George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Because the Germans had not been trained to fight as individuals and as only as part of large formations in a rigid linear tactical system that maneuvered as one and only on cue from the commanding officer, junior Hessian officers, including even the capable Lieutenant Wiederhold, who had already long stood his ground while waiting in vain at Pennington Road picket outpost for a superior officer to appear to hand him new instructions, failed to demonstrate badly needed tactical flexibility in this crisis situation.

  Therefore, relatively few Hessian officers (and certainly not enlisted men) acted effectively on their own initiative this Thursday morning, when personal initiative was needed most of all. An enduring legacy of the revered Prussian traditions of Frederick the Great, Hessian discipline and rigid training had long eroded individual initiative and overall tactical flexibility, including offensive-mindedness, among the German officer corps. Individual Hessian officers were either unable or unwilling to successfully meet newly emerging localized threats, especially in the confusion of fighting in an urban environment, on their own without Rall’s immediate supervision and direct orders.

  Without new instructions in a fast-moving, fluid situation, therefore, a number of Hessian officers, commanding isolated detachments along the town’s perimeter, failed to rush forward to rejoin their respective regiments on King Street, where they were needed for a concentration of effort. And here in the midst of projectile-swept King Street as dictated by the unbending rules from strict Hessian military manuals and training, German officers and enlisted men failed to break ranks for a single moment on their own (like Americans) in an emergency situation to dispatch the foremost of Mercer’s sharpshooters, inflicting serious damage, in nearby houses on King Street’s west side, and especially from the rear of Potts’s tannery, from where a hot fire poured.

  Because of such a rigid, inflexible chain of Prussian-like command and as revealed in past alarms at Trenton which exposed an inherent problem not yet rectified, Hessian junior officers were forced to repeatedly seek out their commanding officer to request permission, if they dared contemplate taking independent action, especially the initiative, without their commander’s consent. Worst of all and in another striking irony, this central weakness of excessive discipline (the antithesis of a highly tactically-flexible means of waging war—essentially guerrilla warfare—as demonstrated by the Americans) had early negated the overall combat capabilities of the Knyphausen Regiment at Queen Street’s lower end southeast of Rall and his two regiments. After having spilled from the Presbyterian Church at Second Street and Queen Street, and private quarters lining both sides of Assunpink Creek, Major Dechow’s troops had quickly gathered and aligned in response to Greene’s and Sullivan’s roaring artillery pieces.

  But, with Major Dechow now reassigned to his new quarters on King Street as the “staff officer of the day,” hundreds of Knyphausen Regiment troops had formed according to prearranged design in front of Dechow’s Queen Street headquarters without realizing that the major was absent. Here, they dutifully awaited orders for some time, as if expecting Major Dechow to magically reappear, even after their five regimental colors had been brought forth from the major’s headquarters. Therefore, the entire fusilier regiment squandered the initial advantage of forming relatively quickly and early getting into action (including possibly attacking north up Queen Street if ordered) by wasting too much precious time—at least fifteen minutes—in not immediately reinforcing Rall’s two regiments on King Street to the west, before Sullivan struck the lower town and gained their attention.

  In consequence, the crack troops of the Knyphausen Regiment fusiliers now remained dutifully in formation waiting for Rall’s specific orders before Dechow’s quiet, darkened headquarters on Queen Street in the lower part of town: a lack of overall initiative and tactical flexibility that led to a waste of precious time when time was of the essence, especially when Rall’s other two regiments were yet attempting to recover from the shock of Washington’s surprise and under a blistering fire from two directions, north and west. Quite simply, top Knyphausen commanders demonstrated little, if any, personal initiative or imagination that diminished this fine regiment’s considerable combat capabilities. In Major Dechow’s absence, the finely aligned ranks of the regiment stood in a neat formation at Queen Street’s southern end between Front and Second Streets and below and southwest of the modest, plain-looking Quaker Meeting House, which had been the first church established in Trenton in 1739.

  Here, on low ground located just north of the foot of Queen Street at Front Street and above the Assunpink bridge, the well-trained Knyphausen fusiliers, especially the officers, continued to be severely restricted by their own superior training and Frederick the Great-inspired discipline that required them to remain dutifully in their assigned position—even if a bad one—if the brigade commander sent no specific instructions that dictated otherwise. Besides firmly fixing the Knyphausen Regiment to a stationary position and at a severe tactical disadvantage, this same tactical inflexibility also ensured a nearly flawless Frederickian close formation of Rall’s troops on King Street to guarantee that encroaching perimeter threats, especially from Mercer’s brigade encroaching from the west, not only went unchecked, but also continued to escalate.

  Indeed, the Hessians’ superior discipline in early forming for action, thanks to Rall’s precautions, in the streets worked decidedly against the Germans and their attempt to effectively counter Washington’s surprise attacks from two directions. Because these Teutonic soldiers were never trained or expected to fight in either urban or winter conditions—unlike the Pennsylvania and Virginia riflemen, especially hardy frontiersmen with French and Indian War experience, who knew how to keep their powder, muskets, and priming pans dry even in inclement winter weather—they were neither ready or properly clothed for winter combat. Consequently, Rall’s troops lacked winter clothing, including warm underwear and especially greatcoats, while standing stoically for an extended period in tight formation like revered Prussian troops in the middle of King Street and suffering from the storm’s wrath long before coming to grips with Washington’s men.

  At least the Americans, although ill-clothed and in tattered garments, had at least benefitted from an earlier opportunity to prepare, if only by wrapping additional dirty rags around bare feet, for active campaigning in winter weather, before crossing the Delaware. Yet wearing summer uniforms and for an extended period, Rall’s grenadiers and fusiliers stood in straight lines as designated by the rule book, while the snow, driven by the northeast wind, dropped in large flakes and lashed into their faces and eyes yet to see Washington’s men to the north.

  In addition, these young German soldiers wore black leather shoes long since worn-out and in bad shape from the long pursuit of Washington’s forces through New Jersey. Therefore, the feet of Rall’s men immediately became cold and wet, while they were standing in formation in the open streets of misery. Tall Mitre helmets, fronted with highly decorative intricate brass plates and without leather bills, failed to protect Hessian faces, ears, and eyes, while also making sight and sound more difficult amid the storm that swept down King Street.

  Even worse for German fortunes, the flintlock muskets and the black powder of Rall’s assembled soldiers were getting wet. No precautions had been taken into account for foul weather. After all, the Hessians were not trained or accustomed to campaigning and fighting in wintertime. All the while in the King Street sector, nevertheless, these seasoned grenadiers and fusiliers maintained their tight formations as if about to be inspected by their ruling prince, Frederick II, back on a bright spring morning in Hesse-Cassel. While their frozen breath hung in the air like a thick white smoke that hovered around faces and despite all the disadvantages that they now faced, these clean-shaven Teutonic warriors, with fixed bayonets and well-founded pride in their regiments, martial legacies, and distant Germanic homeland that they feared they would never see again, now presented Rall with an opportunity to strike bac
k at Washington.

  Unlike the Hessians before them, Washington’s most experienced riflemen from the western frontier, especially Colonel Hand’s marksmen of the crack First Pennsylvania Continental Regiment, of Fermoy’s Brigade, and now blocking the Princeton-Trenton Road just northwest of town, Colonel Ennion Williams’s First Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, of Stirling’s Brigade, and the Maryland Rifle Battalion faced no such comparable dilemma as wet black powder or lack of initiative. These Marylanders had been commanded by Colonel Moses Rawlings, who had been captured at Fort Washington in mid-November 1776.

  Flexible and innovative, these veteran American soldiers had already wisely utilized what was necessary to keep a hunter in the dense forests of western Pennsylvania and Maryland alive on the frontier, ensuring protection against Indians and placing food on tables in the dead of winter: leather lock scabbards, which were called a “cow’s knee” because of its peculiar shape, that protected the locks, priming pans, and firing mechanisms of their flintlock rifles in wet and snowy weather conditions. The savvy New Englanders of Rogers’ Rangers had utilized such effective winterizing protection during the French and Indian War. Quite possibly, the battle of Trenton was about to be decided in no small part because of this distinctive advantage over the Hessians in regard to firearm protection in inclement weather stemming from the northern and western frontier experience that now paid high dividends to Washington’s riflemen.

  With the esteemed Colonel Rawlings now suffering in stoic defiance as an abused prisoner in New York City along with a good many of his fellow Maryland riflemen, who had so severely punished Rall’s attackers at Fort Washington, where the colonel had suffered a serious hip wound, the surviving Maryland Rifle Battalion members now possessed plenty of old scores to settle with the Hessians. Yet known as Rawlings’ rifle battalion, this seasoned command consisted of deadly Maryland and Virginian marksmen. More than 450 sharp-eyed Pennsylvania veterans of both Hand and Williams’s rifle commands, representing adjoining states in rebellion, were now at Trenton at considerable risk not only to themselves, but also to their western frontier families, because Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania was not adequately defended as legislation had never been passed to form a protective state militia. Even more ironic, Washington’s finest riflemen now carried the sleek, finely crafted Long Rifle, possessing a lethal weapon from the western frontier. A product of the New World and western frontier experience and requirements that merged with traditional Old World designs, a legendary American firearm, that was lighter and longer than the Swiss-German Jaegar hunting rifle, first crafted ironically by German immigrant gunsmiths of Pennsylvania to create a superior long-range weapon.14 In the capable hands of Washington’s riflemen, the Long Rifle, sleek, lightweight at around nine pounds, and graceful, was so “fatally precise” in the hands of Washington’s riflemen that it became known among the British and Hessians as “the widow maker.”15

  In consequence, the most outstanding rifle regiment in Washington’s strike force was Colonel Hand’s First Pennsylvania Continental Regiment. First led by Irish Colonel William Thompson, now a hard-fighting Continental general, who had served as a resourceful frontier captain on the daring raid that destroyed the hostile Indian village of Kittanning back in September 1756, this exceptional Pennsylvania unit of highly motivated marksmen was also the senior rifle regiment in Washington’s Army. As part of Fermoy’s brigade on the far left just above the upper town and beyond the left flank of Washington’s lengthy row of artillery—or east of Baumann’s New York guns—and astride the Princeton-Trenton Road, Hand’s Pennsylvania soldiers now stood in formation amid a white shroud of freshly fallen snow under a beautiful “deep green” battle flag that snapped in the northeaster’s frigid gusts. The silk banner’s emerald green color reflected the distinguished historical and revolutionary legacies of the Green Isle homeland of their never-say-die commander, whom they adored, and the many Ireland-born riflemen serving in the ranks.

  Made by patriotic seamstresses in Philadelphia just in time for the showdown in the snows of Trenton, this colorful battle flag portrayed a fierce-looking tigress rushing its victim-combatant armed with a spear. Distinguished by the feisty Latin motto, “Domari Nolo,” or “I Refuse to be Subjugated,” this distinctive flag’s design was Colonel Hand’s own creation, reflecting common deep-seated Celtic-Gaelic revolutionary sentiments and legacies, especially spirited defiance against arbitrary and abusive authority. While their colorful battle flag was a real beauty and a source of regimental pride, the nondescript attire of Hand’s Pennsylvania boys was definitely not comparable. The fancy green uniform coats, another influential martial legacy from the Emerald Isle which equated to the revolutionary Irish tradition of the “wearing of the green,” that Hand had ordered for his elite riflemen were lost to them forever in the warehouses of Fort Lee when they were captured by Howe’s forces on November 20, 1776.

  By this time, Colonel Hand and his Pennsylvania troops, mostly rough-and-tumble western frontiersmen, were well seasoned, dependable, and tough. Washington, consequently, relied heavily upon their ability to effectively block the vital road leading northwest from Trenton to Princeton. Like Smallwood’s Marylanders and Haslet’s Delaware soldiers, Hand’s expert rifle regiment had received its baptismal fire before the battle of Long Island. Hand and his crack Pennsylvania riflemen had earned the distinction of having been the first American unit to harass the much-touted Hessians, when Howe’s forces initially landed on Long Island. Then, along with Smallwood’s Maryland and Haslet’s Delaware surviving troops, Hand’s Pennsylvania riflemen had remained on Long Island, under the commander-in-chief’s direct orders, after the battle as a trusty rear-guard to protect the army’s rear in a vital mission, while Glover’s mariners transported Washington’s surviving units across the East River to Manhattan Island’s safety. Because of the Pennsylvania rifle regiment’s reliability and elite qualities, the commander-in-chief continued to employ Hand and his seasoned riflemen in key roles throughout the Trenton-Princeton Campaign.16

  The time-honored, popular myth that Washington’s soldiers—based on only a single account by Mott who belatedly attempted to employ a handkerchief for firearm protection—held coat sleeves over the essential musket parts to keep them dry mile after mile so that they could be fired in the attack on Trenton has made little sense. Such unorganized, ad hoc precautionary procedures by individual soldiers could not possibly have been effective, given the combined effect of the difficulty in crossing the Delaware, the storm’s intensity, and a time-consuming nearly ten-mile march on Trenton.

  Quite simply, even a veteran Continental soldier could not have kept his musket protected with nothing more than his coat sleeve for more than twelve hours during such a lengthy, arduous ordeal. Soldiers’ garments were sufficiently soaked to offer little protection to keep firing mechanisms, especially the flintlock’s priming pan, dry. A heavy, sustained volume of fire of Mercer’s troops from the west was only now possible because so many soldiers had taken cover in houses, where they had wiped off their firing mechanisms to blast away. Here, they dried musket flints and priming pans, cleaning off weapons when under shelter to make them operable.

  All the while, the seemingly dazed Hessians, who had been asleep only a short time before, stood in formation with discipline and typical textbook order as ordered and expected, just as when they had smilingly watched the surrender of Fort Washington’s long line of humiliated prisoners under the mid-November sunshine that sparkled off the Hudson’s waters. And now standing up manfully to Knox’s severe artillery punishment from the north and Mercer’s gun fire from the west for long minutes that seemed like hours, the Rall Regiment grenadiers remained faithfully in formation as sitting ducks in King Street’s awful openness, close to the colonel’s headquarters near the town’s center, looming as exposed targets that could not be missed by veterans.

  Swept and blinded by the wind-driven flurries of snow, Rall’s soldiers, without proper winter uniform
s, stood in neat ranks to ensure a gradual, but thorough, erosion of firepower capabilities. Minute after minute, more snow and sleet rained down to thoroughly soak and chill the assembled Hessians, who suffered without greatcoats or winter uniforms, to the bone. Most importantly for the battle’s eventual outcome, the omnipresent deluge of snow dropped relentlessly on muskets, wetting firing mechanisms, including priming pans, which contained the small black powder to ignite charges. Therefore, the sparkling clean Prussia-made flintlocks, not manufactured or ready for winter campaigning, of hundreds of Hessians, who had taken great care to keep their weapons in perfect working order and dry in their sleeping quarters to face just such an early morning threat as now posed by Washington, became increasingly compromised hardly before the engagement began.

  While the storm also diminished the firing capabilities of Washington’s men in the open, except those of Mercer’s troops who had taken cover in houses on King Street’s west side, a number of other distinct advantages were yet presented by the inclement conditions to the homespun citizen soldiers. Fortunately for Washington and his troops, the falling snow helped to mask their tactical movements, the shifting of units, the sound from hundreds of treading feet, and the deployment of cannon. At this time, the Hessians were not yet fully aware of their own seriously degraded firing capabilities unlike Washington’s men, who had earlier discovered as much on the nightmarish march to Trenton.17

  But because they never had been trained how to fight a conventional battle in a severe snowstorm, or learned how to keep muskets dry in such adverse weather conditions, the Hessians unknowingly lost more precious firepower with each passing minute. Indeed, while Forrest, Hamilton, and Baumann’s cannon crashed loudly from the windswept heights above Trenton and hurled death their way, neither Rall nor his top officers noticed this stealthy, gradual erosion of combat capabilities.