The word that came in was not that Lee had achieved a brilliant stroke but that, while sleeping away from his army in an inn kept by a pretty widow, he had been captured by the British. Washington mourned the loss to the cause, and summoned all the troops still in New Jersey to join him in Pennsylvania. He himself would have to attack from across the Delaware.
THIRTEEN
Heights
(1777)
In the face of augmenting snow and cold the British behaved in a manner that seemed to Washington as unaccountable as it was agreeable. Since regular armies do not rack themselves on winter campaigns, Howe had intended to complete his belated expedition against Philadelphia only if the capital fell comfortably into his hands. Finding himself blocked at the Delaware, he withdrew most of his army into winter quarters on three islands: Manhattan, Staten, and also Aquidneck (Newport, off the Rhode Island mainland) which the British had recently occupied.
The winter, Howe believed, would not be wasted since he would use it to demonstrate that the rebellion could be snuffed out piecemeal. As he interpreted the situation, southern New Jersey had returned to its natural allegiance. He would assist His Majesty’s loyal subjects in protecting themselves from the revolutionaries by spacing, throughout the area, British military posts. If (as it seemed reasonable to assume) this method of pacifying an area proved effective, it could be extended through all the provinces, bringing the rebellion, step by step, to an end.
The enemy post nearest to Washington’s army was at Trenton and garrisoned by two to three thousand Hessians. Washington decided to subject it to the type of hit-and-run raid he had often seen the Indians achieve during his previous war. Only he would be more sophisticated: he would send across the Delaware three coordinated forces which, by striking at different points, would surround the enemy, making escape impossible. He would attack on Christmas Day, when the Hessians would probably be relaxed, and before his own army went home at year’s end. The result, as Washington saw it, would probably do no more than dent an edge of the British might. Yet even a small victory would be valuable in reviving patriot morale.
Washington’s battle plans were almost always too complicated. As it turned out, only one of the three columns he set in motion got across the river. This was because the maneuver ran into the severest of winter weather. Yet the weather was a godsend: the commanders of the hired German troops did not believe that any army could be made to endure the hardships of a march through such a storm. The Hessians were to laugh away as ridiculous the report of the approach of a menacing column.
Under Washington’s personal command, twenty-four hundred men marched up the Delaware behind concealing hills and, after darkness had hidden their movements, began to embark on large cargo boats that were propelled by poles pushed against the bottom of the river. The air was cold and damp with the foretaste of storm, but the wind was still moderate and the pieces of ice floating in the current were few. However, after the first contingent had been ferried over, the wind stiffened, bringing a terrible cold that froze the water on the men’s clothes and also the shallows through which they had to break their way before they could embark. More and more floating ice crowded the river, threatening to smash or capsize the boats. The poles of the men trying to stave off the chunks interfered with the poles that were to be pressed against the bottom. The artillery horses, unable to keep their footing on decks now iced over, lurched and slithered, endangering everything. Movement became slower and slower. Washington had hoped to attack with the dawn, but it became clear that the troops would have to expose themselves at Trenton in full daylight.
Before the march could begin, the storm really broke: a mixture of hail, snow, and rain that soon had the men’s feet slipping on the most treacherous of footing: ice covered with snow. Trenton was nine miles away, but there was no turning back. It was a desperate march. Men who lay down to rest for a moment never rose again. But Washington could comfort himself with the thought that the snow was obscuring his army as effectively as darkness would have done.
The battle at Trenton was an anticlimax to the army’s difficulties in getting there. The Hessians were caught by complete surprise. Awakened from sleep, blinded by driving snow when they tried to look in the direction from which the patriot fire came, they could not get into formation—and they did not know how to fight in any other way. Surrender came quickly. Where there was a bloody hump in the snow, it invariably represented a German body: the Americans did not lose a single man.
Washington gathered together some officers and discussed the possibility of marching on and attacking the next Hessian post, some fifteen miles downriver at Burlington, New Jersey. But his men were tired and some, having broken into the Hessian storehouses, were drunk. He led his army through the still-roaring storm, back to their disembarking place, whence they again crossed the icy river. The hardships were great as before, but the men were now cheered by the presence of over nine hundred prisoners, six German brass cannon, piles of arms and supplies that had been loaded into captured wagons, and four of those regimental flags the loss of which meant so much to European armies.
Having been asked to do what was within their possibilities and power—stand up to horrendous physical affliction—Washington’s men had behaved in a manner that gave him “inexpressible pleasure.”
Four days later, Washington’s troops were back at the scene of their victory. A major reason for recrossing the Delaware had been to establish an emotional base for re-recruiting the men whose enlistments would expire with the new year, in two more days. “My brave fellows,” Washington exhorted, “you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected, but your country is at stake: your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you.… The present is emphatically the crisis which is to decide our destiny.”
About half the men stayed on, and Washington’s bold return to New Jersey was bringing out the local militia. However, a British column under Lord Cornwallis, much more powerful if hardly more numerous than Washington’s force, was marching towards him from New York, determined on revenge for the defeat at Trenton. As skirmishers harassed the British advance, the patriots holed in behind Assunpink Creek, a small river that flowed along the western edge of the village of Trenton. The position was a moderately strong one, but Washington was on a narrow strip of land between the Assunpink and the Delaware. His back was towards the major river. Since his boats were elsewhere, if the British succeeded in crossing the Assunpink, they could pin the patriot army against an uncrossable torrent.
When the enemy arrived in the late afternoon, they tried at once to get over the Assunpink, but they found that the bridge was well protected by cannon. They pegged down their tents for the night, sure that they could make the kill in the morning. With complacency, they noted that the American campfires burned on through the darkness. At dawn, the British found that the bird had flown.
During the night, Washington’s army had silently cohered into formation and marched down the Delaware, leaving a few men behind to feed the fires. After having moved well beyond the British left flank, the army had turned east into a back road that pointed deeper into New Jersey.
This maneuver had not been foreseen as a possibility by the British, since for a professional army it would have been utter madness. Washington had left a force stronger than his own between his army and all patriot-held territory. The idiot had, by God, blocked his possibility of retreat and also cut his own supply lines!
Washington was, in fact, for the first time making complete use of the advantages of his army. Men fighting for their own liberties did not need a perpetual infusion of supplies. Being devoid of heavy equipment and able to think for themselves, they could move twice as fast as a professional army. Unless actually cornered, they were as hard to catch as quicksilver.
Washington’s objective was the village of Princeton, where friendly New Jerse
y farmers had told him there was a considerable garrison. After six or seven hours of marching, the army arrived on the outskirts in full daylight on January 3, 1777. An advance guard ran unexpectedly into two British regiments that were on their way to join Cornwallis at Trenton. The advance guard, falling back on the main American army, created confusion, while the trained Britons lined up coolly into their famous line. Washington galloped to the rescue, conspicuous on a tall white horse. He lined up his own men and then rode ahead of them as they advanced against the British. When the two forces came in range, both fired; Washington was between them. An aide, Colonel Richard Fitzgerald, covered his face with his hat to keep from seeing the Commander in Chief killed. When Fitzgerald lowered the hat, he saw many men dead and dying, but the General was sitting untouched on his horse.
The British were on the run. This was the first time that Washington’s troops had, in open combat, made a British line break. Washington shouted, “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!” He spurred his powerful horse and dashed after the fleeing British. His horrified aides saw him disappear behind a clump of trees.
A third British regiment was in the town. Its officers, flabbergasted to see the Continental Army appear where they believed it could not possibly be, surrendered without making any real resistance. But Washington’s subordinates were far from happy. The Commander in Chief had vanished. Some time passed before Washington came charging up on his foaming horse, in the highest of spirits.
Farmers hurried in to report that a large British detachment was dashing back from Trenton “in a most infernal sweat, running, puffing, and blowing and swearing at being so outwitted.” Washington’s men only had time to exchange their old blankets for new British ones, and then the army set out again, leading between two and three hundred prisoners. Their direction: further into enemy-held New Jersey.
Washington yearned to march to Brunswick, the main British base in New Jersey, where so much money and equipment were stored that its capture would be a lethal blow. But his men were too tired. He moved in easy stages—the enemy was too confused to bother him—to the heights at Morristown, two thirds of the way back from Pennsylvania to New York.
Washington’s raids on Trenton and Princeton had sensational effects. For patriots everywhere these dramatic triumphs inspired, after deep depression caused by continual catastrophe, renewed hope. And the British saw their comfortable plan for winning the war utterly shattered. It had been demonstrated as not only impractical but dangerous to try, against an army as mobile and unconventional as Washington’s, to hold down a large area with a network of posts. The danger was compounded because His Majesty’s presumably loving subjects, who had been counted on to rally to the defense of their “protectors” in the British service, had failed to do so.
The last part of the bitter lesson came doubly clear when the British command, not wishing to have any more outposts beaten up, withdrew their forces in New Jersey to within a few miles of their stronghold on Staten Island. The citizens who had sworn renewed allegiance to the Crown under the guns of His Majesty’s mercenaries, now tore up their pardons, picked up their own guns, and went hunting redcoats or Hessians. What a plaguey war! Where was the British command to find another way to win?
FOURTEEN
The Loss of Philadelphia
(1777)
The position at Morristown that Washington now occupied had originally been suggested by General Lee. That former British regular had realized, as Washington had not, how chary professional armies were of their supply lines. The high and broken country, ideally suited to American defensive skills, overlooked the New Jersey plain that connected New York with the Delaware and Philadelphia beyond. By holding these heights and descending from them on those hit-and-run raids at which they had demonstrated such ability, the Americans could keep in perpetual confusion the lifeline of any British advance. The land route to Philadelphia could thus be as effectively blocked as if Washington possessed an overwhelming army.
Having carefully forewarned his troops concerning an eclipse, lest they be frightened by the mysterious disappearance of the sun, Washington settled the men into winter quarters at Morristown. The army shrank as enlistments languished. Never able to believe that the British were as cautious as they were, Washington was in perpetual anxiety lest his ill-manned heights be, despite their defensive strength, stormed. He wrote Congress, which was still skulking at Baltimore, “I think we are now in one of the most critical periods which America ever saw!”
Congressmen, not only those who suspected that a better general could defeat the British with the troops Congress could supply, were annoyed by such perpetual complaints. Robert Morris admonished Washington that if he presented “the best side of the picture frequently,” he might get more cooperation. “Heaven (no doubt for the noblest purposes) has blessed you with a firmness of mind, steadiness of countenance, and patience in sufferings that give you infinite advantages over other men. This being the case, you are not to depend on other people’s exertions being equal to your own. One mind feeds and thrives on misfortunes by finding resources to get the better of them; another sinks under their weight.”
Washington further annoyed Congress by the way he used the dictatorial powers they had granted him when they had fled in terror from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Their intention had been for him to take off their shoulders the weight of supplying the army by using, on his own authority, military force to requisition supplies from neighboring farmers. Washington preferred to devote his powers to advancing the general principles of tolerance and continental union.
The Commander in Chief ruled that citizens of New Jersey, who had, under stress, sworn allegiance to the Crown, could be uncontaminated by the single act of swearing allegiance to the United States. Those who refused to do so, or who had conspicuously cooperated with the British, should not be punished, but merely escorted to the enemy lines. The wives and children of exiles could stay in their homes “if their behavior warrants.” And refugees could take with them any personal possessions that would not strengthen the enemy.
The New Jersey radicals were furious that possible miscreants should get off so easily. However, time was to prove that Washington’s lenient measures were not only kind but also the smartest possible politics. Waverers who were persecuted would glow with hate, while forgiven waverers were grateful. And the convinced Tories who were sent to New York were put in the most effective possible reformatory. Under the domination of military aristocrats who despised Colonials and equated their own desires with military necessity, the Tory refugees suffered from an oppression more extreme than any that the British had been accused of by the most violent patriot orators. Since Tories gathered there from all over the continent to be disillusioned, it could be argued that the British lost the Revolutionary War within the walls of their New York stronghold.
That the cleansing oath Washington had designated was not to the sovereign state of New Jersey but to “the United States” outraged many congressmen. The United States? That was no political entity, just an alliance. And Washington had compounded his sin by establishing “additional regiments” that were not attached to any state line, but would mingle soldiers from all parts of the continent.
The global rivalry between France and England, which had inspired Washington’s first war, had been by no means abated by France’s defeat. She still smarted at the loss of Canada. Thus the American rebellion was being viewed with great interest from Paris: perhaps the British could be thrown out of the North American continent after all. While waiting to see if further cooperation with the American rebels might be justified by proof that the British were really in trouble, the French sent, as discreetly as possible, munitions across the ocean. Washington was to write in April, 1778, “France by her supplies has saved us from the yoke so far.”
Another French influx was giving Washington a great deal of trouble: his headquarters were besieged with officers, come directly from France or the French Indies, who
would condescend to serve in the American army if given commands suited to their pretensions. These pretensions were usually very high. Through interpreters—for Washington spoke no French and they usually no English—they claimed great rank and achievements abroad. Washington suspected that most were impostors, but he was sorry for those who had spent their last money in coming to him; he found it embarrassing to have to pay for the mending of a high-toned Frenchman’s breeches. And there was always the possibility that some of these volatile, bragging soldiers had brought with them sophisticated military knowledge which the American army could well use. Particularly disturbing were those who arrived with such impressive auspices that French support for the American cause might be endangered if they were not given the important commissions they demanded. As Washington was led to agree to the appointment of one foreign claimant after another, his councils of war became increasingly bilingual.
Among the arrivals of 1777, three were to stand out: Colonel Louis le Bèque Duportail was to take over the leadership of the engineers with such effect that there was never again to be an asinine major fortification like the disastrous Fort Washington. Thomas Conway, an Irish officer in the French service, was to earn Washington’s hatred more thoroughly than perhaps any other man ever did. And then there was the Marquis de Lafayette.
Lafayette’s connections in the French court were so important that his arrival in America had induced a diplomatic protest from England. Congress eagerly made him a major general, although with the understanding that, since he had no military experience, the title was honorary. The young aristocrat—he was twenty—joined Washington’s staff, delighted Washington with his modesty and eagerness to learn English, and then horrified Washington by wishing to assume at once a major general’s command. The eyes of all Europe were upon him, he said, expecting great things.
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