“It’s just me going into Trenton,” replied the startled Molly as she stopped walking and looked around to see if she could tell where the voice was coming from. But she couldn’t see anyone in the dark.
“What’s the password?” asked the voice.
The girl was flustered; she had no idea what the password was and why someone was even asking. She thought that the voice asking her questions might be coming from one of the Hessian or British troops who had been assigned guard duty at the bridge. So, she replied with the only thing that came to mind.
“I have a message from the Prophet,” said Molly.
Alex stepped out of the darkness to stand right behind her. As she turned to look at him, he reached out his hand and grasped her by her arm.
“Who is the Prophet?” asked Alex.
* * * *
Robert and Hugh
“Weel, it looks like a wee bit o’ winter blowing in now,” said Hugh grinning at Robert.
The weather had in fact gone from bad to much worse. The temperature was now below freezing, and it was beginning to sleet. The cold rain that had fallen earlier in the evening had now caused everything to be covered with a thin coat of ice under the sleet that was beginning to pile up on the ground. Conditions couldn’t be more miserable for being outside in the weather.
Robert glanced at Hugh and then turned back to look where he was going. Robert and Hugh were marching at the head of the Second Mass toward a rally point about nine miles north of Trenton, where they would be ferried across the Delaware River. It was dark, and they were supposed to be across the river by midnight. But the foul weather had slowed the march, and they were behind schedule.
When they arrived at the Delaware River crossing point, the boats that were supposed to carry them across were nowhere in sight. General Washington dispatched riders to locate the boats, which were soon found a short distance up river. By the time they got the boats in position, they were even further behind schedule.
Robert and Hugh huddled with the rest of the men waiting to board the boats for the short trip across the river. When they finally received the command to board the barges, Robert and Hugh were among the last on board the first barge and helped the boatmen push it off into the river.
“I always love a boat ride in the winter,” joked Hugh as a large ice flow bumped into their barge and almost capsized it.
The men in the boat, who at first laughed softly at Hugh’s joke, now were quiet and worried about the crossing. The boat ride was brief and cold, but they made it safely across the river. Finally, by four o’clock in the morning on the day after Christmas, all the troops were across the river and on their way to attack the Hessians in Trenton. The Continental Army was marching northeast from the river, fighting the cold wind blowing from the north. The earlier sleet had now turned into a snow as the temperature continued to drop. The ground was slippery but at least it was level. Some of the men didn’t have boots or shoes and had wrapped and tied their feet in rags and strips of blankets. Their feet soon suffered frostbite and began to bleed, leaving a dark red blood trail in the snow.
After about two miles of marching, they found the River Road that runs south past Bear Tavern into Trenton, so the army wheeled right and marched along the River Road south. They were able to make better time toward Trenton on the road and arrived a few miles north of Trenton before it was fully light. At this point, the army was split into two groups. One group turned east to follow a trail to locate the Pennington Road and then follow it south into Trenton. The other group, commanded by General Sullivan, continued along the River Road directly south toward Trenton.
Robert and Hugh were at the front of the group of men that included Big Mike Finn and that had traveled east toward the Pennington Road. They located the Pennington Road and the army turned south to follow it into Trenton. They were among the first to encounter the enemy. The Second Mass commander had asked Robert and Hugh to lead the army because they were the best fighters and bravest men in the militia. Just as the rising sun was peeking above the trees, the patriots arrived at a Hessian outpost set up in a cooper’s shop one mile north of Trenton. The Hessian commander of the outpost walked outside to see what was making all the noise coming down the road so early in the morning. When the commander walked out into the road and turned to look at the advancing army, Hugh dropped down on to one knee, raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a musket ball into the officer’s chest, dropping him dead into the middle of the road.
“That will tell ‘em what we’re about,” said Hugh.
The Hessian troops in the outpost returned fire, but there were too many Americans. Soon the Hessian began to retreat, stopping to fire occasionally as they fell back toward Trenton. Robert and Hugh had developed a fighting system where Hugh would advance and fire while Robert reloaded, and then Robert would advance and fire while Hugh reloaded. They employed this leap frog tactic all the way to Trenton, firing at the retreating Hessians.
When they arrived at the first houses of Trenton proper, they formed up their units to make their final assault on the main body of the Hessian troops in Trenton.
* * * *
Alex
“Please sir, you must let me go,” the girl had cried, gently sobbing.
“No one will harm you,” said Alex.
“Sir, you must let me go. If I don’t get into Trenton, my sister will die,” said Molly between sobs.
Alex didn’t really know what to make of the situation, and he had no idea what the girl was talking about. He had never seen the girl before. So he had led her by the arm back down the Bordentown Road away from Trenton. They walked off the road into a small depression behind a copse, where the men had built a small sheltered fire that could not be seen from the road. The men in Alex’s unit, including the Longhunter, were rotating the watch on the bridge. Those that were off duty were warming themselves by the fire, drinking hot tea, or trying to get some sleep. When Alex walked up with the girl in hand, the men all stood up to look at them.
“Could you men give us a minute?” asked Alex, indicating that he wanted to talk to the girl alone.
“We’ll scout up and down the road,” replied the Longhunter as the grabbed his rifle.
The other men nodded and walked off toward the bridge to join the watch or to go with the Longhunter. Alex poured the girl a cup of hot tea and sat her down on one of the saddles near the fire so that she could warm herself on this cold, windy night. After the girl drank some of the tea and composed herself, Alex sat down on a saddle next to her.
“What’s your name?” asked Alex.
The young woman just sat silently looking down.
“You’re going to stay here until you talk to me. Again, who or what is the Prophet?” asked Alex.
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because if I tell you, my sister will be killed.”
“Why were you going to Trenton?”
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
“I know, if you do, your sister will be killed, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said the girl, looking down.
“What was the message that you are supposed to deliver?”
Molly remained silent and Alex let the silence draw out in hopes that she would reconsider, but after repeated questioning, it soon was apparent that the girl was not going to talk.
“Look, Miss, I want to help you, really I do, but I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what is going on,” said Alex, pausing to see if that had any effect on the girl.
“If you tell me the whole story, I promise that I will help you and your sister out of any situation that you and she have gotten into,” continued Alex.
Alex tried to get the girl to talk to him for another two hours, but Molly refused to speak another word. Her silence was frustrating, but in the end Alex had no choice, so he let her go. He did not allow her to go into Trenton, but turned her back the way she had come.
&
nbsp; As soon as she was free from Alex, Molly hurried down the Bordentown Road to where she had intercepted it a few hours earlier. From there she turned and walked west toward the river. It did not take her long to find the canoe that she had pulled up on the bank.
It was bitterly cold and the snow made it difficult, but she finally managed to launch the canoe and paddle it across the river. She tied the canoe back up to the tree where she thought she had found it. Pulling her cloak up tighter around her shoulders, she marched through the snow back to the army camp and into her tent. She crawled into her cot and under the blankets without taking her cloak off and cried herself to sleep.
Alex knew that he was onto something, but he had no idea what it was or how to capitalize on it. The girl could not have gone far. He knew that he could probably find her again if he wanted to.
The night wore on without anyone else trying to cross the bridge, and soon the sun was beginning to lighten the eastern sky. Alex was still thinking about the girl when a disturbance brought him out of his reverie. One of his men ran up to him and asked him to go with him to the bridge. When Alex arrived at the bridge, he found that his men were on high alert because a large body of men was approaching the bridge from the north. As soon as the advance guard approached the bridge and was near enough to be within hailing distance, the Longhunter challenged them.
“Halt, who goes there!” shouted the Longhunter.
“It’s General Sullivan’s Fifth Pennsylvania Rifles!” shouted one of the advancing riflemen.
“What’s the password?” replied the Longhunter.
“Victory or Death,” answered the rifleman.
“Advance and be recognized,” said the Longhunter.
General Sullivan himself soon arrived at the bridge and relieved Alex and his men from holding it.
“My men can take over holding the bridge,” said the general.
“I thought General Ewing was supposed to relieve me,” said Alex.
“The bad weather prevented General Ewing from making the crossing. He and his troops are stuck on the west bank. I was unopposed on the River Road from north of Trenton all the way to this bridge. I intend to leave a detachment of men here to hold the bridge to cut off the enemy’s escape. I will attack the Hessians from the south at the same time Washington and the main army attacks them from the north,” said General Sullivan.
“You don’t mind if my men and I join in on the fun, do you General?” asked Alex.
“Be my guest,” replied the general.
Alex mounted up his troops and positioned them on the eastern flank of General Sullivan’s troops. Together they rode toward Trenton, back along the same River Road that General Sullivan had traveled to arrive at the bridge.
* * * *
Robert and Hugh
“Robber, don’t ye think we are getting out a wee bit far in front o’ the main army?” asked Hugh.
The main body of General Washington’s army was stalled on the north side of Trenton after encountering cannon fire from the Hessians. Robert and Hugh, along with Big Mike Finn and three other men, were trying to capture those Hessian cannons. They had run ahead of the main body of troops at a trot, moving toward the cannons as fast as they could. The six patriots soon closed with the Hessian troops guarding the cannons. After a brief struggle, they captured the cannons by killing the guards and driving off the Hessian cannoneers. The six soldiers then turned the cannons around and began firing them at the retreating Hessians.
As soon as General Washington saw that Robert, Hugh, Big Mike, and the three other soldiers had captured the cannons, he ordered his army to resume their advance toward the Hessians. The six men were having a tough time holding the cannons and keeping them in action against the Hessians, who were determined to get them back. The struggle had been reduced from gunpowder to bayonets and finally to knife fighting and hand-to-hand combat.
The Hessians mounted a counterattack on the cannons using twelve men who rushed the cannon positions in an attempt to retake them. Robert, Hugh and their comrades were outnumbered two to one and were sorely pressed fighting off the Hessians. Big Mike and Hugh were holding their own against three times their number in hand-to-hand combat. Hugh was powerful in hand-to-hand struggles, and Big Mike was almost his match, but much more compact and efficient in his movements. They made a great fighting team as they fought side-by-side near the front of the small force.
“Hugh, do ye think these bloody Prussians have had enough yet?” asked the panting Big Mike.
“Nae, lad, they act like they’re just getting started,” replied Hugh.
* * * *
Alex
Alex, the Longhunter and his cavalrymen were riding north at a trot along the River Road just west of Trenton when they heard the sounds of battle coming from the streets inside the town. Alex turned his horse east toward the battle sounds and his men followed. He began to pick up the pace as he neared the heart of the battle, and by the time he could see the fighting, he and his men were riding at a gallop.
Alex saw from horseback that a few of the American troops had captured some Hessian cannons on King Street on the north side of Trenton. Alex could also see that the Hessians were mounting a counterattack on the cannon position. It looked like the Hessians were just about to retake their cannons from the six Americans who had captured them. Alex bent low over his horse’s neck and galloped at full speed toward the mounting melee. When Alex got close enough to the fighters around the cannons, he leapt from his saddle head first, directly into the mass of attacking Hessians troops, taking six of them to the ground with him. The collision knocked the breath out of Alex and badly injured a number of the Hessians. Alex’s leap into the foray had broken their fighting spirit and stopped the Hessian counterattack.
That was all that the six patriots needed to drive off or kill the rest of the attacking Hessians. Alex’s men arrived at the battle right behind him to help the Americans clean out any of the remaining Hessians from around the cannons.
“Who was that daft lad who jumped off his horse at full speed right into the middle of the Hessians?” Hugh asked no one in particular.
“That daft lad would be me,” said Alex as he finally caught his breath and got up off the ground to stand up and face the surprised Hugh.
“Alex, lad, I thought that looked like it might have been ye when I caught a glimpse oot o’ the corner o’ me eye, just by the way ye rode,” shouted Hugh, embracing Alex in a bear hug with a huge grin.
“Robber, come here and look see at the March Hare that I found,” shouted Hugh motioning for Robert to come over and join him.
“Alex, lad it is good to see you again, finally. We looked for you as soon as we arrived in America, but could find no trace of you,” said Robert.
“It is good to see you, too,” said Alex, “but there’ll be time to discuss all that and catch up later. Let’s see if we can finish this battle first.”
With that, the three brothers grabbed their rifles and charged into the main body of the Hessians like madmen. The rest of the battle went badly for the Hessians. The attack from the north by General Washington and the simultaneous attack from the south by General Sullivan was more than the Hessians could withstand. They tried to retreat over the Assunpink Creek Bridge, but were blocked by the detachment that General Sullivan had left there. So they were finally funneled into an orchard just outside Trenton. They were quickly surrounded there, and having no other options, they were forced to surrender.
Colonel Rahl had been mortally wounded during the battle and died later that day at his headquarters in Trenton. It was a complete victory for General Washington and the Americans. With a number of his troops still stranded on the west bank of the Delaware River, Washington knew that he couldn’t hold Trenton or immediately attack any of the other British outposts in New Jersey. So he moved all his troops back across the river into Pennsylvania. They took their prisoners and captured supplies with them back to their winter camp on the west bank of t
he Delaware.
* * * *
Samuel
“Did you give my message to Colonel Rahl and tell him it was from the Prophet?” asked Samuel, standing in the young woman’s tent with the tent flap closed and his hands on his hips.
“Yes I did, sir,” Molly lied.
“Did he have any comments or send a message to me in return?”
“He did not, Sir.”
“Are you sure that you gave him the message just as I told it to you?”
“Yes, sir, I gave him the message word for word.”
“It’s odd how he was taken unawares by the surprise attack and was totally unprepared if, as you claim, you delivered the message that I gave you.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, sir.”
Samuel moved close to Molly, grabbed her by the front of her dress and pulled her close to him, slapping her face so hard that her head snapped around and her cheek immediately turned bright red. He then pulled her even closer to him, with his lips close to her ear and her reddened cheek.
“If I find out that you are lying to me, I will see to it that you and your sister die a slow death,” growled Samuel into the girl’s ear.
“Please, sir, I have told you the truth,” sobbed Molly.
Samuel shoved the girl to her back onto her cot as he stepped closer to the cot in order to stand over her.
“Well, all the men are celebrating the victory over the Hessians. I might as well celebrate it with you. Get yer clothes off,” commanded Samuel.
* * * *
Alex
“Alex, it really is good to see ye even if you’re still a skinny wee runt of a hare,” said the smiling Hugh, making a meaty hand grab for Alex, who easily dodged it.
“I’m glad to see you, and Robert, too,” said Alex, nodding to Robert who nodded back.
The brothers were back in camp, gathered in the tent Alex still shared with Ellison McCoy, and taking the opportunity to catch up with each other after years of separation.
“Have you heard from father or anyone else back in Scotland?” asked Alex.
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