George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Feeling the ground drop before them, hundreds of Washington’s anxious troops, with ice-coated and wet, cold flintlocks on shoulders, struggled down the sloping ground, attempting to keep their balance and footing. Ever so slowly, they moved toward the creek bottom, which was situated amid a wide hollow filled with virgin hardwood timber, mostly tall sycamores, whose large, white trunks blended in perfectly with the snowy landscape. Along the creek’s heavily wooded banks, the sycamore’s broad limbs towered above the fast-moving creek, draping over it in a natural canopy now bare of leaves. As first discovered by Washington’s most advanced scouts, Jacob’s Creek was now overflowing its banks from recent rains, and its waters were boiling with sufficient speed so that it was not frozen over, except along its ice-crusted banks.42 Fortunately, Washington now benefitted immeasurably from the influence of capable officers, from lieutenants to generals, who steadied the men in the ranks, verifying his earlier wisdom that because “the War must be carried on systematically [we] must have good Officers” of all grades.43

  Weary infantrymen, from drummer boys not yet out of their teens to grizzled veterans in their fifties and with gray hair on chins, shortly began to lose their footing on the slippery, descending ground. But the steep slope, that plunged downward a hundred feet, was even precarious for the relatively few mounted officers. Washington, mounted on his big “chestnut sorrel charger,” was no exception. In fact, Washington was at even greater risk, because he was riding up and down the lengthy column to encourage his men down the steep slope that had reduced the march’s pace to a crawl. Marching beside his freezing Connecticut comrades who forged ahead toward the blackened depths of the raging creek and its heavily-timbered environs, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick never forgot Washington’s close call. When “passing a Slanting Slippery bank [of Jacob’s Creek] his excellency’s horse[’s] hind feet both slip’d from under him.”44

  When the hind legs of Washington’s war horse, without its feet properly shod for winter weather with “ice-shoes,” buckled on the snowy slope, the frightened animal started to slide rearward. It now seemed that Washington was just about to pitch forward over the horse’s head and be thrown headlong onto the frozen ground to very likely break his neck. However, the commander-in-chief, a “splendid horseman,” demonstrated his masterful equestrian skill and easy agility.

  Fortunately, the brawny Washington was of sufficient size (six foot, three inches) and strength to quickly shift his weight with an experienced horseman’s natural graceful ease. With inordinately large hands, the powerful Virginian, therefore, literally manhandled the skittish, panicked animal to salvage the precarious situation. Acting on instinct and well-honed skill, Washington instantly “Siez’d his horses Mane [to jerk its head upright] & the horse recovered” its balance at the last second. Demonstrating superior equestrian ability, he had adroitly shifted his weight just in time, allowing the frightened horse to regain its balance on the icy slope.

  A master fox-hunter who had long roamed Virginia’s fields, woodlands, and meadows during the excitement of the chase, Washington had handled horses for most of his life. And now these finely honed skills suddenly reappeared and fortunately for this struggling army and America’s struggle for liberty, when needed the most at a remote place in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, called Jacob’s Creek. Belatedly, some nearby soldiers grabbed Washington’s horse in an attempt to stabilize the panicked animal, but by then it was too late. Almost certainly, the horse would have fallen over and very likely crushed its rider without the Virginian’s “equestrian tour de force” that revealed not only his master horsemanship, but also nerves of steel in a crucial situation.45 One officer later marveled at Washington’s mastery of horses, writing how “it is the general himself who breaks all his own horses; and he is a very excellent and bold horseman, leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quickly, without standing upon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild.”46

  Here, at rain-swollen Jacob’s Creek, therefore, the commander-in-chief’s own considerable horsemen skills saved him from a serious, perhaps fatal, injury that might well have sabotaged any chances for success at Trenton. Only recently on the Pennsylvania shore, Brigade Major Daniel Box had received a severe compound fracture to his left arm, leaving him crippled thereafter, when his horse slipped on the ice and fell hard. Washington possessed a well-deserved reputation as one of the best equestrians not only in the army, but also in Tidewater Virginia. This close brush with disaster on the slippery slope of Jacob’s Creek reconfirmed that lofty reputation. Had Washington fallen and had been seriously hurt, the psychological and moral blow on his young troops almost certainly would been devastating at this time.47

  Seemingly always on target with his analysis, Captain Hamilton fully realized as much, writing how Washington was “essential to the safety of America.”48 Once again and as written earlier in a letter, Washington could now admit that “providence . . . has been more bountiful to me than I deserve” in this struggle for liberty.49

  All the while, this cyclonic northeaster continued to unleash successive, unrelenting bands of rain, sleet, and snow, propelled by high northeast winds, upon the thin column that stretched out along the Bear Tavern Road, while additional units piled up upon entering the heavily timbered ravine of Jacob’s Creek. Supposedly two of Washington’s officers allegedly froze to death on this march, but this was only a popular tale and romantic embellishment of the mythical revolution. Indeed, this enduring story of the two soldiers freezing to death cannot be verified, nor the names of the two alleged victims. But the storm’s harshness certainly possessed the potential to take lives. Young Captain William Hull, a scholarly Connecticut friend of Nathan Hale now serving in Glover’s brigade, and even though familiar with New England’s severe winters, scribbled in a January 1, 1777 letter to Andrew Adams how what he now experienced was “as violent a storm as I ever felt.”50

  Fortunately, Washington’s soldiers were now less exposed to the raging storm, after they descended from higher ground and into the deep ravine of Jacob’s Creek. The ravine’s deepness provided some slight protection from the storm’s worst punishment, especially from the full force of icy northeast winds that cut like a knife. As in crossing the Delaware, the greatest challenge posed by the sharp descent into Jacob’s Creek was for the passage of Knox’s artillery. Colonel Knox now faced yet another severe crisis and a quandary of how to get all eighteen cannon down the steep slope of more than one hundred feet along a narrow slope, across the rain-swollen creek, and then up the other side of the deep gorge of Jacob’s Creek without serious mishap.

  At the head of Greene’s main column, proper, before Mercer’s brigade that moved just behind Stephen’s Virginian vanguard of three regiments, the foremost battery, which had rushed from Philadelphia to reach Trenton on December 4 after receiving urgent orders to join Washington’s Army three days before, that now approached Jacob’s Creek’s valley was Captain Thomas Forrest’s Second Company of the Philadelphia State Artillery. Forrest’s company consisted of two big six-pounders and two five and one half-inch howitzers. Captain Forrest and his fifty-two Pennsylvania cannoneers now gained the assistance of a good many strong-armed infantrymen to help in the laborious task of safety transporting across treacherous Jacob’s Creek.

  It was most appropriate and not an accident that Forrest’s battery of four guns was now positioned at the head of Greene’s column and, therefore, the first battery to be hauled down into the deep, timber-filled ravine of Jacob’s Creek. This fine artillery unit could be counted on in a pitch. In fact, Captain Forrest’s battery was one of the few “long-arm” commands in Knox’s Artillery that possessed a good deal of solid pre-war militia experience, extending back to the Associators of Pennsylvania. Forrest’s artillery command was an extralegal paramilitary organization, or a so-called association, that was in essence only a militia unit because the Quakers had refused to organize armed forces for Pennsylvania’s protection since they we
re pacifists. Pennsylvania’s Associators of Philadelphia had been first formed in 1747 for self-defense outside the apathetic Quaker-dominated government. Therefore, Forrest’s artillery company was a state unit, which proudly represented Pennsylvania longer than most commands, infantry or artillery, which transferred from state to Continental service. Consisting of more than fifty rough-and-ready Philadelphians who possessed solid training and high motivation, Forrest’s artillery unit had been first organized for the defense of America’s largest city and its waterway approaches in mid-October 1776.

  Captain Forrest, born in Philadelphia in 1747, the same year that the Associatiors (militia) had been founded in Philadelphia, and despite only in his twenties, was an excellent artillery commander. He was just the kind of bold, imaginative, and tactically flexible “long-arm” officer with aggressive instincts, who Washington needed to play a key role in the upcoming showdown at Trenton. With solid experience as an Associator, Forrest was commissioned captain by Pennsylvania authorities in Ireland-born Colonel Thomas Procter’s Pennsylvania State Artillery Battalion on October 5, 1776. Forrest’s Second Company of Proctor’s Battalion had departed the Delaware River defenses of Fort Island, before proceeding northeast up this river of destiny to join Washington’s Army. For the upcoming showdown at Trenton, Forrest depended upon capable top lieutenants, such as Irishman Lieutenant Patrick Duffy, who was every inch a Celtic-Gaelic fighter. Now Captain Forrest’s best lieutenant, this feisty Irish officer hated the Hessians for a variety of reasons, describing them as nothing more than “Savages.” Most importantly, this Philadelphia artillery company was in much better shape than Washington’s other artillery units by this time, because it had been thankfully spared the New York Campaign’s brutal decimation, and Forrest’s unit had been bolstered by recent recruitment.51

  Clearly, it was no coincidence that this excellent Pennsylvania State artillery command and its resourceful, dependable commander had been selected to head Washington’s main column (Second Division) under Greene, leading the way for the foremost infantry brigade under Mercer, just behind Stephen’s Virginia vanguard of soldiers in their trademark hunting shirts under extra layers of other clothing. In a key tactical decision that was destined to pay off at Trenton, Washington demonstrated considerable tactical insight by having placed the best-trained and most-disciplined artillery units at the column’s head. Relying on keen “long-arm” insights and sage judgment that revealed his full appreciation of his artillery’s previously untapped capabilities and potential, Washington knew that the prowess of Forrest’s Pennsylvania cannoneers would be vital at the battle’s very beginning at a time, when there could be no margin for error, ensuring that he early gained the upper hand as soon as possible once the contest opened.

  Therefore, only the most experienced artillery commanders and most disciplined gunners had been placed at the column’s van by Washington. But yet another key factor explained why Washington and Knox had assigned Forrest’s four cannon to the head of Greene’s column. Just from Philadelphia and unlike most of Knox’s other artillery units which had either lost or depleted much of their ammunition during the arduous New York Campaign and its futile battles of summer and fall, Captain Forrest’s company possessed an abundant supply of powder and shot, if the Hessian troops counterattacked with their usual aggressiveness and most lethal offensive asset in the manner of Frederick the Great, the bayonet.

  And most importantly, as Washington and Knox fully realized, Forrest’s artillerymen also now carried more grapeshot and canister, which was smaller than grapeshot, than any other artillery unit in the main strike force. Both grapeshot and canister were the gunner’s premier anti-personnel ammunition that essentially transformed cannon into giant shotguns: an advantage that would prove especially valuable at Trenton. Scores of large (grapeshot) and small (canister) iron balls inflicted terrible damage upon dense ranks of infantry, especially at close range, knocking down footsoldiers like tenpins and breaking up even the most determined assault, including those launched with the bayonet.

  While the small wooden artillery ammunition carts and ammunition side boxes, firmly fitted on gun carriages, of Forrest’s company contained only 132 six-pounder round shot, the confident Philadelphia captain now possessed a disproportionate supply of canister, 467 loads, and “Grape,” at 161 loads for his two six-pounders and two five and a half-inch howitzers. Thanks to having retreated so close to Philadelphia by early December, Washington was most fortunate to have gained the city’s premier battery, especially since its combat capabilities were enhanced by such a disproportionate share of canister and grape—destined to be Washington’s most devastating secret weapon at Trenton—only because these guns had been principally supplied with this latter type of ammunition best calculated to rip apart the sails and rigging of attacking British warships in defense of Philadelphia’s water approaches.

  Washington’s foresight guaranteed that his most lethal artillery unit was positioned at the head of his main attack column, where he himself rode in the forefront, which then followed by Captain Hamilton’s two New York six-pounders at the front of Stirling’s Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia brigade. Such key factors explained why this single artillery company of all Captain Proctor’s Philadelphia Artillery Battalion had been pulled from Philadelphia’s defenses to assist Washington in his greatest hour of need.

  Indeed, Knox’s best artillery unit and most reliable “long-arm” commander, Forrest, who was destined to gain a major’s rank only days after his upcoming sparkling Trenton performance, and his able top lieutenants, Emerald Islander Duffy and Lieutenant Worley Emes, continued to occupy the most advanced artillery position in Washington’s column. In fact, Forrest was a better choice for his key mission at the head of Greene’s Second Division than the ever-cantankerous Captain Procter, who was known for his ultra-independent ways, hot Irish temper, and quarrelsome nature. For the upcoming stern challenge at Trenton, Washington needed everyone, especially his top officers and unit commanders, both infantry and artillery, to work closely together and in harmony as a team and to obey his orders without question.

  As Washington fully realized, Forrest’s state artillery command from the cosmopolitan, heavily ethnic environment of Philadelphia was a most dependable unit in a crisis situation. At this time, Forrest’s command consisted of many foreign-born gunners, especially Irish, including cannoneers, who had gained artillery experience aboard British ships before the American Revolution. But the lofty level of training, experience, and discipline of Forrest’s Philadelphia cannoneers was unable to makeup for what they now lacked in clothing, especially footwear, during the march on Trenton. In a letter, Lieutenant Duffy recently described how his urbanite young artillerymen from Philadelphia were “very much Nonplus’d for Shoes and Watch Coats.” Likewise, Captain Forrest complained how his Pennsylvania boys suffered severely from the “want of Shoes and Watch Coats,” and lacked “Regimental Coats.”52 Unfortunately, for Washington’s men, it was “as if they [Congress] thought Men were made of Stocks or Stones and equally insensible of frost and Snow,” in the general’s own frustrated words.53

  But in truth, Forrest’s gunners were most fortunate compared to so many fellow Pennsylvanians of Washington’s Army. More than three thousand Pennsylvania and Philadelphia soldiers, consisting of the state’s best troops, had been captured, primarily at Fort Washington, while another 1,500 captive men of the Pennsylvania Flying Camp had died of disease, primarily from the ravages of typhoid fever. With white-tailed deer tails and turkey feathers in tricorn and slouch hats, these young men and boys from Pennsylvania had naively marched off to war with delusions of glory, as if embarking upon a romantic adventure in a bygone age. Instead, these innocents had only found the ugly reality of a seemingly endless series of disasters and tragic deaths across New York and New Jersey, while Pennsylvania failed to galvanize an effective home state defense, especially on the threatened western frontier which faced Indian attacks.54

/>   Captain Forrest and his Pennsylvania state artillerymen now served with a heightened determination not only to protect their vulnerable home city at the head of Delaware Bay, but also to avenge the loss of so many fallen and imprisoned comrades, many who were now rapidly dying of disease in and around New York City. While Washington’s infantrymen rested in line in the bone-numbing cold before entering the deep ravine of Jacob’s Creek, the young artillerymen from Philadelphia went to work with zeal. A long way from his Connecticut home where even those Canadian-like bitter winters seldom seemed as cold as during this storm that now so tightly gripped the Delaware Valley, Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick described the preparations for getting all of Knox’s artillery down the precarious, icy slope to cross Jacob’s Creek, “Our [artillery] horses were then unharness’d & the artillerymen prepared” for yet another stern challenge.55

  With scores of men employing a lengthy artillery rope in yet another strenuous undertaking, field pieces began to be carefully hauled down the snow-slick slope leading to Jacob’s Creek. Sturdy oak and hickory trees served as firm mooring posts by which leverage and muscle could be best utilized by both cannoneers and infantrymen to gingerly lower field pieces down the ravine’s steep slope. This time-consuming task was especially daunting because the barrel and carriage of just one of Forrest’s six-pounders weighed more than a thousand pounds. Along with Washington, anxious artillery officers watched closely, shouting orders and supervising the delicate operation. As he fully realized, Washington could not afford to lose a single field piece, especially after having been so laboriously brought across the Delaware and so far down the Bear Tavern Road, when he was about to face a full Hessian brigade that had never lost a battle.