revealing letter, he strongly condemned the “infamously” bad conduct of Rall’s subordinate officers—ironically the same ones who later condemned him—during the course of the battle. Indeed, a number of Hessian officers were early unnerved by Washington’s surprise attack from two directions, and escaped the Virginian’s brilliant double envelopment by early deserting their troops and forsaking their brigade commander in a crisis situation and in his hour of greatest need.58

  However, Lee’s well-deserved denunciation of the Hessian officer corps overlooked the demoralizing effect of urban combat on conventional troops, especially officers who faced their first urban combat challenge. In truth, the majority of German officers faithfully remained beside their men throughout the battle and until the final surrender. However, once a number of leading officers were cut down, some surviving Hessian officers provided less than inspired leadership, leaving Rall largely on his own. Many of these officers were privileged members of aristocratic Hesse-Cassel families, bearing minor noble titles, thanks to close family and political ties with the prince. Consequently, some top Rall brigade’s leaders, although Rall was a notable exception, were privileged upper-class elitists, who often viewed fighting and dying as something left primarily to the lowest ranks, or the common soldiers or peasants: guaranteed cannon fodder because of lower class status and rank.59

  For generations, Rall’s many past successes have been conveniently forgotten by his legion of fault-finders. Therefore, he became the epitome of the father of folly in the annals of American history. Rall was widely condemned for allegedly having doomed his brigade entirely on his own because he had been “too proud to retreat a step before such an enemy as the Americans,” in the prejudiced words of the von Lossberg Regiment’s quartermaster.60

  Of course, in the end, Colonel Rall’s only fault for losing Trenton was the fact that he was a victim of Washington’s brilliant tactical plan. Thanks partly to the humbling experience derived from the disastrous New York Campaign, one of Virginia’s richest planters finally became successful in fully disengaging from a popular, but fatal, strategic thinking known as Bunkerhillism just in time to boldly embrace a most innovative, novel, and masterful battle plan. Most importantly, Washington possessed the wisdom to switch from a disastrous reliance on losing conventional tactics to those of asymmetrical—partisan or insurgency—warfare out of necessity in an emergency situation.

  On December 26 and at long last, Washington relied upon a new tactical solution by forsaking the traditional European ways of waging war of his counterparts—England’s elite officer class—and embracing the more practical tactics of America’s common people of the western frontier, where innovative battle plans had been long formulated out of desperation and necessity for simple survival: catching an unwary, overconfident opponent by surprise by attacking at dawn and unleashing a pincer movement, while employing stealth and speed to minimize casualties (as in Indian warfare) in order to inflict as much damage as possible upon the enemy in a total war that knew no conventional rules or eighteenth-century niceties.

  By relying upon such a new, distinctive American way of fighting—more brutal and ruthless than England and Europe’s more gentlemanly ways of conducting war—that was largely a feature of Indian and frontier warfare based upon the simple premise of survival of the fittest that had emerged out of bitter struggle for possession of America’s primeval wilderness, Washington finally utilized the ideal winning tactical formula in a delicate balancing act between the proven tactics of conventional and irregular warfare by combining the most suitable qualities of each in order to develop the best tactics to achieve success at Trenton: the double envelopment and the Indian-like raid that was essentially a lightning strike based on the element of surprise. By never giving up hope for an eventual success and audaciously reclaiming the initiative and the tactical offensive on December 26 when least expected by his opponent, Washington achieved a significant battlefield success at very small cost in true guerrilla fashion to reap the most important American victory of the war to date, and one that was far out of proportion to the numbers involved on both sides.

  When most needed by the dying American nation and an often-defeated citizen soldier army literally on its last legs, Washington’s remarkable achieveme
nt was only possible because he persisted in believing that success was yet possible by relying upon a central concept of insurgency warfare: the lightning quick raid to catch the opponent by surprise to reap a decisive success, which was the winning formula for overwhelming a conventional adversary who was far superior in training, equipment, and discipline. During the French and Indian War, Captain James Smith, of the Pennsylvania militia, lamented how the American people and militia had inexplicably not “made greater proficiency of the Indian art of war [and theorized that this noticeable lack of tactical evolution among the colonial fighting man, both officers and men, was due because] we are too proud” to accept even a winning tactical formula for success.61

  Fortunately for the young republic struggling for its very existence in its darkest hour, the austere Washington was not too proud or vain to shed his aristocratic, conventional notions of war waging. Therefore, he evolved just in the nick of time for America, placing his faith in the most ungentlemanly, unorthodox of tactical battle plans, rooted primarily in the frontier experience of the lowly common people of the American wilderness. For the Trenton showdown, he adapted and changed to become a more imaginative, flexible, and mature commander-in-chief, who thought more like a partisan, relying upon speed, stealth, mobility, tactical flexibility, and the element of surprise, to shock his overconfident opponent and destroy his will to resist to reap the most unexpected victory to date.

  Drawing from multiple sources, Washington also relied upon a novel mix of some of the best lessons of both ancient and conventional European warfare, especially the pincer movement, or the double envelopment, a rapid concentration of force, and the massing of superior artillery firepower to overwhelm his adversary. Therefore, as demonstrated at Trenton and improvised out of urgent necessity and the most bleak of situations, this new way of waging war—a truly American way—utilized by Washington in masterful fashion was a balanced blend of the most appropriate tactics and lessons derived from both the American and European military experiences on both sides of the Atlantic that were best suited for the tactical situation presented at Trenton, combining both conventional and irregular concepts of war in a masterful fusion and a most timely synthesis of tactical lessons to reap his most dramatic victory of the war.62

  Trenton’s Heroes Fall at Princeton

  Worried that British and Hessian reinforcements were converging upon Trenton, Washington prepared to again cross the Delaware to reach Pennsylvania’s safety. The failure of Ewing and Cadwalader to cross the Delaware as planned made it impossible for Washington to continue his offensive operations and fulfill his larger objective to also launch strikes on Princeton and then New Brunswick. But he unexpectedly encountered a new problem not long after the final shot was fired in anger at Trenton. A good many American soldiers became roaring drunk to celebrate their rare victory, after breaking into casks of rum. Fortunately, Washington’s strategy of focusing Donop’s attention on Mount Holly, south of the Hessians’ headquarters at Bordentown, continued to prove effective. Had Donop attacked Trenton with Washington’s back to the swollen river and with so many Continental soldiers drunk, America’s people’s revolution against monarchy might have yet ended in the most embarrassing and tragic of fashions along the ice-choked Delaware. Emboldened by his Trenton success, nevertheless, Washington was yet determined to maintain the initiative and “pursue the enemy in their retreat,” as he wrote to Congress on December 29, continuing to think more like a daring partisan leader than a conventional eighteenth-century commander.63

  Therefore, knowing that it was now time to strike once again in the hope of achieving another Trenton-like success by catching his opponent by surprise, Washington set his sights on another cantonment along Howe’s sprawling defensive line that had been earlier targeted: Princeton. But Washington yet possessed even greater ambitions. In his own words, “My original plan when I set out from Trenton was to have pushed to [New] Brunswick.”64

  Washington divided his command, with Mercer’s brigade, of less than four hundred men, detached from the main column. Anticipating Washington’s plan to snatch another isolated and vulnerable winter outpost, Howe reacted quickly to Trenton’s loss by dispatching Cornwallis and eight thousand reinforcements. The thirty-eight-year-old Cornwallis now sought revenge for the Trenton humiliation, after having been forced to return from his much-anticipated trip to visit his sickly wife in England, which had been abruptly cancelled with Washington’s victory at Trenton.

  Realizing that he would be crushed if he remained in position along the Assunpink with his back to the Delaware, after having re-crossed the river, Washington slipped around Cornwallis’s left in another night march and advanced upon Princeton in stealthy fashion. However, Mercer’s troops, hoping to strike Cornwallis’s rear, were caught out in the open at William Clark’s orchard, when they ran head-on into veteran British regulars marching along the road to reinforce Cornwallis at Trenton on January 3, 1777. A brisk fire was exchanged in this accidental battle, and then the British regulars suddenly charged with fixed bayonets. Hardly had Mercer, on horseback, formed his troops before the attacking Britons were upon the startled Americans. Nothing could now stop the fierce onslaught of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood’s brigade of veteran redcoats, not even fiery blasts from Captain Neil’s New Jersey artillery. Continentals fled the unstoppable attack, with the British bayoneting their way through the shocked Americans in the orchard. Refusing to run and continuing to fire his three-pounder beside his fellow New Jersey cannoneers, Captain Neil defended his two guns to the last. Without infantry support, the young New Jersey officer stood firm against the surging red tide. Refusing to run, Neil received no quarter, and expected none, receiving his death stroke.

  Attempting to rally his shattered ranks, Mercer went down when his gray-colored horse was shot and he suffered a shattered leg. After struggling to his feet, Mercer again tried to rally his men, while elated redcoats descended upon the Scottish general like locusts. Much like the ill-fated Captain Neil, Mercer also refused to run. Mercer was in no mood to become a captive of the hated English. Even though Captain Neil’s New Jersey cannon were captured and the Americans’ flight became a rout, Mercer continued to fight back with spirit. He ignored British cries of “Surrender, you damn rebel.” Mercer, who had made out his final will at Fredericksburg on March 20, 1776, was determined to fight against a cruel fate and too many redcoats to count.

  All the while, General Mercer slashed with his saber at the surging tide of red encircling him. He was repeatedly bayoneted and then clubbed to the ground with musket-butts, while cursed as a damned “rebel general.” The cruel bayoneting only stopped when Mercer feigned death. On his death bed, Mercer explained: “My death is owing to myself [as when] I brought to the ground by a blow from a musket . . . I felt that I deserved not so approbrious an epithet and determined to die as I had lived, an honored soldier in a just and righteous cause, and with out begging my life or making a reply. I lunged with my sword at the nearest man. They then bayoneted me and left me” on the ground. Attempting to rally Mercer’s shattered ranks after his own troops had been forced rearward by the fierce bayonet attack, Colonel Haslet dashed forward and was shot in the head, dying instantly. Haslet’s death before his troops caused more panic among the reeling Americans, who continued to flee across the snowy landscape, before Washington and reinforcements arrived just in the nick of time to reverse the tide with a determined counterattack that steam-rolled all the way into Princeton to reap another surprising victory.65

  Unlike at Trenton, the Princeton victory was most costly, especially among Washington’s officer corps. In the words of one of Washington’s men from a January 5, 1777 letter: “Colonels Haslet, and [Ireland-born James] Potter [who commanded the Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, militia, and a veteran of the 1756 Kittanning Expedition was initially reported killed, but was only wounded and captured], capt. [Daniel] Neal [Neil who commanded the Eastern Company, New Jersey State Artillery at Trent
on], of the artillery, capt [John] Fleming, who commanded the first Virginia regiment [and led them at the battle of Trenton], and four or five other valuable officers [also] were slain on the field.”66

  After they had just demonstrated kind treatment to the captured and wounded Hessians at Trenton, most of these gifted officers were shown no quarter by the redcoats. Thanks to the surprising Trenton success of these resurgent Americans, the British fully realized that such dynamic military leaders, regimental, battery, and brigade commanders, were Washington’s best and brightest who had to be eliminated, ensuring a brutal no-quarter policy. Washington received a stunning blow in the loss of General Mercer and Colonel Haslet, who were his two most capable Celtic warriors, with one born in Scotland and the other in Ireland, respectively.

  Combined with the sparkling Trenton success, the news of Washington’s dramatic victory at Princeton also lifted spirits across America. Proving a rare, almost unbelievable, sight to the American people, the Hessians captured at Trenton were marched through Philadelphia to dispel the myth of invincibility by providing proof that Germans could be vanquished by American fighting men: a possibility not previously entertained. However, many Philadelphians were disappointed to discover that the dejected Germans looked not like fierce warriors and devils incarnate but just like ordinary men.