First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  The object of all this surreptitious planning was a Hessian brigade of fifteen hundred men under Colonel Johann Rall, stationed for the past week and a half at Trenton. An able warrior, Rall had soldiered all his adult life, winning commendations for his valor in earlier wars and serving with distinction both at Long Island and at White Plains. But he was in over his head at Trenton. An inexperienced colonel, he unexpectedly found himself in command of a brigade only because of the simultaneous death or incapacitation of four more senior officers. And his problems were exacerbated when fatigue, then illness, descended on his men, the legacy of nine consecutive months of sailing and marching and fighting, and, more recently, of ten days of constant alarms and vigilance against an American attack. If Rall erred that Christmas evening, he was not the only one who blundered. A week earlier General James Grant, the British commander of all the Jersey posts, had instructed the German leaders along the Delaware that Washington could hardly be expected to try to cross that river; Grant even pooh-poohed some of Rall’s precautions, once claiming that he “could keep the peace in New Jersey with a corporal’s guard.” Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve Grant reversed himself, advising Rall “to be on your guard against a surprise Attack.” Rall was. On Christmas Eve! He was not particularly vigilant after midnight, however. A bleak, terribly cold night, and a holiday to boot, he permitted the soldiery to relax in their comfortable barracks, even canceling the customary dawn patrol.

  Washington’s men, meanwhile, were in the elements. Obscured by lowlying hills, the men had begun to move out in mid-afternoon, each division marching to its designated spot on the river. There was no holiday spirit in any sector. A light dusting snow already was falling, accompanied by a piercing wind, the sort that can numb a man yet leave his face stinging and aching. Men sought to shield themselves by walking close in the shadow of their companions, but there was little shelter for men garbed mostly in summer clothing, and certainly none for the shoeless. Nor was there any refuge from the gnawing anxiety that attended the thought of coming combat. The men were kept away from the river—and the sight of sentries that might be lurking on the Jersey side—until darkness enveloped the countryside. Then they were ordered to move quickly to the water’s edge, where they found Durham boats awaiting them—large, bulky river craft (about fifty to sixty feet in length, eight feet wide) ordinarily used to ship iron ore and agricultural staples. Those men who got to sit were fortunate, for they had been standing or marching for about four hours; besides, the hull helped block off some of the wind. Other men had to load the eighteen field cannon that went across, grueling, wearying labor. While they toiled the snow began to fall more heavily. Finally, about three hours behind schedule, everything was ready, and the army started across, conveyed by the Marblehead sailor-soldiers who had gotten Washington’s army off Long Island four months earlier. This time their assignment was even more difficult, for they had to grapple with a swift current that swirled and swept huge chunks of ice perilously about each craft.

  Washington was at headquarters until after nightfall, remaining at this more or less central command post in case difficulties arose with any of the three scattered divisions. Shortly after 7:00 P.M., satisfied that all still was well, he rode forward to join the principal contingent of his force at McKonkey’s Ferry. The unanticipated delays in loading that he soon discovered must have dismayed him. The planned assault at sunrise now was out of the question. By midnight, moreover, the snow had turned to a cutting sleet; the dampness could render his muskets inoperative. In that event, he decreed, the attack would be by bayonet.

  Washington was one of the first to cross the Delaware. He stood on the Jersey shore for nearly an hour directing the operation, looking “calm and collected, but very determined” to one of his aides. By 4:00 A.M. the men and cannon had been unloaded. No enemy sentries, no patrols had appeared. But a nine-mile trek lay ahead, and the first rays of light would extinguish this pitch black night in about three hours. From experience Washington knew his army—no army—could traverse the distance in less than four hours. But he ruled out a retreat now. Such a move would be spotted, negating a second chance for such an attack. Besides, there had been enough retreating. They moved out. No one spoke. The division stopped once to eat, the men’s first food in eighteen or more hours, but it was only a brief stop. When they started again the force had been divided. Greene led one group down the Pennington Road toward the north side of the village; General Sullivan took the River Road that led to the south side of Trenton, a move designed to cut off the German’s exit across the Assunpink Bridge. Washington accompanied Greene.

  The Pennsylvania-New Jersey Theater

  Inside Trenton the Hessians were none the wiser. At 8:00 A.M., forty-five minutes after the daylight first had pierced the blackness, many of the mercenaries still slept contentedly, some, like Colonel Rall, slumbering deeply after losing a struggle to a bottle of spirits on the previous evening.

  Finally, only a few hundred yards from the village, pickets on the Pennington Road discovered the advancing Americans. Almost simultaneously Sullivan spotted the pickets on the south side of town, easily overpowering them. In a few minutes the sleepy-eyed Germans were falling out, alerted at last by the not-too-distant sound of musket fire. But it was too late. All but one road out of town already had been sealed off by the attackers. Rall hurriedly tried to rally a defense; some of his units fought well, others seemed confused, almost paralyzed, by this sudden onslaught, for they were being assailed from every direction, by cannon from the forests, by men who huddled behind walls or who fired from the open windows of houses. It did not take long for the Germans to realize the immensity of their dilemma, that “they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further Resistance,” as Washington later put it. Individual units began to submit, until surrender fed surrender and the battle was over. One who did not quit soon enough was Rall; he was gunned down in the street and died a day and a half later. Three Hessian regiments capitulated. After a thirty-minute clash, 20 Hessians were dead (compared to 4 Americans who died and 8 who were wounded), and 919 were prisoners of war. The victory could have been even greater. Neither Ewing nor Cadwalader made it across the Delaware; the former did not even attempt to cross, the latter gave up after an arguable effort, with the result that more than 500 Hessians escaped into the very areas in which the two were to have operated.58

  It was a stupendous victory, nevertheless, the capstone to an ingenious and perilous operation executed by a man with the genius to see, then to seize, every opportunity that fell his way. There were enough dangers to the plan to have forestalled a less intrepid commander than Washington. Still, while attended by risks (as is virtually every wartime undertaking), the hazards that accompanied the mission often have been overemphasized. Washington’s knowledge of his enemy’s activities was considerable; in fact, he knew far more about them than they seem to have known about him. The Americans, moreover, had a numerical superiority of better than two to one. And if the plan went awry—if the element of surprise was foiled, or if his adversary surprised him—he had good reason to believe he still could get back across the river to safety, for not only did he have manpower superiority, he had a colossal artillery advantage, perhaps five times as many cannon as Rall had in his possession. Washington could have lost heavily, but the odds were better that either he would gain nothing or that he would gain everything.

  If Cadwalader had not made it across the dangerously swirling river on Christmas night, he got over the next morning, and his belated trek opened the possibility for still more action by Washington. Actually, the commander’s initial reaction to Cadwalader’s belated move probably was one of anxiety, for he now was all alone in New Jersey. If the Hessians at Bordentown bottled up this American division, or if British forces rushed to the Delaware and crushed Cadwalader, the loss would nullify the gains secured the night before. Yet there was something refreshing about the way this Pennsylvania officer spoke. Washington received
a letter from him on the day after Trenton, a missive in which he talked of action, of linking with Putnam’s troops in Philadelphia in order to create a diversion that would permit the commander to act. Washington immediately summoned a council of war. Should the army recross the Delaware? No—not immediately anyway, his officers advised. Rations were depleted, and the men already were tired and hungry; besides, many men’s enlistments expired in just four days. Washington must have been disappointed by their answer, for he already had answered Cadwalader with a letter that pulsated with his new zeal for action. He was “extremely ready” to move out, he had said.59 But once again he refused to overrule his generals.

  By the following morning the situation had changed. The Americans learned that the Hessians at Bordentown and Black Horse were gone; fearing a repeat of the Christmas night debacle, their commander had retreated to Princeton, leaving Cadwalader, joined at last by Ewing and a large contingent of militiamen under Mifflin, to prowl about their recent haunts. That same day Washington decided to cross back into New Jersey; he acted without convening another war council. “Reinforcements are coming in” that “will make our force very respectable,” he told a correspondent. More militia units were on the way, and, in addition, he had ordered up some units that he had posted before Philadelphia on the eve of the holiday foray. His plan now was growing more grandiose. When he addressed his generals the day before he apparently had thought only of flushing out the remaining Hessians near the Delaware. Now he spoke of fording the river “for the purpose of attempting a recovery of that Country [all of New Jersey, that is] from the Enemy.” One more stunning success, he reasoned, and Howe might be compelled to abandon the entire state.60

  Washington’s thinking was audacious. To have caught a regiment in its cups after a holiday revelry was one thing. To march into the lion’s den against a large enemy force that only recently had run him off Long Island and Manhattan, that had chased him across New Jersey in the weeks following its pulverizing victory at Fort Washington, was the act of a daredevil, a gambler who was willing to hazard every advantage he had won at Trenton on another roll of the dice. It was a side that Washington had divulged many times in the past eighteen months, although before Trenton he always had permitted himself to be restrained by his general officers. At Trenton, however, he had pursued his instincts—and he had won, just as he had at Dorchester Heights. Now his instincts guided him once again. He believed in his own capabilities, and he knew that the size of the rival forces would be more evenly balanced than had been the case during the summer campaign. Besides, the customary British naval superiority was of no consequence in Jersey.61

  Washington tried to cross the Delaware on December 29, but the icy river was in worse shape than it had been on Christmas Eve. He went over the following day, however, accompanied by startling news from Baltimore. Congress had voted to make him a virtual military dictator for six months. He was given “full, ample, and complete powers” in almost every matter pertaining to the conduct of the war. Once he got his men across, moreover, he assembled them and in a rare speech he proffered a ten-dollar bounty to every soldier who would remain on for another six weeks; enough men responded that he could continue to harbor thoughts of action.62

  Meanwhile, the commander established his headquarters in Trenton, posting his army on a slight ridge on the south side of the Assunpink. His adversary would have to get across that deep stream to get to him. On the other hand, his army’s back was against the Delaware, a river whose mercurial, uncooperative temperament had been frequently shown during the past week. Before he moved any further Washington sent patrols north to garner information on British activities. One party, the group he sent to Princeton, was led by Joseph Reed. On New Year’s Day it reported: the British were massing their forces in that little college town; soon, it appeared, they would be on their way toward Trenton.63

  The Earl of Cornwallis was back in command. Howe was pulling duty at headquarters in New York. Cornwallis rounded up eight thousand troops—giving him a three-to-two numerical advantage over Washington—and started for Trenton on January 2. It was not a pleasant march. A Continental brigade had been posted at Maidenhead, about a third of the way toward Trenton, and from that point on the redcoats were compelled to gingerly pick their way south, their every step dogged by the fire of American riflemen; in addition, a January thaw had set in, sending the temperature to early spring records for warmth and transforming the compact, frozen highway into an oozy, sticky bog. Under ordinary circumstances Cornwallis would have reached Trenton by mid-morning. This day he got into town at 5:00 P.M., only a few precious minutes before daylight was extinguished.

  To his delight Cornwallis discovered that the American commander awaited him, still nestled south of the deep, vertiginous creek. Why Washington had remained there, hemmed between this coursing stream and the Delaware, has troubled historians. It has been suggested that he was mentally fatigued from the constant strain of command, although neither his action at Trenton nor his behavior immediately thereafter support such a conjecture. Did he know all along that he could escape? Perhaps. Yet there is no evidence to lend credence to that notion. Nor is there any real evidence that he was misled by his subordinates, as some writers have maintained. Could his intelligence network have broken down so completely that Cornwallis’s arrival was a surprise? Not very likely. Indeed, Reed had returned from Princeton with word that Cornwallis shortly would be on the way. Maybe the simplest explanation—though the most difficult for many historians to accept—is that Washington erred. For weeks he had spoken longingly of making a stand. Here was his chance. The terrain was hilly, and thus favorable for a defensive stand; in addition, the Americans had massed more artillery in one place than at any previous time in the war. Washington seemed to feel that Cornwallis could never get to him, and that the British army would be bled white in its futile endeavor.64 It might have worked out that way, too, but given time to reconsider Washington evidently concluded that he had erred, that he did not wish to have to fight with his back pinioned against the Delaware River.

  When Cornwallis marched into town, however, he was looking at his army’s best chance of making a cornered Washington fight since Howe had backed the Continental army against the East River in August. More diligent—and experienced—than Howe, Cornwallis did not wait to attack. He immediately hurled two columns at the creek. Furious fights developed; if the British reached the stream Washington would be in terrible peril. In the barely visible twilight, clouded even more by the low-hanging smoke discharged by a score or more of cannon, by thousands of muskets, the two forces grappled. First one, then the other assault column, was repulsed. But Cornwallis came again. And again the Continentals’ deadly fire drove the British back. About thirty minutes had elapsed. Darkness had descended. Cornwallis had to make a simple choice: attack now, or wait until sunrise. He made the wrong choice. He opted to wait, apparently because at that moment his men were too tired even to fight a ragged inexperienced, half-starved army. When he awakened the next morning Washington was gone.

  Like an artful, cornered cat, Washington suddenly had bounded out of Cornwallis’s grasp. The American commander had not had much choice, as Cornwallis should immediately have realized. Washington could stand and fight against a numerically superior professional army; he could attempt to pull out, retreating south of the Delaware; or he could try to slither away to the north, behind Cornwallis. Those were his grim alternatives. He rejected a further stand on the Assunpink, but he was too full of fight to fall back into Pennsylvania. Shortly after sunset, after Cornwallis called off his propulsive assaults, Washington made his decision, perhaps unilaterally, although he did hold another council of war. He would sally deeper into the enemy’s lair. Moving his army across the bloodied creek, skirting wide around the left flank of the slumbering redcoat army and moving northward in his greatest gamble of the war, he would strike behind Cornwallis.

  Several lures pulled Washington into this hazardous
venture. New Brunswick housed Britain’s principal supply depot in this theater, and its capture or destruction was an enticing thought. Furthermore, any victory, however slight, might help in the recruitment of next year’s army. Washington, moreover, always had been given to grandiloquent plans, and this was no exception. A stupendous victory, he dreamed, might compel the British to abandon the entire state, forfeiting their every stinging victory of those bleak days of November and early December.

  The troops moved out just after midnight, a huge operation that required the uprooting of an army whose lines stretched for more than four miles behind the watery buttress. Men were left behind to tend four hundred campfires, while others toiled to dig earthworks that would never be used, the flickering light and the ringing clatter of metal against rock designed to reassure the British that the Americans indeed remained nearby. While those soldiers excavated a soon-to-be-abandoned slope, Reed rendered his greatest service to Washington. Since the commander had stumbled onto his confidential remarks to Lee six weeks earlier, Reed had acted with boundless energy. Having already resigned his adjutancy, he made an about-face early in December and asked Congress to permit him to stay on. During the next thirty days he worked tirelessly to raise and organize troops, he ran a small-scale intelligence operation in the Bordentown and Trenton areas, he joined those at headquarters to help plan the attack on Rall’s Hessians, and he crossed into New Jersey with Cadwalader on the day after Christmas, personally leading dangerous scouting parties to compile information for Washington, including his foray as far north as Princeton on New Year’s Eve, a mission upon which he captured a dozen British dragoons. Reed, of course, knew this region intimately; he was a native of Trenton and a graduate of the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Now, despite whatever lingering hurt or animosity Washington still might have harbored toward Reed, he turned to the young man for help. Indeed, it may even have been Reed who put the notion of striking north into Washington’s mind; at least that was the claim made later by one of his friends. Whatever the case, with the British front only 150 yards ahead, Reed moved the army over the Assunpink, then down a labyrinth of country roads. No one spoke, and to further guarantee quiet the rattle of the wagons and artillery carriages was muffled by wrapping their great wheels with cloth. Washington’s army completed its circuitous Trenton-Princeton journey in half the time it had taken Cornwallis to traverse a shorter route, although the Continentals were unopposed and the muck and mire of Jersey’s inhospitable roads had refrozen by the late night hour when the march commenced.65