by Howard Fast
At the same time that General Washington had ordered Lord Stirling and General Greene to the left and Hugh Mercer to the right, General Sullivan’s army was marching down the River Road where it bends toward the river and Front Street in Trenton. About six hundred and fifty or seven hundred yards separated them from the place where William Washington and James Monroe had driven the Hessians out of the guard-house. Sullivan could hear the shouting of men in the distance and the snapping of the few Hessian guns that were fired, and then they heard the sound of Knox’s cannon. By now all of Trenton was awake and in an uproar.
Johnny Stark, who was with the rear guard on the River Road, spurred his horse up the column past a regiment of New Hampshire men and yelled with all his voice for the New Englanders to follow him. In this column, Colonel Stark was subordinate in command to General Sullivan, to General St. Clair and even to Colonel John Glover, but all of this mattered not at all. Here was a battle beginning, in hearing but out of sight, and Johnny Stark of Vermont realized that it might be over before he reached it. So he yelled for all Vermont and New Hampshire men to follow him and to get to hell into the fighting, because that was where they properly belonged, or did they want the whole damned world to belong to Virginia?
However much Sullivan might have resented. Stark’s taking command of the attack—Stark, an outsider, not even a brigadier, a wild man from the Green Mountains who had ridden down because he could not bear for anything important to take place without his presence—however much he might resent this, Sullivan had enough sense to know that battles were won by precisely the kind of verve men like Stark could generate. In any case, the movement was under way; to try to stop it would have meant a disaster, and a moment later the pace of events became too fast properly to record, much less halt.
Yelling like a madman, Stark led the way, and matching his screaming Indian shouts, the New Englanders poured after him. More than the first gunfire, this blood-curdling sound awakened the Hessians from their sleep.
[26]
THE HESSIAN TROOPS poured out of their quarters and formed up on Third and on King streets. Their muskets were loaded, and they were able to get off a volley of heavy musket fire against the Americans. But their brains were addled, their minds were heavy with sleep and their musketry was woefully inaccurate. No Americans were hit on this occasion or anywhere else during the battle, only William Washington and James Monroe in their first swoop on the guardhouse. It must be remembered that the wide-bore musket of the time was an extremely inaccurate weapon, except at close range. It must also be remembered that memories of this battle were as confused as the battle itself, and perhaps most of the Hessian muskets missed fire. We know at least a handful of the Virginia and Pennsylvania riflemen were able to fire their weapons, but we cannot be certain that many Hessian muskets were actually discharged in the rain, even though the reports from both sides say they were.
The Hessians on Third Street were pointing their muskets toward Johnny Stark and his New Englanders. But since their firing was inaccurate, if indeed their powder ignited at all, no one was hit. Sullivan turned his own attention to his field guns, the eight pieces of cannon that had been allotted to him. He faced the same difficulty Knox had in moving the guns to the front of the suddenly sprinting column. But now his force, too, had caught the excitement of battle and joined their wild shouts to those of Washington’s army, although about three hundred and fifty yards still separated the two columns, with the village of Trenton between them. Sullivan’s men broke ranks to handle the big guns. By the time Washington and Mercer had started their advance toward King Street, Sullivan’s cannon were cleared for action and firing point-blank into the Hessians.
It was now a few minutes after eight o’clock, and all three columns—three of them now since Washington had divided his division into two columns—were pouring into Trenton. Colonel Johnny Stark led the New Englanders, and Sullivan and St. Clair led the rest of the River Road column. Washington and Mercer led part of Washington’s column, and Greene and Lord Stirling led the other part. The town now resounded with a crazy cacophony of sound, the Hessian drums beating to arms and twenty-four hundred Americans yelling with excitement.
The troop of the Queen’s Own Light Horse who were quartered in Trenton with the Hessians behaved badly indeed. It would seem that from the very moment the battle began, the dragoons panicked completely. They were trained cavalry-men from one of the best British horse regiments. Now they had only one thought in mind, to saddle their horses and get out of Trenton.
Some of them managed to saddle up. Others mounted bareback. They rode here and there through the town, staying together until they found an escape route down Fourth Street to the right along Quaker Lane and then down Second Street and out of Trenton.
Where the bewildered Hessian soldiers stood in their way, the British dragoons galloped right over them. Some of the Hessians shouted at them with fury, and other Hessians waved their guns at the dragoons; but their muskets were wet and impotent.
If these British dragoons, who were mounted on large, fresh and well-trained horses, had rallied and kept their nerve, they could have cut back and forth through the American army like a scythe cuts dry grass. The Americans were laced with fatigue and at their last limits of strength—and even a small diversion by the dragoons might have turned the tide and made Trenton a bloody defeat for the Continental army.
The Hessians had been too suddenly awakened. They rushed to the windows of the houses where they were quartered; they smashed the glass with their musket butts and fired blindly into the street. But most of them had neither the heart nor the coordination to reload. Those who came out into the rain allowed their firing pans to get wet. As with the Continental muskets, once fired, the Hessian muskets were also worthless as firearms.
Pouring out of the houses where they were quartered, the Hessians were too disciplined to act as individuals. If they had gone into the defensive immediately, if they had simply fixed their bayonets and rushed at the Continental soldiers who were now swarming through the streets, they might have turned the attack into a rout for the Americans. However, their first action was not to stop the Americans but to form their ranks in the streets. This attempt at discipline with enemy seemingly everywhere failed dismally.
[27]
TRUSTING GLOVER’S FISHERMEN more than any others of the troops he led, Sullivan had asked the New Englander to take command of the cannon and to use them according to his own judgment once the battle began. Queen Street in Trenton ran directly through the center of the town from north to south and on the southern end crossed over the Assanpink Creek on a small bridge. As Sullivan’s men drove down Front Street, Glover saw the bridge and decided that, above all, his cannon must get there, thereby bottling up the Hessians by closing their main escape path.
At this point, about half past eight in the morning, it would seem that out of a common wild enthusiasm generated by their exhilaration, the Americans had decided that there was no question anymore as to who had won the Battle of Trenton. Also, since they were apparently invulnerable, and since no matter how many Hessian guns were pointed at them, no one was hit—the Hessians were already running down Queen Street to make their escape from the town—there was the objective proof that the day was theirs.
Glover acted on this assumption of victory and ran his guns across the little bridge, occupying the high ground south of the bridge, closing off the road across Assanpink Creek. But only after the last of the British dragoons had fled from Trenton.
There were stationed in Trenton then a small troop of Hessian chasseurs who evidently were infected with whatever disease took hold of cavalrymen that day. Like the British, they leaped onto their horses with no other thought than to get out of town. These horsemen, too, were able to evade Glover’s trap by turning left to Second Street and riding out of town on the north shore of the creek. Almost a hundred Hessian foot soldiers ran after them and made good their escape.
By now Sul
livan’s New Englanders had driven across the southern part of the village and along with Glover’s men and the artillery regiment closed it off as an avenue of retreat.
When Washington’s men exploded with their screaming shouts and ran to attack Trenton, the Virginian realized that the one function of gunpowder remaining to him, his ten pieces of artillery, would be outdistanced by the running men. Therefore, he had spurred his horse back and forth across the front of his troops, shouting and pleading with them to slow down and not outrun the cannon.
“Stay in place and follow your officers,” he begged them.
The officers caught his intention and slowed the march, and then Washington shouted for Captain Forrest to keep the brace of guns that were under his command always in front of the men. The remaining guns, now under the command of Knox, moved off to the left with the two brigades that were under the command of Lord Stirling and General Greene.
Washington continued to rein his big horse, giving directions to his staff, calling upon the officers by name to hold back the excited troops and to keep them in order, so that they might answer as a disciplined force to a call for action. This was hardly as simple as it sounds, for the battle was raging toward its climax.
Meanwhile, down along King Street toward Colonel Rahl’s headquarters, the Hessians were lining up and getting into regimental rank. They had wheeled three of their bright shining brass pieces of artillery into firing position; and when Captain Forrest saw this, and without checking his aim too carefully, he let go at the Hessians with his whole battery. The guns were loaded with canister and, though not too well aimed, they nevertheless killed three of the horses that were being used by the Germans to wheel the brass fieldpieces into position and two of the artillerymen as well. For the moment Forrest’s cannonade toppled the guns and put the Hessian artillery out of action.
Washington shouted to Forrest to aim his guns properly. Alexander Hamilton came riding up alongside of the general, yelling to be heard in his piping voice, shrilled into a falsetto, telling Washington to take cover and not to expose himself. Mercer, who was some fifty feet ahead of Washington, echoed the warning. Washington shook his head angrily. Always a brilliant and flashy horseman, he reined his horse around, causing it to prance on two legs, and then whipped it toward the Hessians.
The Americans could no longer be held in check, and screaming like maniacs, they broke ranks and swarmed down upon the German artillery and upon the space in front of Rahl’s headquarters, where the Hessians had managed to get themselves into a sort of parade line.
By now there were perhaps three or four hundred Hessians in position, but when they saw pouring down upon them the mud-covered madmen that the Americans had become, hair flying in the wind, bayonets thirsting for action, the Hessians lost their nerve and fled. This was the first time in the course of the Revolution that a Hessian regiment had ever broken under attack.
Now Colonel Stark caught a clear view of Washington on his horse, looming up over the fleeing Hessians. Stark let out a wild shout that was echoed by the New Englanders behind him. At full pace they drove into the retreating Hessians, bayonetting and literally knocking them over by sheer body contact, plowing down the field and clearing all opposition out of their way.
Afterward the Germans, with their passion for order and discipline, tried to make a pattern out of this wild, gunpowderless battle that had no pattern at all. For one thing, they insisted to the very end that Washington had stormed into the town with six thousand men. By saying this they were not excusing their own defeat but were simply trying to understand how they had been overwhelmed so quickly and so completely.
[28]
RAHL, THE HESSIAN COLONEL, was roused out of his bed after the screaming Continentals had poured into the outskirts of the little town. He pulled on his clothes but would not leave his room until his military jacket was at least partly buttoned. Even facing imminent disaster, he could not overcome his long training and leap naked to the defense of the encampment.
He ran out of the front door of the house, mounted his horse and rode back and forth on the street calling in a loud, steady voice for his men to be calm and to remember that they were Hessian soldiers.
At this point the Americans were less than fifty yards from where Rahl rallied his men and coming on very fast. It can be said to Rahl’s credit that he was without fear, calm and collected. Never for a moment did he panic or lose his head. He shouted to his men to follow him, which they did in good order. Wheeling his horse and holding it to a tight trot, he managed to lead several hundred of his men down Third Street and to the left to Fourth Street, up on Quaker Lane and then off Quaker Lane into a pasture. Once in this pasture, he reined his horse around and called to his men to form up and make a defensive square.
The Hessians rallied to Rahl’s control and military posture. They ran toward him from every direction. Rahl ordered them to form a three-sided square facing the Americans, who now were leaping over fences, racing through backyards, as well as along Third Street and Fourth Street and down from the Princeton Road through the north end of the town toward the pasture.
Catching sight of Colonel Rahl sitting on his horse in the pasture, so calm and rocklike, issuing his orders as if he were on a parade ground, several of the mounted Hessian officers rode through the Americans to be at his side.
It must be remembered that except for a few rifles in the hands of soldiers who had kept their primer dry in closed powder pans and who had been told to hold their fire for Hessian officers, the American small arms were wet and useless. Unless the Americans could bayonet the Hessian officer as he rode by, there was nothing they could really do to impede his progress. They might try to grab at his reins and pull up his horse, but a Hessian officer would be cutting left and right with his saber. Half a dozen Hessian officers on horseback managed to gather around Rahl, demanding that he order a retreat.
What we know of this conversation between Rahl and his staff comes at third and fourth hand from those soldiers in Washington’s army who came out of the German population in Pennsylvania and who thought at least they could understand and remember what the Hessian officers had said. It would seem that Rahl kept shouting at his officers to be calm and to tell him how many Americans were in Trenton.
The phrase in German: “How many are there?” seems to have been repeated over and over.
No one knew, and no one could guess. The answers ranged from four thousand to six thousand men.
The insistence on retreat angered Rahl, and for the first time he lost his composure and shouted at his fellow officers to end this talk of flight. He called to his Hessians to fix bayonets and prepare to attack. A trumpeter joined them and managed to sound a Hessian bugle call. Several drummers came running across the pasture, beating to arms as they ran. In a matter of minutes Rahl had turned a disorganized, retreating, frightened group of men into a disciplined little army that was ready to fight.
Rahl looked at them with pride and pleasure, shouted his own war cry, drew his sword and gave the order to advance. He spurred his horse in front of them and then checked it, so that it pranced properly, like a well-trained horse at a cavalry display.
The mood of the Hessians had changed completely now, and Major Knyphausen rode after Rahl, echoing his shouts to attack. At that moment one of the Pennsylvania riflemen who had kept his powder dry, one of no more than a handful among the Continental forces, drew a bead on Rahl and shot him.
Rahl swayed in the saddle, dropped his sword and cried out that he was hit. Now the Hessians ceased their advance and they turned toward Rahl, looking at him desperately and waiting for him to lead them again. Rahl said again that he was wounded, and Major Knyphausen attempted to ride out in front of him and take his command. Knyphausen sat there on his horse, waving his sword for the Hessians to follow him, but the wounding of Rahl had broken the spell that the gallant colonel had woven.
For perhaps thirty seconds the Hessian soldiers remained in a tight group aro
und their wounded commander. Then they broke, most of them throwing down their useless muskets, and ran across the fields to the south in the direction of Assanpink Creek.
The shot that wounded Rahl had probably come from a member of Colonel Hand’s brigade of Pennsylvania riflemen. The riflemen, running swiftly at the head of the advancing American forces, had poured north across the meadow from the junction of Fourth Street and Quaker Lane. Washington spurred after them, Colonel Hand at his side, shouting for the Pennsylvanians to form up in a long line and block any retreat to the north.
For the moment, this maneuver was successful, and then perhaps a minute later General Greene’s men came running down from the direction of Dark Lane to back up the Pennsylvania riflemen and spread the net still further.
One must remember that all of this happened more quickly than the telling. No more than two or three minutes passed between Rahl’s rallying his men and his being wounded. During that time Washington was riding toward this center of action.
In the course of this action, Washington’s horse was shot under him. Nobody appeared to remember exactly when it had happened, but everyone agreed that Washington’s response had been one of irritation as he leaped clear of the falling animal. At his age, almost forty-five, he was remarkably agile. He had gone two nights without sleep. Considering how many times he had paced the column in two directions, back and forth, he had ridden at least thirty miles since crossing the river. Again and again he had dismounted, leading his horse by hand and talking to the men, whispering to them, consoling them, begging them to overcome their fatigue and to hang on. In spite of this, he was out of the saddle of the dying horse and swinging up onto a new mount almost in a matter of seconds. Like his men, he had transcended himself and was lost in the excitement of the battle.