George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Then, while visiting Philadelphia, he discovered his true calling, when the revolution erupted to present new opportunities. After only practicing medicine for less than three months, the impetuous young man joined the army, following his “strongest inclination.” He shortly gained an appointment as a captain of the Second Continental Regiment. Looking younger than his age of eighteen, Wilkinson evolved into a fine officer. Wilkinson had felt considerable shock—like Washington—on first discovering the ultra-democratic sentiment among the New Englanders, who openly violated traditional Southern planter class social values and protocol. Although Wilkinson was considered “more nice than wise” by an equally ambitious Benedict Arnold, he now rode down the River Road with the Scotland-born General St. Clair and staff at the head of the New Hampshire and Massachusetts Continental brigade.116

  Meanwhile, Washington steadily led his Second Division troops farther down the Scotch Road, easing ever-closer to Trenton while whatever light might have been normally forthcoming from the high moon was yet obscured by storm clouds. Riding back and forth on his chestnut sorrel with its distinctive copper-red color, Washington encouraged his footsore troops, whose faces, hands, and feet were numb from the cold, onward like Moses leading the Children of Israel from the horrors of a cruel Egyptian bondage. Most of all, Washington now relied on God’s favor and the “astonishing interpositions of providence” to bring him victory in America’s greatest hour of need. With so many doubts yet lingering in his mind, he reached down into the depths of his soul to implore God’s assistance when needed the most. As he had written to Colonel Reed, who had once called Trenton home, on December 23, Washington knew that “if we are successful [then it would be something] which heaven grant.”117

  In fact and as penned in a letter, a thankful Washington, after narrowly surviving the slaughter of the Braddock disaster, was fully convinced how, “I now exist and appear in the land of the living by the miraculous Care of Providence, that protected me beyond all human expectation [because] I had 4 bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me, and yet escaped unhurt. . . .”118

  Symbolically, the forward movements of both Greene’s and Sullivan’s columns of sickly, hopeful, and weakened soldiers actually represented a holy pilgrimage of sorts, presenting almost something out of the Book of Exodus, because their unshakable belief in God, or “Providence” in Washington’s terminology, bestowing an eventual victory over the much-feared Hessians. This powerful belief continued to drive these ragtag soldiers of liberty onward through the foulest and most brutal weather than they had ever seen. No coincidence, the most religious men, even while the mind-numbing exhaustion and the omnipresent cold gnawed at them with a vengeance, were also the most faithful in believing that this dying revolution could be yet resurrected, relying upon the power of faith and their own deep personal religious convictions precisely because it seemed as if nothing else could be depended upon in this war.

  After all, Washington’s New Englanders were the descendants of the Puritans, God’s natural rebels, who had broken away from the Church of England to “purify” (hence their name) it and start the world anew in America. And after having gone to war under colorful war banners emblazoned with Biblically inspired slogans such as “Resistance to Tyrans is Obedience to God,” and “An Appeal to God,”, these battle-hardened soldiers from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire of Sullivan’s First Division—along with the New Yorkers—were now fortified by a strong religious belief system based on the Old Testament, including a lengthy heritage of antinomianism, or the willful moral right to break artificial manmade bonds because of God’s higher moral laws. Bolstering their endurance in this crisis situation in the desire to reach Trenton as soon as possible, these young men and boys now carried their unique belief system with them through the biting winds and snows of Hunterdon County.

  In this sense, the moral motivations of Sullivan’s First Division, of mostly New Englanders, was now not unlike that of Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Army, which had waged a holy war against England’s enemies like Christian Crusaders invading the Holy Land. Most of all, Washington’s Continentals fully convinced that their struggle was a righteous one, and fundamentally “the cause of heaven against hell,” in the words of one patriot preacher. Clearly, Washington and his men had much to inspire and drive them onward on this most bleak of late December mornings.

  By this time, there was no turning back for either Washington or his worn-out soldiers, who just kept pushing—more like machines than mortal men—through the snow and ever-farther south, almost as if being drawn by some unseen gravitational force toward Trenton and an uncertain fate. Crossing the Delaware in essence had been America’s Rubicon, or symbolically not unlike the Old Testament’s Jordan River. And on December 26, Washington’s soldiers seemed to instinctively sense as much, which was a realization that motivated them to keep moving on this darkest, coldest, and stormiest of nights. All the while, the cutting wind chilled the bones of America’s most stalwart revolutionaries to the very marrow.

  Indeed, the possibilities for moral, physical, and spiritual redemption for this often-beaten revolutionary army and a faltering fledgling republic yet lay for the taking on the Delaware’s east side, and whatever Washington and his soldiers could accomplish against a full Hessian brigade at Trenton. In a letter to Washington, Declaration of Independence signer Edward, or “Ned,” Rutledge, of South Carolina, emphasized exactly where the most and last remaining faith for the dream of America was now firmly placed: “Our reliance continues, therefore, to be, under God, on your wisdom and fortitude and that of your forces.” Washington’s troops, consequently, realized that they must keep trudging with a relentless determination toward the seemingly unattainable goal of Trenton in a desperate bid to resurrect America’s life, until no more strength or energy remained in tired, half-froze bodies racked by malnutrition, disease, and bitter cold.

  Most of all, these hardened American soldiers, the most committed and determined of America’s remaining band of defenders, knew that they must overcome every single obstacle placed in their path this seemingly ill-fated morning by bad luck, the unmerciful winter storm, obstacles of geography, and plain old bad luck, while ignoring the cold misery, creeping hypothermia, and bone-numbing weariness that racked bodies, including those soldiers who now should have been hospitalized. Consequently, these young men and boys from New England to Virginia, who were saddled with an awesome responsibility and burden of keeping the flicking flame of this new experiment in nationhood and republicanisn alive against the odds, continued to struggle ever-southward like frigid ghosts out of a dream. And all the while, they marched relentlessly ever-southward without ever knowing if a cruel fate or God’s helping hand was now directing them toward an uncertain destiny, either a great victory or another fiasco.

  With anxious faces, now numb from the first sign of flesh freezing, and a hard-earned stoicism created like tough calluses by the series of past defeats, Washington’s Continentals, toughened month after month seemingly for this very challenge, continued to wage their own private war against the driving snow, biting cold, and ice. Washington’s ranks had been cruelly culled for months, but what was now left for the attack on a full German brigade was an experienced, highly motivated team of warriors, who were bonded tightly together by adversity and suffering. By this time, many soldiers were suffering from frostbite, and no doubt from the first hallucinations brought about by hypothermia, with all sensation first leaving fingers and toes, and then feet and hands. In gamely forging ahead, therefore, Washington’s soldiers were pushing beyond what was beyond normal endurance and almost what was humanly possible, because they realized that everything now depended upon them going onward in the night’s harshness. But how were more than one thousand ill-clad, undernourished soldiers of America able to overcome so much adversity?

  First and foremost, despite all the recent setbacks, Washington and his men nevertheless believed that God was yet on America’s
side. As if bestowed by providence, a thick fog had masked the escape of much of Washington’s Army, thanks to Glover’s mariners, across the East River from Long Island to the southern end of Manhattan Island in late August. And now in a providential way, Washington had been once again bestowed with a raging storm that screened his final approach to Trenton.

  Coughing, freezing, and sneezing, Washington’s common soldiers continued to push onward with firm, if not grim, resolution that had only intensified with the recent order to fix bayonets with so many flintlocks inoperable. But if nothing else, these resilient fighting men from across America could at least depend upon the sharp point of a steel bayonet while doing little more than placing their last ounces of hope in a much-needed miracle from God and in the hope that Washington might finally succeed in his tactical design. A blind faith and destiny itself now seemed to be drawing Washington and his men, including many soldiers with numb half-frozen feet and hands that had lost feeling hours ago, onward through the pitiless winds and swirling snow of a little known wilderness area in which they were now seemingly lost, as if only wanting to find their way out of the blinding storm to escape nature’s most bitter wrath.

  But in continuing to march down the barely recognizable Scotch Road blanketed in snow, these Continental soldiers, understanding the full implications of Washington’s motto “Victory or Death” that revealed the commander-in-chief’s unshakeable resolution to do or die, were marching onward in a final bid to revitalize an old utopian dream that seemed to have died: the real meaning of America as an almost magical land of moral, spiritual, and physical rebirth for people from distant shores. And this much-needed rejuvenation of a people, a new nation, and a special destiny had to be won with a victory in the next few hours, because this was the last chance to do so for America. In essence, Washington and men were now trudging south in search of moral redemption and the rejuvenation of a dying revolutionary struggle that could only be achieved by reaping a dramatic success at Trenton.

  Therefore, in their darkest, most bleak, and coldest hour of December 26, Washington’s soldiers, including men of all ages who freely quoted the Bible from memory to motivate themselves and their freezing comrades on this tortuous march, prayed for deliverance from two storms—one man-made and the other from nature. All the while, the eerie silence of a cold tranquillity dominated the grueling trek, and nothing could be heard by Washington’s men but the soft, plodding tread of hundreds of feet on snow. Washington prayed, “May that Being, who is powerful to save, and in whose hands is the fate of nations, look down with an eye of tender pity and compassion upon” America’s struggle and cause to make the world anew. Washington and his men found an inspirational analogy in the spiritual words of the Old Testament: Joshua leading his small band of determined Jewish holy warriors across the Jordan River to vanquish Israel’s mortal enemies, the Canaanites, to create a new moral kingdom of God and “righteous commonwealth” in the Land of Canaan.

  A former Loudon County, Virginia, preacher now serving as the highly respected chaplain of the Third Virginia Continental Regiment, David Griffith, who had been ordained by the Bishop of London, and who often conducted religious services at Washington’s own headquarters, had recently provided inspiring spiritual council to fortify Washington’s already strong religious faith and that of his men. For Washington and his religious-minded soldiers, who now saw themselves and their cause as now being sternly tested by God to test the validity and strength of their faith, Trenton indeed now represented another ancient Jericho for these homespun New World soldiers, who were revolutionary idealists motivated by lofty ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. And this new symbolic Jericho—Trenton—had to be now overwhelmed by a new generation of righteous, God-fearing holy warriors for a new spiritual and moral resurrection of this beleaguered land, now known as the United States of America, as in Canaan as long ago.

  And for Washington’s final desperate bid for deliverance and redemption with the revolutionary struggle now at its lowest ebb, a good many far-flung American units, some new and some veteran, had come together at almost the last minute and for the first time to now perform with an amazing efficiency during Washington’s most audacious undertaking. Even unknown to them at this time, Washington’s troops were even now in the process of being forged into a much determined soldiery by a steely synthesis of adversity and sheer desperation born of the greatest crisis ever faced by the young nation conceived in liberty: the painful, difficult, and slow evolution that resulted in the creation of a truly nationalistic and first “American Army,” as emphasized the commander-in-chief.

  In his mid-thirties, General Greene, the philosophical “fighting Quaker” and genteel Rhode Island anchorsmith, who early sensed this quiet evolution of such subtle developments in the army’s ranks, despite their thorough depletion through a cruel attrition: “We bear beating very well . . . the more we are beat the better we grow.” Indeed, although they hardly looked like real fighting men in either appearances, maneuvers, or manners, Washington’s common soldiers were now motivated by an unprecedented high level of determination to succeed at any cost, thanks in no small part to their commander-in-chief’s inspirational words and actions that had fueled this new fighting spirit to fever pitch, when they were about to descend upon Trenton from two directions.

  Against all predictions, these Americans continued to maintain firm discipline and a “profound silence,” as ordered by Washington, displaying an unprecedented sense of determination, almost as if they were British or Hessian professionals instead of only ragged, untrained citizensoldiers, mostly rawboned farm boys, imbued with idealistic notions about America’s endless promise and potential, which were yet nothing more than a starry-eyed dream. Therefore and despite commanding a force so greatly “reduced by Sickness, Desertion, & Political Deaths,” in his own words, Washington now actually possessed a much more mature, toughened, and determined soldiery than ever before. Fortunately for America, he finally had this highly motivated force of hardened veterans moving forward with confidence, fortified resolve, and a good chance to secure a rare victory in a win-all or lose-all situation.119 Captain William Hull described in a letter how Washington’s men slogged onward through the whipping winter winds and snow with an unprecedented degree of “Resolution and Firmness” that was truly a sight to behold, after so many past disasters for American arms.120

  Only now on this most challenging, darkest, and stormiest of nights was Washington beginning to fully realize what had been happening right before his eyes: a remarkable but quiet and subtle transformation, born of severe adversity and a heightened sense of desperation, that was now occurring almost inexplicably, if not magically and certainly quite mysteriously, among the often-inscrutable common soldiery, until crossing the Delaware. In amazement about what he now felt and sensed developing around him, an astounded Washington described how something quite remarkable was happening among his followers during the long trek to Trenton, because unlike so often in the past: “The difficulty of passing the River in a very severe Night, and their March thro’ a violent Storm of Snow and Hail, did not in the least abate their Ardour.”121

  Chapter III

  All Quiet at Trenton

  Quite suddenly and if only ever so slightly, America’s fortunes were finally beginning to look up, because Washington was now presented with an even better opportunity than he originally thought. Trenton as well as the Rall brigade, the group that had “incontestably suffered the most of any” brigade in the British Army, had never been so vulnerable before.1

  Additionally, one of Washington’s best allies continued to be the extremely low esteem held by Colonel Rall’s Germans, yet to lose a battle, for American soldiers in general. Washington’s so-called American “Rebeller” was widely denounced by the Hessians for his lack of soldierly qualities, including courage. Lieutenant Jakob Piel, a skilled map maker who was now stationed at Trenton with his von Lossberg Regiment, concluded with pride how “the rebels” had
“never on any occasion been able to withstand us.”2

  As class conscious as other highly professional German officers, Colonel Henrich Anton von Heringen, who had commanded the von Lossberg Regiment until dying of dysentery in September 1776 and finding a lonely grave in Brooklyn, had viewed the long lines of captured American prisoners at Long Island in absolute astonishment and unmasked disgust: “We found no professional soldiers [as] Among the prisoners are many so-called colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, and other officers, who however [before the conflict] are nothing but mechanics, tailors, shoemakers, wigmakers, barbers, etc.”3 A close look at Washington’s vanquished soldiers had brought not only utter dismay but also open laughter from the well-trained, smartly uniformed German and British victors, who hardly could believe their eyes. Irish Captain Frederick Mackenzie never forgot the close sight of Washington’s captured men at Fort Washington: “A great many of these were lads under fifteen, and old men . . . Their odd figures frequently excited the laughter of our soldiers.”4

  But no more American solider was now held in greater contempt by Hessian and British alike than Washington himself. Expressing a view shared by so many others on both sides of the Atlantic, Ambrose Serle, Sir Howe’s civilian personal secretary, described the often-defeated commander-in-chief as nothing more than “a little paltry colonel of a militia of bandits.”5 In September 1776, Hessian adjutant general Karl Leopold Baurmeister analyzed with considerable insight how Washington was doomed to defeat because “whatever knowledge [he had] of the science of war will be useless to organize the raw rabble of conscripted men” under his command.6