by Ron Carter
The wind came quartering in from their left and they felt the fishermen change the angle of the boat in the water to compensate for the wind drift, and then they hit the main channel. They heard two of the fishermen grunt as they rammed their poles into a two-ton ice floe and heaved with all their strength. The bow of the boat swung violently downstream and the soldiers on board lurched, then caught their balance and steadied as they heard the great chunk of ice grind down the side of the boat and then slip free. The fishermen set their poles and bent their backs into it and slowly brought the bow back on course, battling the larger chunks, with the smaller ones making an unending hollow sound as they slammed into the side of the boat.
Billy and Eli felt the heavy boat thump into the frozen riverbank and waited their turn to step high over the gunwale onto the ice and snow, and silently sought out the soldiers of Mercer’s command. They turned their backs to the wind, and hunkered down for the long wait.
At eleven o’clock the sleet turned to snow. The temperature dropped and the wind raised to a howling blizzard.
At midnight Washington tucked a lantern inside his cape to check his watch. The battle plan called for Washington to have his entire force landed by midnight and begin their march nine miles south to Trenton. They were to arrive in Trenton at five o’clock and begin the attack in the dark. Washington pursed his mouth for a moment, replaced his watch, and began moving among his men, silently giving his support, encouragement. He said not one word of criticism nor did he mention the fact they were hours behind schedule.
At two o’clock the troops were all on the New Jersey bank. It remained only to move the rest of the horses and the last six of Knox’s precious cannon. At four o’clock Glover’s men unloaded the last horse. The entire command of twenty-four hundred men was in marching order, and without hesitation Washington gathered his officers.
“The guides are here. Follow their directions. Move among your men and keep them silent. And tell them in the name of heaven to stay with their officers. Stay with their officers.”
The officers huddled with the guides, then gave hushed commands and the leaders started south with the wind at their backs for the first time. Thomas Rodney wiped dripping water from his face and murmured, “As fierce a night as ever I’ve seen,” as they trudged on, moving by the sound of the man in front of them. Five minutes later the artillery officers lighted lanterns, locked the small glass gates against the wind, and mounted them on the rumbling gun carriages to dance eerily in the storm, casting a feeble circle of light in the driving sleet and on the icecovered road; the column worked south like a great, invisible snake.
Washington and most of the general officers were everywhere on their mounts, watching, giving hushed orders, commending. “Press on, boys, press on,” Washington kept repeating, as if the men were his own sons. Alexander Hamilton, small, delicate, rode his bay gelding beside the cannon, stopping now and then to give a hand when needed, or to use his mount to pull a stuck gun from time to time. Men saw him pat the barrels of the big guns as though they were a close and beloved personal friend.
At five-thirty Washington turned his horse to the column and shouted above the roaring wind. “Halt! Take ten minutes. Get off your feet if you can.”
The men sat on anything they could find, or the ground, heads down against the raging storm, and did not move. Washington counted the minutes off his watch then gave orders to move on. Two men in one company could not get up. Their officers knelt beside them, shook them, slapped their faces, but they could not be roused. The officers moved them off the road and propped them against an oak tree for what shelter it provided, and left them. There was no other choice.
At ten minutes before six o’clock the snow changed to great hailstones and the wind mounted, driving the huge balls of ice hammering into the men and animals, piling up on the road and in the fields.
At six o’clock Washington pulled his horse to a stop where the road forked at the tiny hamlet of Birmingham and shouted above the wind. “This is where the two commands separate. No more lights. General Sullivan, straight ahead on the River Road. General Greene, with me to the east, and down the Scotch Road. General Sullivan, sometime soon stop for ten minutes to let General Greene come parallel to you, since he has more distance to cover. Then, just before you take the Hermitage, stop for another ten minutes to rest your men. I’ll do the same with Greene’s column just before we take the cooper shop. That’s all. Let’s move.”
The army split, Sullivan moving his column ahead while Greene moved his east to the Scotch Road, then south. Washington loped his horse back among the troops in the dark on the treacherous, slick road and his horse stumbled and went down on one front knee. Washington instantly reached to grasp a handful of mane and heaved back and one startled soldier struggled with the impression Washington had lifted the horse back to its feet while sitting in the saddle.
At six-fifteen, on the River Road, an anxious lieutenant came panting up to General Sullivan.
“Sir, the men in my company just found out the powder in their musket pans is soaked. Most of the muskets won’t fire!”
Sullivan groaned, then gave the hushed order to halt the column. Quickly he moved back twenty yards, knocking the frizzens on the muskets upward to inspect the powder in the pans and he felt a sick knot in his stomach at the realization it was wet. Most muskets could not be fired. In despair Sullivan turned his face east towards the Scotch Road, trying to force a decision. Then he jerked open his coat and drew out pencil and paper and scrawled a note: Powder in musket pans wet, most will not fire. Await your orders.
He folded it and thrust it to a captain sitting his horse.
“Cut cross-country to the Scotch Road as fast as you can and deliver that to General Washington. Wait for an answer.”
The man grabbed the note, reined his horse left and drove his spurs home. In three jumps the gelding was moving at stampede gait over unfamiliar ground in the black of night. The captain nearly overran Greene’s column in the storm before he brought his horse to a sliding stop.
“General Washington. Where is he?”
“There.”
“Sir, General Sullivan sent this message. I’m to wait for an answer.”
Washington took the note, lighted a lantern under a blanket, and read the terse message. Without a moment’s hesitation he dug his own pencil from beneath his coat and wrote a return message on the same paper: Use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton.
He jammed the note back into the captain’s waiting hand and in two seconds the man was swallowed up in the darkness as Washington listened to the sounds of the running horse fade and die. Five minutes later the officer reined in his heaving mount and handed the note back to General Sullivan. The general struck a light inside his coat to read it, stared, read it again, then shoved it in his pocket. He turned back to his men and issued the order. “Mount bayonets. Keep moving.”
Back on the Scotch Road, General Washington rode steadily at the head of his column, shoulders hunched against the storm pounding his back. Slightly behind and to his right rode General Stephen at the head of his small detachment whose orders were to take the Hessian outpost at Howell’s cooper shop. Behind Stephen’s command, General Hugh Mercer rode his chestnut gelding, leading his regiment with orders to storm the north end of Trenton when they arrived, giving Colonel Henry Knox covering fire as Knox and his command dug in with cannon at the head of King and Queen Streets.
Directly behind General Mercer, in the first rank of his command, Billy and Eli held their position, setting the pace, listening for any sound above the howl of the storm, heads moving from side to side straining to see anything that moved in the deep purple of early dawn. Movement among the trees and then in the field to the east caught Billy’s eye and he jerked his head around, squinting in the driving hail and snow, and in the gloom made out shadowy figures coming straight at the column. Instantly he raised his arm to point and shouted, “Men coming from the east!”
Instantly Washington swung his horse around and stood tall in the stirrups with a hand shielding his eyes against the storm, battling the grab in his breast at the thought that somehow the Hessians had learned of his coming and he was leading his army into an ambush. The incoming men were a scant thirty yards away before Billy and Eli saw they were Americans, and Billy shouted, “Friendly,” and rose from his knee. The others who had knelt with him stood and raised their musket muzzles, watching.
At the same moment Washington recognized them as a small body of Virginians coming at a trot. He waited while they slowed, eyes wide when they realized they were approaching their own army, and he tapped spur to horse to meet them coming in. His eyes were blazing, voice harsh as he peered down at the officer in charge.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The young officer looked up in disbelief when he realized who was addressing him, and stammered, “I—I—I’m Captain Richard Anderson, sir, Virginia Regiment. General Stephen sent us out yesterday to reconnoiter. We got surrounded by Hessians and had to hide. We’re just now coming in, sir.” He took courage with his next statement. “Sir, we hit a Hessian outpost a while ago and shot a picket.”
For a moment Washington’s temper flared. “You what?” His arm jerked up to point south towards Trenton. “We’ve risked the entire Continental army to hit Trenton by surprise, and now you could have sprung the trap!”
Anderson’s mind went numb and he fumbled for something to say, but no words would come.
Washington caught himself and settled down and softened. “Did the Hessians exchange gunfire with you? Did any leave the outpost for Trenton?”
Anderson shook his head. “No, sir. We got one picket and the rest of them barricaded themselves inside a barn. We waited half an hour to see if they’d come out and fight, but they wouldn’t.”
Washington exhaled in relief and nodded. “You must be exhausted. Go back to General Mercer’s command and tell him I assigned you with him. Tell him to find some bread and fried pork for your men.”
Gratitude surged in Anderson as he looked up into Washington’s face. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Carry on.”
With the purple turning to gray in the howling storm, Washington loped his tall bay gelding to the head of the column and the two guides turned at the sound, then came trotting back.
“Sir, we’re about one mile north of Trenton.” They pointed. “Back in the trees about eight hundred yards around the bend is Howell’s cooper shop. There’s a Hessian patrol there.”
Washington nodded and for a moment settled back into his saddle and took a deep breath. He glanced over his shoulder into the faces of the men following him and a sense of deliberation settled over him and shut out all thoughts but one.
The running is over. The time is here.
Half a mile ahead, hidden by the bend of the place where the Scotch Road joins the Pennington Road, Lieutenant Andreas Wiederhold, twenty-four years old, bright, ambitious, critical of his superior officers and absolutely certain of his own opinions on any subject, paced near the black, potbellied stove inside Richard Howell’s cooper shop. His morning patrol had returned an hour earlier, and while they shook the snow and ice from their heavy Hessian overcoats they had reported there was no activity of any kind in their sector. All was quiet. Now, an hour later, true to his nature, Wiederhold was convincing himself that he could not trust his men—the only opinion he could trust was his own. He buttoned on his overcoat, jammed his hat on his head, tugged on his mittens, plucked a musket from the rack, and opened the door. Behind his back, his men shook their heads in disgust as he stepped out into the roaring storm. Outside he hunched his shoulders against the wind and made his way towards the road, a few yards away, carefully watching where he put his feet on the slick, frozen snow and ice.
Eight hundred yards north of him, General Washington rode his horse around the slight bend in the road with General Stephen right behind, and Stephen’s command following at a high walk. Through the storm and the gray dawn they made out the black shape of the building, and then the shaft of yellow light as Wiederhold opened the door, and they saw him carefully making his way towards the road. Washington pointed, Stephen turned and called orders, and his entire command surged forward at a silent run. They left the road and cut a straight line through the snow for the house, muskets at the ready, while Mercer, right behind, ordered his command to a run down the road, to the right of Stephen. Billy and Eli leading in the first rank.
Wiederhold was two paces from the Pennington Road when movement to his right caught his eye, and he turned his head and squinted. His jaw dropped and he clacked it shut as he distinguished vague forms running across the open ground towards him in the pelting storm. He waited only long enough to judge there were about sixty of them and that they were Americans before he spun on his heel. Three seconds later, he threw open the door of the cooper shop and frantically shouted at his men, “Rebels. To arms!”
Twenty seconds later his command of twenty-one men barged out the door, muskets in one hand, jerking their overcoats on with the other. He pointed and shouted, “Form ranks and fire on command.” The men fell into a straight line facing the incoming Americans, still two hundred yards distant, and waited with their muskets at the ready and the hail and snow blowing straight in their faces.
With the Hessians drawn up in a battle line, there was no need for silence, and General Stephen let out a howl, “Come on, men, they’re ours!” Instantly his command mounted a battle cry as they charged onward, emerging out of the storm soaked, ragged, wet hair matted and flying, screaming like insane men. Some fired their first volley at too great a distance but they didn’t care. They lowered their bayonets and ran on while others fired the second volley and then the third, their shouts riding the high wind into the faces of the Hessians while the distance closed. One hundred yards—eighty—fifty—while Wiederhold coolly held his fire.
At forty yards, he shouted “Fire!” Twelve of the twenty-one Hessian muskets with dry powder blasted into the storm to whistle harmlessly over the heads of the Americans.
“Reload!”
One of his men suddenly stopped, gasped, pointed towards the road and shouted, “Sir!”
Wiederhold spun to look and his whole body jerked backward. Mercer’s men in battalion formation were running down the Pennington Road with the wind, cannon, and horses in their midst, paying him no attention. For a moment Wiederhold’s mind locked and then Stephen’s men fired their fourth volley. Wiederhold was jerked back to reality as musket balls kicked ice and frozen dirt all around his men and he felt a tug at his shoulder and realized one ball had ripped through his overcoat, and it was only then that his numb brain realized the impossible was happening.
The rebels are attacking Trenton!
He turned back to shout orders to his men but he was too late. They had already turned and were running hard towards Trenton, all thoughts of trading volleys with the Americans vanished. Wiederhold took one more look at the wild mob coming at him and pivoted to sprint after his men.
The first shot had been fired at exactly eight o’clock, three hours behind schedule. At the crack of the musket, Washington’s mind leaped to Sullivan’s command a mile west on the River Road.
Did he make it? There’s been no gunfire. Will he hit the south end of Trenton at the same time we hit the north end? He must! He must!
To the west, on the River Road, Captain John Flahaven, commanding the lead regiment in General Sullivan’s column with orders to take the Hermitage, suddenly jerked his horse to a standstill and turned his ear to listen.
Gunfire from the east! Greene and Washington are taking the cooper sho
p on Pennington Road!
He peered down the stormy road, and three hundred yards ahead, set in the trees on the left side, he could make out the black silhouette of the huge stone home owned by Philemon Dickinson, who had been left in the American camp on the Pennsylvania side of the river. Without hesitating, Flahaven turned to his command.
“There it is, boys! Remember Long Island. Remember New York. Let’s go.”
The men surged forward at a run, shouting as they ran, muskets ready. They came on the first Hessian pickets one hundred yards from the building and the Americans fired as they came, shouting all the way. The pickets pointed their muskets into the wind and fired without aiming, then turned and ran for the building.
Inside Dickinson’s home, Lieutenant Friederich Wilhelm von Grothausen’s head jerked up at the sound of the gunfire and without a moment’s hesitation he shouted orders. “To arms! Outside! Form ranks.”
His command threw on their coats and spilled out the door into the wind just as the stampeding Hessian pickets ran past. Grothausen barked orders to Corporal Franz Bauer to stand fast with his company of ten men while Grothausen and twelve of his own men ran for the sentry post thirty yards north of the house.
Bauer stood in the road before the Hermitage watching the backs of Grothausen and his men fade into the storm, then turned to his ten men, pointing, shouting. “Take cover. Trees. Fences. Take cover and do not fire until I give the order!”