by Ron Carter
Astonished, a few of the Pennsylvanians stood, and then a few more. They began to fall into ranks. Some sprinted to other groups nearby, looking for their proper regiments, and within seconds the semblance of a battle line began to form.
At that moment Colonel Daniel Hitchcock led his running New England Continental militia up to Washington and stopped.
“Sir, my command stands ready to help form a battle line and lead the charge.”
Washington shook his head. “Take your command up and join Hand. I’m going to lead these Pennsylvanians into battle myself.”
For a moment Hitchcock’s eyebrows peaked in surprise. “Yes, sir.”
While Hitchcock turned his command and led them north to join Hand, Washington watched the stunned Pennsylvania militia work itself into a loose line.
“Straighten the line,” he shouted. “Close it up. Tight.”
Within minutes the line was straight, the ranks closed, muskets at the ready. Washington wasted no time. He stood tall in the stirrups to be seen by the entire line, whipped his hat from his head and waved it so all could see, and shouted, “Follow me!”
He led them at an angle over the hill, keeping Moulder’s cannon to his left. At the crest of the hill he saw that Mawhood had shifted his battle line the same direction to escape the deadly grapeshot that Moulder was blasting into his lines as fast as he could reload and fire.
The moment Washington saw their battle line, he turned and shouted to his men, “Do not fire until I give the order!” He reined his mare to his right, positioning himself near the center of his line, with three of his aides and staff beside him, white-faced, waiting for the deadly volley the red-coated British were sure to deliver.
The long line of Pennsylvania militia, dressed in the homespun clothing they had worn from home, held the line and moved forward, slowly at first, then at a high walk, and then at a trot. Washington sat ramrod straight as he raised his horse to a trot, jaw set like granite, eyes narrowed as he gauged time and distance to the British lines.
Mawhood sat his horse dumbstruck! Who was the tall officer on the white horse, riding straight into the muzzles of his muskets without a flicker of hesitation? Washington? Could it be General Washington himself?
Mawhood shouted his order. “Do not fire until my command.”
His men cocked their muskets.
Washington raised his mount to a canter. His green Pennsylvania militia who had been thrown into a panic-driven retreat less than an hour earlier held the line behind him, running directly at the British.
Thirty yards! That’s close enough! Washington pulled his horse to a stop, turned his head and shouted, “Halt!”—and one instant later—”Fire!”
The Pennsylvanians leveled their muskets and the roar of their first valley echoed clear into Princeton. In the same second, Mawhood shouted, “Fire!” His regulars blasted out their first volley.
When the muskets roared, Major John Fitzgerald was less than thirty feet from the general. Quickly he snatched his hat from his head and covered his eyes, unable to stand the thought of seeing Washington cut down by the British volley. With the echo of the guns still rolling, he hesitantly lowered his hat and peered at the place Washington had been, knowing both the general and the big white mare would be dead on the ground.
Fitzgerald gaped.
Washington was sitting his horse as if both of them had been planted there. The general raised his arm and shouted, “Follow me!” He turned straight into the British lines less than one hundred feet away. Suddenly a few of the Pennsylvanians gave voice to a new spirit that was rising among them, and others joined. In three seconds the entire line was surging forward, their battle cry rising.
North of Washington, Hitchcock’s battle-seasoned veterans followed his orders and formed a battle line as though they were on parade. On the right, Lieutenant Colonel Nixon’s New Hampshiremen, three Rhode Island regiments in the center, and on the left, Lieutenant Colonel Henshaw led his Massachusetts regiment.
“Forward!” Hitchcock shouted, and the men followed him at a run. At less than one hundred yards from the British, Hitchcock ordered a halt, then shouted, “Fire!” The musket balls tore into the British as the Americans reloaded, and again Hitchcock led them forward at a run.
To the right of Hitchcock, Colonel Edward Hand halted his regiment of riflemen, and in a moment they formed a battle line, went to one knee to steady their long rifles, and fired. British officers and redcoated regulars all up and down Mawhood’s battle line groaned and toppled. Hand’s regiment reloaded.
Up on the hill, Moulder wheeled his cannon to his right, bringing them to bear on the shifting British line and instantly fired. Cannister shot whined through the air to cut a swath in the line.
The blasting of the American rifles, muskets, and cannon reached a crescendo that drowned out the British weapons. Washington’s Pennsylvanians were closing with Mawhood’s line at a run. To the north, Hitchcock’s veterans were about to turn Mawhood’s flank. Near Hitchcock, Hand’s riflemen were cutting down officers and red-coated regulars with every shot from their dreaded Pennsylvania rifles.
Mawhood saw it coming. A few of his regulars backed up. A few more, and then most of them, and they turned and started to run.
We can’t hold them! We’ll lose every man!
He shouted the only order he could. “Fall back! Bring the cannon!” Even as he shouted he knew it was too late to save his big guns. Washington’s militia had already reached the emplacements and stormed over them, swinging their muskets, lunging with their bayonets, and the gun crews broke and ran, leaving the cannon to the Americans.
Hitchcock saw the break in the British lines and instantly turned to his men. “Charge!” His command sprinted forward in full-throated battle cry, bayonets flashing, muskets blasting. Beside his command, Hand stood and called, “Come on, follow me!” With Billy and Eli beside him, the riflemen broke into a run after the fleeing British, pausing only to fire and reload.
East of them, the British retreat became a disorganized, fearful rout. They turned and ran in all directions, some towards the Princeton Road, some towards Stony Brook, some towards Princeton. No one looked back. They were scattered, a red-and-white horde running for their lives across the open field of the Clark farm. Hand’s command was hot behind Mawhood’s group as they fled west, and Hand paused only long enough to shout orders to his officers. “Take half the men back to help Washington and Sullivan. I’m going on to try to get some of those British officers.”
Two companies slowed and stopped, and their commanders turned them back to the east where General Washington was leading the Pennsylvanians. Billy and Eli were in the leading rank as they ran to join the fighting.
General Washington spurred his horse forward, shouting to his men, “It’s a fine fox chase, boys!” He was exuberant at the sight of the proud, vaunted British, beaten, scattered, running for their lives with the Americans in hot pursuit.
North of the battlefield, where Sullivan held his command, keeping half of the British fifty-fifth regiment in check from coming to the rescue of Mawhood, the British soldiers stared in stark disbelief at the sight of Mawhood’s entire command in full, panic-driven retreat. Mawhood reached the Princeton Road and veered south, across the Stony Brook bridge, with a disorganized group of his regulars following him towards Maidenhead. Others ran north along the Stony Brook, with Hand’s riflemen just yards behind them, reducing the redcoated number with each crack of their rifles. The west slope of the battlefield was littered with the British dead and wounded. Their knapsacks and muskets, thrown down in their headlong run, were everywhere.
With his head bowed, the commander of the British fifty-fifth regiment obeyed the last order he had received from Colonel Mawhood.
“Form ranks. We are under orders to fall back to join the companies of the fortieth in Princeton.”
Reluctantly the regulars moved their eyes away from a sight they would never forget, and fell into ranks. They d
id not march west to the Princeton Road. Rather, they marched nearly due north across the gently undulating fields, down the steep incline to the bottom of Frog Hollow Ravine, then up the north slope back to level ground. As they crested the rim, the commander’s eyes opened wide.
Not forty yards to the north, the fortieth regiment was formed into a battle line, prepared to engage the Americans. The fifty-fifth marched slightly to the east, turned, and set up their own battle line facing the deep ravine, and the two British regiments waited side by side.
From his position, General John Sullivan had watched the British fifty-fifth withdraw across Frog Hollow Ravine to take up their new position beside the fortieth. Relief flooded through him with the realization that his men, who had been forced to remain in place and do nothing while the battle was raging southwest of them, were about to receive their chance. At that moment, a few of Hand’s command joined Sullivan, Billy and Eli among them.
Sullivan issued his orders. “Form into ranks and follow me.”
He led them north at double time, their voices raised in shouts as they came to the edge of Frog Hollow Ravine. They plunged down the steep embankment, forded the small stream in the bottom, and clawed their way up the north bank. They stopped just below the rim and spread out, forming one long battle line.
Sullivan looked to his left, then his right, and in the eyes of his men he saw an eagerness, a commitment, a need to drive the British from their land, their country. He raised his arm, sword held high. “Charge!”
They burst over the rim, a flowing, shouting line, bayonets lowered, driving straight for the entrenched British. They fired one volley, loaded, ran farther, and stopped long enough to fire their second before running on.
The British had had enough. They had seen Mawhood’s command shot to pieces, routed by the Americans, panic-stricken and scattered in all directions. What they now saw coming over the rim of the ravine was the same tide of shouting, shooting men who would stop at nothing.
Both the fortieth and the fifty-fifth regiments broke. They stripped off their knapsacks, turned, and bolted, some running northeast to the backroads in a desperate hope of reaching Brunswick without passing through Princeton, while others ran west, to scatter at the Princeton Road, away from the men and muskets behind them. Those in the center of the British line realized they could not escape to the east or west, and turned north, sprinting back towards Princeton.
“After them!” the American officers shouted, and the center of the American line surged forward. The British reached the outskirts of the small town and dodged through the streets and houses, pausing only to look over their shoulders at the Americans behind them, who were matching them stride for stride, gaining on them with each passing yard. In desperation the British shouted, “Nassau Hall! Regroup in Nassau Hall!”
The small town of Princeton was known for the College of New Jersey, which lay on the southeast corner of the main intersection of the small town and was housed in Nassau Hall. It was reputed to be the largest building in New Jersey. Its president, Reverend John Witherspoon, sober, dignified, had led the town in its rise against British tyranny, and as a member of the Continental Congress, had spoken loud and strong for liberty. When the British occupied Princeton, they had billeted an entire regiment in Nassau Hall, where the regulars had stabled their horses in the basement, and stripped all the books from the great library.
Now the frantic British regulars pounded across the campus, threw open the doors of the great stone building, and crowded inside the large prayer hall. They slammed the heavy crossbar across the great double doors, then smashed the glass out of the windows. As the Americans came streaming across the campus, the regulars opened fire through the vacant window frames. The Americans in the first ranks dodged behind trees, and slowed and stopped while they studied the thick stone walls of the great hall.
Hunched down behind a low stone garden wall, Billy turned to Eli. “Where’s Turlock? We’ll need cannon.”
“Coming up with the Massachusetts Regiment.”
Both men turned to peer south, and saw mounted officers two hundred yards back leading horses hitched to two cannon. They waited while the distance closed, and then recognized Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton, small, wiry, fearless, with Captain Joseph Moulder beside him. The two officers had refused to leave the battlefield south of Frog Hollow Ravine without their beloved cannon. They hauled the horses and two guns to a halt while two officers near Billy and Eli ran back to meet them. Billy and Eli followed, listening intently.
A young lieutenant, breathing hard from his run, looked up at Captain Moulder. “Sir, they’re inside,” he exclaimed, pointing to Nassau Hall. “We’ll need cannon to get them out.”
A look akin to sheer joy fleeted across Moulder’s face. “We lost track of our crews. Got anyone here who can load and fire a cannon?”
Eli interrupted. “Wait here.” He sprinted away to return with a puffing Sergeant Turlock and three cannoneers who recognized both Hamilton and Moulder. When Turlock saw the big guns he turned hopeful eyes up to Moulder.
“Sir, I understand you need cannon crews.”
“We do. Sergeant, get the guns loaded and aimed, ready to fire.”
Turlock didn’t waste a second. “Yes, sir. All right, you lovelies. Captain Moulder and Lieutenant Hamilton were thoughtful enough to bring along these guns, and we’re going to use them to open up that building.” He pointed to Nassau Hall, with a sense of regret showing at the thought of blasting the famous structure. “Wheel these guns a little closer and we’ll clear the British muskets from those windows.”
Quickly they unhitched the horses and the men seized the trails and wheels and pushed the cannon closer to the great hall. A silence fell over the Americans as they watched, while the British muskets maintained an incessant fire from the windows of the building.
“Load,” Turlock ordered, and Billy seized one powder ladle, Eli the other. They dipped them full of the fine black granules from the budge barrel, inserted it down the cannon muzzles, twisted the ladles to dump them, withdrew them, and grabbed the rammers. They slammed them down the barrels to seat the powder, followed by dried grass. A second cannoneer poured eight pounds of one-inch grapeshot into each gun while the third one rammed a patch of dried grass to lock it all in place.
“Fire!” shouted Turlock, and Hamilton and Moulder lowered the smoking linstocks to the touchholes. The guns blasted and the grapeshot whistled and splattered the stone wall, splintering the wooden window frames, knocking seven redcoats backwards.
“Load.”
The second volley knocked chips from the stones in the wall, and tore the wooden frames out of two windows, back into the building.
“Load solid shot this time,” Turlock ordered. “We’ll see about those doors.”
Behind the big double doors, cross-barred from the inside, at the far end of the prayer hall, a huge portrait of King George II, father of their monarch, King George III, hung proudly above a massive oak mantel. He was dressed in his royal finery, smiling benignly down on his subjects.
“Fire,” ordered Turlock.
The cannonballs blasted through the doors. One tore the length of the hall, and struck the face of King George II dead center, perfectly decapitating his head from the painting. The crouched regulars raised their heads and turned to look, and the sight of their former monarch, grand and glorious in the painting with his head blown off, struck a peculiar fear into them.
Turlock twisted the elevation screws on both cannon and lowered their muzzles slightly. “Let’s see if we can break the crossbar.”
Again the guns bucked and blasted. One cannonball knocked a splintered hole through the lower panel of the right door. The other one hit the seam where the doors met, ripped through, and blew the crossbar inside into two splintered halves. The heavy doors yawed open into the dim hall.
Captain James Moore, an angry Princeton resident whose home had been ransacked by the British, leaped from behind the tree
where he had been crouched and started towards the shattered doors at a run.
“Come on!” Billy shouted. Eli threw down the cannon rammer and the two of them sprinted towards the big double doors, James Moore right with them. Two more of the cannon crew followed, running as hard as they could, and then a hundred more Americans came charging. Billy and Eli reached the doors two steps ahead of James Moore, just as the British troops were frantically trying to push the doors closed.
Billy didn’t stop. He hit the right door at full stride with his bowed shoulder and slammed it inward. Four regulars were thrown back and Billy ran over the top of them into the great hall, straight into the startled redcoats. Eli was one step behind him with his black tomahawk swinging above his head like the sword of an avenging angel, and James Moore was one step behind Eli.
The redcoat nearest Billy lowered his bayonet to thrust, and Billy slapped it aside, caught the musket, and wrenched it from the hands of the startled soldier. He swung the Brown Bess like a scythe, knocking three regulars sideways, then threw it into the redcoats behind them. He lunged, caught the nearest regular by the lapels of his heavy overcoat with one hand, his belt with the other, lifted him high over his head and threw him kicking into a cluster of men who were backing up, fumbling for the hammers on their muskets.
Behind Billy, Eli had turned to his left towards a group of regulars who were gathering to charge. He let out an Iroquois battle cry as he leaped towards them, swinging his tomahawk. The high-pitched, warbling war whoop struck terror into the regulars and they threw down their muskets, stumbling over each other in their wild scramble to get away from the howling fiend before them.
James Moore and the twenty other Americans who had plunged into the hall swept up discarded British muskets. Moore cocked his musket and fired it into the ceiling while the others cocked their weapons and brought them level at the chests of the nearest regulars.
The redcoats threw up their hands and shouted, “We ask quarter!” Instantly the cry spread, coming from every British regular inside the hall. Billy slowed and stopped, and Eli lowered his tomahawk. A white flag appeared, and quickly another one was impaled on a bayonet and thrust out a shattered window to flutter in the bright sunlight in full view of the Americans waiting outside.