George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  But unfortunately for Rall and his isolated brigade at Trenton, senior British and Hessian leadership in America possessed few of Frederick the Great’s sterling qualities that had made him legendary. By this time, consequently, Rall’s greatest obstacles to Trenton’s successful defense were not his owncomplacency or hubris, but most of all the failings of his own senior commanders, both British and Hessian. These senior leaders lacked his lofty level of experience—some thirty-six years—and repeated success as a combat commander. With keen tactical instincts, therefore, Rall had sensed earlier that trouble was brewing outside Trenton. Rall drew careful conclusions that were entirely different from those of most of his aristocratic, elitist superiors in regard to Trenton’s vulnerability.

  General Howe, writing to Lord Germain on December 20, described how his defensive positions, including Trenton, and winter quarters in New Jersey, stretching nearly to headquarters at New York City, were secure. He felt that there was nothing to worry about because of “the strength of the corps placed in the advanced posts [including Trenton and therefore] I conclude the troops will be in perfect security.”20 Lord Cornwallis had initially convinced Howe, who might have been in part swayed by his top lieutenant’s royal connections in having served as an aide-de-camp to King George III himself, to retain possession of Trenton. Even though Howe had earlier complained that he had too few troops for pursuing Washington all the way to the Delaware, he nevertheless had then paradoxically concluded that in regard to Trenton, “I apprehended no danger.”21

  A long-existing sense of “perfect security” among the British high command, especially in faraway New York City, now presented an ideal opportunity that Washington had envisioned with tactical clarity and was about to exploit to the fullest. Like Howe, Cornwallis, and other top leaders, both British and Hessian, General Grant was equally complacent until it was too late on Christmas Eve. Despite having overall responsibility of the British-Hessian defensive line stretching from central New Jersey to western New Jersey, Grant had never set foot in Trenton to inspect this advanced outpost. In regard to the possibility that Washington might strike across the Delaware, Grant had been long convinced that, “I own I did not think them equal to the attempt.” Despite many years of sound military experience, Grant was a high-living epicure who was now more concerned about the fine culinary dishes placed on his dinner table by his personal chief and servants than Trenton’s safety until it was far too late. From beginning to end, General Grant and his British superiors were far more complacent and negligent than Colonel Rall.22

  Even sexual dynamics played a large role in presenting Washington with a golden opportunity at Trenton, in his own confident words, “to clip their wings, while they are so spread” out across so much of New Jersey in winter quarters. No one was more negligent than Colonel Donop, Rall’s immediate superior, except Howe, Cornwallis, and Grant. Waging war like feudal lords, Howe and Grant enjoyed living in grand style, including with readily available pretty women, both married and unmarried, who served as mistresses. When Trenton was about to be attacked by Washington’s much-despised rebels, Donop was only emulating Howe’s rakish ways that were legendary. While Howe thoroughly “enjoyed Madam” Betsy Loring in New York City, the commander of Hessian troops who manned the posts at Trenton and Bordentown, both located on the Delaware, likewise engaged in his own sexual escapades on these cold December nights. Donop had also lost his head to this “exceedingly beautiful young widow” of a doctor of Mount Holly, New Jersey, only around twenty miles south of Trenton and below Bordentown.

  Leading his 450 South New Jersey militia, Colonel Samuel Griffin, a capable Son of Erin from Virginia, had succeeded in his vital December 22–23 diversion on the Delaware’s east side. He had boldly captured Mount Holly, which was located almost directly below Trenton and east of Philadelphia. As planned by Washington, the ever-aggressive Donop took the bait provided by Griffin’s diversion, moving almost his entire corps of around two thousand troops from his Bordentown headquarters south to Mount Holly. According to Washington’s well-conceived plan, Griffin then withdrew his militiamen in true partisan fashion, avoiding an unwinnable open field fight with battle-hardened regulars. Griffin’s withdrawal bestowed even more overconfidence and complacency to additionally dull Donop’s aggressive instincts and tactical perception, thanks to the sight of even more untrained New Jersey militiamen on the run as usual.

  Instead of prudently retiring back north to Bordentown, located on the Delaware around a dozen miles north of Mount Holly and much closer to Trenton, Donop made the ill-fated decision to remain securely in place at Mount Holly in order to romp with his promiscuous New Jersey girl, who was young widow of a physician, when far from his Bordenstown headquarters. After all, Donop felt nothing but contempt for his bumbling opponents. He repeatedly denounced them as “the rascals,” as if they were little more than naughty children in need of harsh discipline. As hoped by Washington and instead of retiring back north to Bordentown, Donop was now well beyond adequate supporting distance—around twenty miles—of Trenton at Mount Holly, when Washington was about to strike Trenton. As if he were a rookie commander instead of a seasoned leader, Donop had been brilliantly drawn by Washington’s diversion more than half a dozen miles farther south, helping to seal Rall’s fate at Trenton on December 26.

  With a discerning eye for beauty and carnal opportunities that revealed his aristocratic background, meanwhile, Donop thoroughly joyed himself at Mount Holly on Christmas Eve. He was making love to the pretty widow and a woman of a much lower class (as he was of noble blood) precisely when Washington was about to deliver his masterstroke. For three days and all the way to Christmas Day, Donop acted much like a lovesick school boy who had indulged in too much good sex after having moved the alluring young woman into his own personal headquarters. The passionate lovemaking from long pent-up lust effectively took Donop’s mind, perhaps also addled by alcohol, and tactical instincts off Rall’s increasingly precarious situation at Trenton until it was too late. Also ensuring the lack of future cooperation for Trenton’s defense, Donop and Rall were at odds in part because they were direct opposites: the forty-three-year-old Donop was a Hesse-Cassel blueblood from a distinguished Castle Woebbel noble family of the principality of Lippe, while Rall hailed from middle class antecedents. In fact, they had been quarreling since December 14. Donop was especially upset because Rall had already gone over his head to secure the coveted Trenton assignment. Rall had appealed directly to Grant, committing the sin of what the by-the-book Donop deemed as “improper ambition.” Consequently, Donop had refused to inspect Trenton while occupied by Rall and his three-regiment brigade, leaving his troublesome, lower-born colonel on his own to do his best under difficult circumstances.

  Clearly, the combination of Griffin’s effective tactical diversion below Trenton as ordered by Washington, a dysfunctional Hessian command structure, and the attractive, alluring widow—perhaps an American spy—at Mount Holly helped to set the stage for Washington’s upcoming success at Trenton. As Washington so fondly wished and hoped, Donop remained far away from his Bordentown headquarters and around twenty miles south of Trenton for four crucial days. Fortunately for Washington, this sexy American widow’s carnal skills ensured that a couple thousand Hessian troops and Rall’s immediate superior remained far beyond supporting distance of Trenton at the most critical moment. On December 23, Donop only warned Rall “to be on our guard” instead of prudently sending reinforcements to Trenton: another way of saying that the isolated Rall was left alone and out on a limb, while washing his own hands of the upcoming debacle that sent shock rippling on both sides of the Atlantic. All of these diverse, but closely related, factors ensured that three thousand German and British soldiers, a force larger than Washington’s main strike force, played no role in Trenton’s defense when they were needed the most.23

  Washington’s Forgotten Warriors, the Germans

  While Dunop was making passionate love to the pretty Amer
ican widow in a large, warm feather bed beside a warm, roaring fireplace at Mount Holly, Colonel Rall could hardly realize that around 2,400 Americans under the much-maligned Washington were now relentlessly headed his way across a snow-covered landscape with an unprecedented determination to succeed at any cost. After all, European armies, even Prussian, seldom fought at night, or in inclement weather, especially during wintertime: clear violations of traditional military axioms and the time-honored rules of waging conventional warfare. And to the foreign occupier’s way of thinking, an even more unimaginable thought was that the Americans might possibly be capable of launching an offensive strike, especially with Washington yet in command after the easy capture by British cavalry of England-born General Charles Lee, who was generally considered America’s finest military leader, at White’s Tavern at Basking Ridge, New Jersey, on December 12.

  But even more inconceivable to Rall was the fact that around 370 German Americans, including his own Maryland cousin and many highly motivated soldiers who had been born in Germany, including from his own native Hesse Cassel, were now advancing with overflowing cartridge-boxes toward Trenton in the bulging ranks of Washington’s German Regiment. Even more paradoxical, Washington’s troops, especially his Teutonic soldiers, were also partly inspired by Frederick the Great’s martial legacies and lessons like the Hessians themselves. Having been only recently dispatched from Philadelphia by Congress to reinforce Washington’s Army, an entire German American regiment, Washington’s largest, now marched south toward Trenton in Greene’s Second Division column with the burning desire to wreck havoc on their own countrymen. Only a relatively handful of Irish and Scotch-Irish soldiers in the ranks made this not a Continental infantry regiment composed of entirely Germans, born across the Atlantic, and German Americans, who had been born in America. Almost certainly, German soldiers of this command had informed Washington, who in part based his strategy on the belief that Hessians celebrated Christmas not just on December 25 but also on December 26 during a two-day holiday, of traditional German customs from the distant homeland.

  As fate would have it, the German Regiment was the only unit in Washington’s Army officially designated by its distinctive ethnic composition. Authorized by the Continental Congress to counter the British Government’s decision to employ German troops to subjugate America, Washington’s Teutonic regiment consisted of five companies composed of Germans from eastern Pennsylvania, while the remaining four companies were filled with Maryland soldiers like Colonel Rall’s own cousin.

  This Germanic Continental command had made a timely recent addition to the army, becoming Washington’s largest regiment with 374 men. However, despite yet to face its baptismal fire, the German Regiment was well trained. Most importantly, this command was led by so many excellent officers, mostly from Pennsylvania and Maryland, such as Lieutenant Colonel George Stricker of Frederick County, Maryland. Stricker possessed solid experience as a captain in Colonel William Smallwood’s elite First Maryland Battalion, which had been cut to pieces in a series of charges launched against Cornwallis’s troops at Long Island on August 27, 1776. In the shivering ranks of Greene’s lengthy column of Second Division troops, the lieutenant colonel’s young son, Cadet John Stricker, now marched south toward Trenton near his officer father.

  Colonel Stricker was blessed with a solid officer corps which ensured that he led the German Regiment most effectively this morning: Major Ludwig Weltner, a “britchesmaker” who lived with wife Mary in the northwest Maryland town of Frederick on the Monocacy River; Captain Daniel Burhardt whose stepson, Private Henry Magg, now served in the ranks; Captain George Hubley of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was fated to die in this war; and Captains Jacob Bunner; Benjamin Weiser from the town of Womelsdorf, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania; John David Woelpper; William Heyser, of Hagerstown, Maryland, who was born in Germany in 1737, migrated to America in 1765, and then became a proud naturalized American citizen at Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1772; Henry Fister of Frederick County; and George Keeports of the port of Baltimore, Maryland. Most of these Pennsylvania Germans, especially the officers, hailed from Philadelphia. Many officers from Maryland and Pennsylvania were bilingual, speaking both German and English. During the long trek through the snow while moving ever-closer to Trenton, they well might have hummed or thought of the mocking, but inspirational, words of a popular German song, distinguished by an especially memorable line and a distinct taste of Teutonic humor:

  “England’s Georgie, Emperor, King,

  Is for God and us too small a thing.”

  Entirely unknown to the troops garrisoned at Trenton, Colonel Rall’s fellow countrymen in Washington’s German Regiment advanced steadily southward as part of General Matthias Alexis de Roche Fermoy’s Brigade, Greene’s Second Division. Along the slick Scotch Road, these Teutonic soldiers now marched relentlessly toward a bloody rendezvous with their fellow countrymen, including perhaps relatives from their same ancestral regions of Germany. Eight companies—four from Maryland and four from Pennsylvania—of the German Regiment had been initially authorized on June 27, 1776, when the Continental Congress attempted to tap into the abundant manpower of the new republic’s second largest ethnic group after the Irish.

  The German Regiment’s size had been increased by yet another company (one from Pennsylvania) that was authorized in mid-July 1776. The four companies of Maryland Germans were composed of both rural and urban soldiers of mostly middle-class origins, with four companies consisting of volunteers from Baltimore and four companies made up of soldiers from Frederick County on the western frontier. Meanwhile, the Germans from the four Pennsylvania companies hailed from areas where German Lutheran and Reformed congregations were the most heavily concentrated, as in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania towns of Kensington and Germantown, and the Susquehanna River settlements in Lancaster County, like Lebanon, as opposed to pacifist German communities of the Amish, Dunkards, and Mennonites.

  These Teutonic warriors from Maryland and Pennsylvania—a rare dual-state regiment in Washington’s Army whose units were almost always designated by state—were now commanded by German-born Colonel Nicholas Haussegger. He hailed from near the town of Lebanon, situated on Quittapahilla Creek, in fertile Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Haussegger was a native of the ancient city of Hanover, in northern Germany, on the Leine River. Drained by the Susquehanna River, Haussegger’s adopted homeland was a picturesque region of rich farmlands, first settled by German immigrants, nestled in the central Lebanon Valley. He possessed solid military experience as an exacting officer during the French and Indian War, and then as a Fourth Pennsylvania battalion major during the disastrous Canadian Campaign under hard-fighting Anthony Wayne, before taking command of the German Regiment in July 1776.24

  Significantly, Haussegger’s German-American troops were in overall better condition and better uniformed than any other infantry in Washington’s strike force at this time. Unlike Washington’s soldiers who had endured the series of crushing defeats around New York City and the gloomy retreat through New Jersey, the German Regiment’s soldiers had spent the fall 1776 months garrisoned at their comfortable barracks in Philadelphia. This sophisticated capital city’s seemingly endless lures—taverns, gambling dens, painted ladies, cheap rotgut whisky, and rows of dingy whorehouses—proved a strong temptation for young men, like Thomas Rose, who were away from home for the first time. An “incomparably good drummer” with large, brown eyes, and long black hair tied in a queue under a plain “old wool hat,” Rose deserted on September 4, 1776.25

  Haussegger’s German Continentals had been yet quartered at their Philadelphia barracks by the end of November, awaiting the arrival of additional equipment before taking the field. After only a relatively short march northeast from Philadelphia, the first contingent of Haussegger’s regiment had joined Washington’s Army at Trenton on December 5. Therefore, the German Regiment was far less depleted than Washington’s other regiments: a key advantage that would resu
lt in the command’s disproportionate contribution to victory at Trenton. By this time, Washington’s Germanic unit contained a whopping total of 374 men—thirty-five officers, forty noncommissioned officers, five staff officers, and 294 rank and file—which was more than double the manpower of Washington’s badly decimated regiments, such as the diminutive Fifth Virginia Continental Regiment, Stephen’s Brigade, of only 129 men. The German Regiment’s ranks were now full of relatively fresh, healthy Teutonic warriors, from western frontier farmers of German peasant stock to classically educated burghers, primarily of the officer’s ranks, from Philadelphia’s and Baltimore’s cobblestone streets. As a strange fate would have it to reveal the complexities of the German experience in America, Washington’s German Regiment was now about to engage in its first battle and against their fellow countrymen.26

  Although only recently formed, the German Regiment was not only Washington’s largest and best-preserved regiment, but also contained soldiers with solid military experience from service in combat-tested units, including Smallwood’s elite battalion of Marylanders. Some of Haussegger’s soldiers had marched with Maryland’s Flying Camp and in the Associator units of Pennsylvania. A former cadet, Captain John Weidman was one such veteran ex-Associator officer. He hailed from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Major Ludwig, or William, Weltner, who migrated from Germany to Philadelphia by way of Europe’s largest port city, Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1751, had served as a Frederick County Militia major. Major John David Woelpper, a Virginian German, knew Washington well, having campaigned as a sergeant under him when the austere Mount Vernon planter commanded the highly touted Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War. Like Major Weltner, Woelpper was born in Germany. He reached America’s shores in October 1749 via bustling Rotterdam, from where he departed for the New World with high hopes and bright dreams.