by Ron Carter
“What do you figure to do?”
“Break up into two groups, one on each side of the road, east and west. Whichever side of the road has the best clear shot hits ‘em with one group, then falls back to reload while the other group hits ‘em from the other side. They haven’t got a musket or rifle that can reach as far as ours, and it’ll take ‘em too long to set up cannon. General Washington wants us to slow ‘em down until dark. Hand paused long enough to look Eli in the eye. “What do you think?”
“Good. We better get at it. What about the horse?”
Hand eyed the brown. “It’ll be in the way. Turn it loose. It’ll go home.” Then he squinted upward at the sun, calculating. About midmorning, maybe ten o’clock. We’ve got to slow them down for about six hours.
While Eli stripped the bridle from the brown and tied it to the saddle, Hand called out the names of two lieutenants and one captain, and with his small command gathered about, gave short, abrupt orders, pointing as he spoke. Eli led the brown ten yards away, then slapped it on the flank and it trotted away while Eli cached the saddle beneath a pine tree and joined Billy. Within seconds the force was divided into two groups, Hand leading one with a lieutenant second in command, the captain leading the other with a lieutenant beside him. Each group had one cannon.
“Any questions?”
There were none.
“Let’s move.”
One of Hand’s soldiers handed Billy a rifle, bullet pouch, and powder horn, and the two groups moved north to within eighty yards of the bridge, one on each side. Billy and Eli remained with the group on the east side, and within two minutes the Americans had disappeared behind bushes or trees or in small streambeds to wait.
A mile north of them, General Charles Cornwallis spurred his horse ahead and came quartering in beside Major Donlevy Furman, commander of the first fifteen hundred infantry in the main column.
“Major, move your command ahead of the column and form an advance line at once.”
“Yes, sir.” Furman turned and shouted orders, and his infantry struggled to a trot in the mud, cursing as it splashed to cover their black boots, then their white breeches, and speckle their crimson jackets. Their fifes and drums fell silent as they opened a gap and left the main column behind.
Behind Furman’s advance line, Cornwallis and his staff of officers rode horses caked with mud to their bellies, leading the main column as it plowed through the ruts and muck, struggling every step of the way to keep the heavy commissary and munitions wagons, and the cannon moving.
Furman’s infantry rounded the gentle bend where the road turned to the southwest, and the Five Mile Run bridge came into view. Every eye in the line squinted in the bright sun, watching, waiting for anything that moved. Beside Major Furman rode a proud Hessian jaeger officer, green coat speckled with mud, long, waxed mustache stiff, high hat sparkling in the morning sun. He scowled, impatient with an army mired by mud, disgruntled that they were being sent to crush a ragtag army that should have been annihilated months ago on Long Island.
The bridge was clear. Beyond, nothing appeared in the barren trees or the bushes. They moved on, muskets at the ready, bayonets gleaming. As they came onto the bridge, they formed into a column, four men abreast, boots clumping on the heavy timbers as they crossed and moved on in the mud.
The whack and the grunt came at the same instant, and the German officer threw his hands high as he pitched headlong from his horse, towards Furman riding next to him, dead before he hit the muck in the road. Major Furman drew rein on his horse to stare down at the body, confused, momentarily unable to understand what had happened. A split second later the flat crack of a Pennsylvania rifle that had killed the German officer rolled past Furman. Instantly he hunched forward in his saddle as a second .60-caliber rifle ball whistled past his ear, followed by the cracking bang of a second distant, invisible rifle.
He jerked his horse around and shouted orders as the blasting sound of a complete volley reached him. Whistling rifle balls ripped into the officers around him and into the first ranks of his command; men grunted and groaned as they buckled and went down. With the first rifle volley still echoing, fourteen pounds of cannister shot came tearing into the column, followed by the blast of the cannon.
“Return fire!” screamed the British officers, and watched as those still standing in the first three ranks raised their muskets and looked for a target. But they could see nothing more than a faint showing of white smoke hanging in the trees two hundred yards past the bridge. Rattled, frightened by an enemy they could not see, they fired their muskets blindly into the trees and listened as the heavy .75-caliber Brown Bess musket balls smacked harmlessly into the tree trunks and branches. Then the leading ranks turned and those behind them gave ground as the entire advance command began a retreat back across the bridge towards the main column.
Behind them, Cornwallis heard the two, quick rifle shots followed by the sustained volley, and then the deeper sound of a British musket volley. He raised his hand and shouted, “Halt!” The main column stopped in the mud while Cornwallis’s mind raced.
Who’s up ahead shooting? Have we met the main army?
While he sat his horse forcing his thoughts, an officer beside him pointed excitedly. “There, sir! It looks like our advance command is returning.”
Quickly Cornwallis had his telescope extended to peer at the oncoming soldiers. “Major Furman’s command. Perhaps they ran into Washington’s army.”
They waited while the mud-spattered, grim-faced regulars retreated; Furman distanced his men and reined in his horse, breathing hard as he reported. “An American force at the Five Mile bridge, sir. Rifles. They fired at a distance too great for our weapons to match.”
“How many casualties?” Cornwallis asked.
“Perhaps fifty, sir. Maybe more.”
“Re-form your command fifty yards ahead of the main column. I will order additional troops to replace your losses. We will move on to the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
With another company of men to bolster their number, Major Furman once again called orders and the advance command moved south, with the main column a scant fifty yards behind. They rounded the slight bend, sighted the Five Mile Run bridge, and moved on to the scatter of red- and green-coated bodies lying in the mud, arms and legs thrown at odd, grotesque angles.
Cornwallis sat his horse, incredulous, making calculations of the distance from the trees where the rifle had cracked to the place where the German officer lay face down in the mud. Over three hundred yards! Dead on the first shot!
He raised anxious eyes. They must know we’re here. If it was Washington’s main body, and they meant to engage us, then where are they?
He spun his horse to shout orders to the advance command. “Major Furman, cross the bridge and take those woods at once!” He shouted at an artillery officer, “Bring up two cannon.”
With Major Furman leading, the fifteen hundred infantrymen moved towards the bridge at a trot, while the artillery officer shouted orders to the first two cannon crews. Five minutes later two teams of horses trotted briskly past Cornwallis and the officers at the head of the main column, then turned sharply to swing their cannon around, muzzles pointing at the woods. The crews swarmed onto the big guns, two ramming powder, packing, and then the cannonball down the barrel before an officer shoved the sighting and elevation quadrant into the muzzle to take a hasty reading of angle.
At that moment the running feet of the first regiment shook the bridge as they swarmed past onto the open ground leading to the trees. They paused only long enough to form into their standard long lines with muskets loaded and lowered, bayonets thrust forward. On command they charged the trees at a trot. Behind them the cannon crews stood with linstocks smoking, ready to fire at the first Americans to run from the trees.
The cannon crews waited, eyes narrowed. Cornwallis extended his telescope to study the action. Furman’s infantry closed with the tree line—fifty yards�
�thirty—ten—and nothing moved. They hit the tree line at a trot and picked their way into the grove. Some jays scolded, and a flock of blackbirds rose noisily from the treetops to circle above them, cawing their displeasure at the interruption.
Major Furman plunged on, dodging through the trees, sword held high. His command followed, their proud, straight line breaking as they worked through the trees. The major reached the far edge of the grove and ran into the small, open clearing beyond, shouting, waving his sword, intent on leading his command in a head-on charge to flush out the hidden American riflemen and annihilate them.
There were no Americans. Nothing moved except the birds. He slowed, then stopped as his men peered into the trees surrounding the clearing. There were no dark shapes slipping away, only the tracks of Indian moccasins and boots in the mud, leading southwest.
In frustrated rage Furman turned to his soldiers, shouting as he pointed with his sword. “They have fled to the far edge of the clearing. Form ranks and follow me.”
He waited while they rapidly formed into the long lines once again, then led them trotting southwest towards the tree line on the south edge of the clearing, boots slogging, faces grim, expectant. He was past the center of the clearing before he saw the first movement in the trees ahead and realized it was men hiding behind trees and bushes, bringing the muzzles of their dreaded, long Pennsylvania rifles to their shoulders.
He opened his mouth to shout “Halt,” when white smoke erupted in the trees and in the next instant it was as though a mule had kicked him in the chest where the two white belts crossed over his heart. He felt the hot, searing pain as the rifle ball punched deep, and then numbness as he tipped backwards off his horse, landing on his shoulders in the sticky red-brown mud. His last clear impression was one of wonderment as he turned onto his side and did not move again. He never heard the cracking blast of the volley that killed him and thirtythree of his men behind.
The British captain behind him gaped at his fallen commander for a moment before he could rally his shattered thoughts enough to shout the command, “Halt!” The regulars stopped, waiting, and he barked his second command. “First rank, kneel and prepare to fire!” The soldiers in the first rank went to one knee and brought their heavy muskets up as the captain opened his mouth to shout “Fire,” when the second American volley erupted from the trees. The captain was the first British soldier to drop, dead from a bullet through his head, and behind him, twenty-one of the kneeling regulars grunted as the whistling musket balls knocked them over backwards. Some groaned and a few moved before they all laid still.
The young lieutenant who was next in command stood white-faced, brain numb as he stared at the major, the captain, and fifty-four men from the first rank, all dead in the mud within one minute. Around him the ranks of regulars began to back up, away from the trees from where the deadly rifle fire had come. The young lieutenant raised a hand and his voice cracked as he tried to shout his first command when the third volley rolled from invisible men in the trees. The lieutenant dropped where he stood, and sixteen of the regulars behind him stumbled and went down.
Those still on their feet spun on their heels and in an instant the remainder of the fifteen hundred British advance command was in a full, panic-driven rout. They plunged back across the clearing, into the woods, heedless of the tree limbs tearing at their faces and tunics.
East of them, on the far side of the Princeton Road, the second group of hidden Americans held their positions, watching, waiting, listening. They had counted three volleys, and then silence.
North, across the bridge, Cornwallis held the entire British main column at a standstill, waiting for the first regiment to return and report on how many men they were facing and where they were. From his position fifty yards behind the front ranks, he had heard the sounds of battle, followed by the ominous quiet. He licked his lips as he maintained his iron-willed control of his racing thoughts.
Those were American rifles, not British muskets. Why are we not firing back at them?
At that moment the first flash of red showed through the trees, and Cornwallis stood tall in his stirrups to watch the regulars of the first regiment break into the open. Most had lost their hats in their blind stampede through the trees, but they did not care. They ran on towards the Princeton Road, sweating, mud flying.
Eighty yards east of the road, Colonel Edward Hand calmly watched as the British regulars running nearly directly towards him reached the road. To his right were Eli and Billy, and to his left, twentytwo of his Pennsylvania riflemen. Hidden twenty yards south of them was the balance of his command, and Captain Tom Forrest with one cannon. All were hidden, invisible to both the sprinting regulars and General Cornwallis across the bridge.
Hand raised his left arm far enough for his men to see, and quickly pointed, first to Billy and Eli and three other men next to him, and then across the bridge at the two cannon Cornwallis had placed in front of his main column, each with a three-man crew. He shifted his arm and pointed at the balance of his three hundred men, then turned to point at the regulars who were plowing directly at them through the mud twenty yards west of the roadbed. Silently his men raised their long rifles and picked their targets.
Hand waited until the running regulars were five yards from the Princeton Road, then turned his rifle north and squinted down the gunsight. He settled the thin blade of the foresight into the center of the man holding the smoldering linstock behind the first cannon across the bridge, and squeezed off his shot. Instantly Eli, Billy, and the other three riflemen Hand had selected squeezed off their shots, and the six men handling the two cannon at the front of the British main column all crumpled and dropped.
The running British regulars just reaching the roadbed stopped so abruptly that half of them slipped to one knee in the mud. Stunned, wild-eyed, they saw six Americans eight yards east of the roadbed appear from nowhere, calmly drawing their ramrods to reload. The British regulars fumbled to bring their muskets to bear and in that instant nearly one hundred Pennsylvania rifles thundered and the leading ranks of the regulars staggered and went down.
Those behind had had enough. They broke for the bridge as hard as they could run, and had not gone four paces when the remainder of Hand’s group cut loose from twenty yards south. More than thirty of the fleeing redcoats dropped into the mud, dead, just as Forrest touched off his cannon and its load of cannister came ripping. The survivors of the first regiment did not look back at their fallen comrades as they ran headlong to be free of the deadly fire that came from nowhere to cut their ranks to pieces.
The leaders were on the bridge when the American riflemen on the west side of the road fired their next volley, and the British dead piled up two and three deep on the wet, muddy planking. In a blind panic, those behind leaped over the bodies, stumbling, falling, rising to scramble on towards the mesmerized British main column waiting on the north side of the bridge at Five Mile Run.
Cornwallis sat his horse in angry astonishment. He had just been an eyewitness to the deaths of close to two hundred of Major Furman’s vaunted infantry, and from the moment the first American rifle cracked to knock the German officer off his horse nearly one hour ago, the only Americans they had seen were the six who purposely stood up just past the bridge to reload.
He shouted hot orders over his shoulder. “Bring up five more cannon and two extra crews to replace the ones we lost. Move all seven cannon down within fifty yards of the bridge and rake those woods with cannister until I give further orders.”
Minutes later five teams of horses came at a trot, dragging mudcaked cannon. As they passed the two big guns previously in place, the crews stared down at the six men who were still lying in the mud, unmoving, dead. The two fresh crews grabbed the reins of the horses still hitched to the two guns, and fell in behind the other five cannon, to follow them to within fifty yards of the bridge. Hunched low, using the horses and guns as shields, they loaded them before they wheeled the carriages about to bring the g
un muzzles to bear south.
The moment the guns were lined past the bridge, point-blank on the trees on both sides of the road, the gunners jammed the linstocks onto the touchholes and the big guns bucked and roared. The crews peered through the smoke to watch the one-inch lead cannister balls rip into the grove of trees, tearing limbs and branches to pieces. Frantically they reloaded and touched off the second barrage, then the third, fourth, and fifth, watching as the trees were reduced to shattered stumps and the limbs blown to shreds, lying helter-skelter on the wet, spongy ground.
“Cease fire!” Cornwallis shouted, and the big guns fell silent while heat waves rose from the brass barrels. Cornwallis raised his telescope, and for three long minutes he glassed the trees, searching for anything that moved. There was nothing. He shoved his telescope back into its leather case strapped to his saddle as a look of grim satisfaction crossed his face.
There isn’t a man left alive in those trees. We’ve cleaned them out.
Once again Cornwallis shouted orders. “Major Alexander, take command of Major Furman’s advance infantry. Search those trees and return with a count of the American dead and wounded.”
He watched while a white-faced Alexander led the shattered advance command through their own dead on the bridge, then divided, half to the left, half to the right. They disappeared into the devastated woods, and for five long minutes Cornwallis sat still, watching, listening. Then the regiment reappeared, trotting to the roadbed, back across the bridge. Alexander stopped his horse facing Cornwallis.
“Report.”
Alexander licked his lips. “Sir, there are no Americans in those trees, either dead or wounded. Only tracks leading south. Mostly moccasins.”
Cornwallis’s shoulders sagged for a moment. So that’s their game. Delay. “How many? A large force?”
“Sir, it’s hard to tell. About six hundred, half on each side of the road.”