George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Like Major Dechow in saving the lives of his Knyphausen troops and Scheffer in doing the same for the von Lossberg Regiment by having moved to less exposed positions to the east, meanwhile, Rall had once again wisely withdrew his grenadiers farther away from multiple encroaching fires that seemed to have no end. Consequently, like the von Lossberg fusiliers, the hard-hit grenadiers had initially shifted away in two directions from the wrath of Forrest’s artillery-fire: heading farther down King Street and then east by way of the sheltering alleys, especially Pinkerton’s Alley, perpendicular to King Street.

  Despite the noisy confusion and under skies that were as menacingly ominous as the fire of Washington’s sharpshooting riflemen, Rall rallied additional troops (no small accomplishment) from King Street, while most Rall Regiment grenadiers remained in a defensive position in the open ground to the rear of the Anglican Church, between King and Queen Streets and Church and in Pinkerton’s Alley just south of the church. All the while, Rall continued to display inspired leadership, refusing to concede the day. Riding back and forth in frantic haste and shouting encouragement, he instilled a measure of resolve and confidence in his grenadiers.

  Despite having been first caught by surprise and then repulsed in attacking up King Street, these Hessians proved to be highly durable and resilient troops, refusing to accept defeat at the hands of the detested Americans, who seemingly never won a battle. In terms of numbers and resolve, they had rallied sufficiently to yet retain the considerable offensive capabilities for yet another determined counterstroke if ordered, because these veterans were willing to follow Rall from hell and back, if he only led the way as so often in the past.

  With the tumult swirling around him, forty-six-year-old Major Ludwig August von Hanstein, a married man born in Obernhof with twenty-eight years of experience, of the von Lossberg Regiment, took action. At this time, the von Lossberg Regiment remained in position around a block north of the Rall Regiment—as the two regiments had been previously situated on King Street—after gaining Queen Street, north of the Knyphausen Regiment, by way of west-east running Church Alley. Hanstein emphatically appealed to the colonel, who was yet attempting to sort everything out of the swirling chaos and fog of war. The tactically astute major implored Rall to order an immediate frontal attack north up Queen Street. All in all, a determined Hessian counterattack up Queen Street made good tactical sense to the receptive Rall, promising to outflank from the east the Virginian’s deep, southward penetration down King Street. Therefore, an advance up Queen Street now offered Rall a viable tactical solution, or so it seemed.

  After all, by this time, even more of King Street’s extensive length was firmly in American hands, with gains extending a good distance below Petty’s Run. Indeed, Stirling’s foremost troops—while other soldiers remained at King Street’s head to protect the high ground perch—on the brigade’s right-center and center had also advanced down the King Street’s northern end, swinging east to push past the deserted, dark houses and through the icy alleys between King and Queen Streets to close in on Queen Street’s west side, after crossing to the south side Petty’s Run.

  Meanwhile, to the southwest, Sullivan’s foremost First Division attackers, Flahaven’s New Jersey men, swarmed deeper into the town’s southwestern outskirts with cheers and muskets blazing, as they had already unleashed a hot fire into an exposed portion of the von Lossberg Regiment’s left-rear after Scheffer’s fusiliers had fallen back south with their repulse on King Street, and before they slipped eastward toward Queen Street to find better protection. By this time, the overall tactical situation was desperate for the Rall brigade, with blistering fires from the north (Stirling), west (Mercer), and southwest (Sullivan) raking the Hessians now caught amid the horror of urban combat during a raging snowstorm that impaired visibility and fueled confusion. In helping to convince Rall of the tactical wisdom of attacking north up Queen Street, meanwhile, Major Hanstein continued to argue in no uncertain terms how:“If you will not let us press forward up this street [Queen], then we must retreat to the bridge [across the Assunpink]; otherwise the whole affair will end disastrously.”35

  With his own aggressive instincts rising to the fore, therefore, Rall began to shift his fusilier companies of Scheffer’s regiment farther east along Church Alley, between King and Queen Streets, to form up the von Lossberg Regiment roughly at a midpoint in snowy Queen Street in preparation to once again launch another counterattack north. Armed with fusils, rather than standard smoothbore muskets, and with bayonets fixed, the von Lossberg fusiliers made ready to surge up Queen Street in yet another offensive effort. Clearly, Rall was determined to regain the initiative at all costs. Once again Rall’s favorite grenadiers, who were of only average height rather than much taller which was usually the case for these crack troops, prepared to attack up the slope with the bayonet.

  Most importantly, Rall’s next offensive effort was now bolstered by the two Knyphausen Regiment guns. The two Knyphausen Regiment three-pounders were now with the von Lossberg Regiment, restoring confidence among the grenadiers after the bloody King Street repulse. After King Street just to the west had been lost, Rall was determined to tighten his grip on Queen Street, after Major Dechow had left a void in having earlier ordered his Knyphausen Regiment south to near the Quaker Meeting House to escape the cannon-fire from Hamilton’s and Baumann’s guns streaming down Queen Street and the increasing flank fire from the west by the foremost of Mercer’s onrushing soldiers, especially the sharp-shooting riflemen of the Maryland Rifle Battalion, and those foremost attackers of Mercer’s and Stirling’s brigades, who had crossed to King Street’s east side on the north.

  Despite all of the recent setbacks and spiraling casualties, Colonel Rall was confident for success because the von Lossberg guns now bolstered the Knyphausen Regiment, adding much-needed strength, enhancing combat capabilities, and raising morale of the men in the ranks. Ironically, all four three-pounders of the Rall brigade were now with the wrong regiments at this time, which indicated the amount of confusion wrought by the fury of Washington’s surprise attack. With a flurry of hectic movement, brightly colored Hessian regimental flags were quickly passed to the front to take their usual places in the front-center of each regimental formation. Finely uniformed officers with their long hair tied in stylish queues, dressed the lengthy ranks, while German musicians, including those same young drummer boys who had scampered up the cliffs during the attack on Fort Washington while American bullets whistled by, struck up a martial air to inspire regimental members as on so many past battlefields where impressive victories had been won.

  With renewed determination to yet redeem the day in part because of some slackening of American gunfire due to wet powder and muskets, a reinvigorated Rall screamed out orders for Lieutenant Colonel Francis Scheffer and his crack Lossberg fusilier “to clear” Queen Street of the foremost groups of Stirling’s and Mercer’s troops to the north. Displaying the same kind of aggressiveness that had so gallantly carried the high ground at Fort Washington in one bold rush, Rall screamed, “Forward March!” The lengthy line of von Lossberg fusiliers surged ahead up the snow-covered slope with confidence in a much-feared bayonet attack up Queen Street.

  Moving relentlessly forward with a momentum all its own, this determined assault was led by Scheffer, who commanded the six veteran companies of the von Lossberg Regiment. Flapping in the wintry gales sweeping off the heights, the large Hesse eagle and motto of “Pro Principe et Patrica,” embroidered in gold silk, adorned across the von Lossberg battle flags inspired the advancing fusiliers, who now embarked upon their second offensive thrust of the morning and straight north toward Knox’s awaiting cannon. But this time and unlike when Rall’s grenadiers had spearheaded the first counterattack up King Street now strewn with Hessian bodies, the von Lossbergers launched their own assault, heading north up Queen Street with confidence and closer to the killing zone of Captain Hamilton’s and Baumann’s New York guns. Meanwhile, just to the west,
Rall simultaneously encouraged his disciplined grenadiers west along Pinkerton’s Alley and toward King Street in the hope of regaining his two lost cannon: a humiliating setback that nagged at his soldier’s conscience and pride.

  Seasoned Von Lossbergers moved steadily north up the gentle slope with firm step and fixed bayonets. Scheffer led the way, urging everyone forward into the face of the snow flurries. Born in the town of Hermsdorf which was nestled amid the virgin evergreen forests of east Prussia in 1722, Scheffer was an inspirational commander with thirty-five years of solid experience that now rose to the fore in splendid fashion. But not long after having turned north to advance up Queen Street from the relative shelter of Church Alley, the von Lossberg regiment’s vanguard was raked with round shot fired from Hamilton’s two New York six-pounders and Baumann’s three-pounders that hurled a hail of projectiles straight down Queen Street, which became a shooting gallery as deadly as nearby King Street.

  However, Rall’s grenadiers possessed even less chance for achieving gains in surging toward King Street because the Virginians, both Captain Washington’s vanguard and the Third Virginia, had already advanced so far south down King Street and Mercer’s troops had surged farther eastward. Therefore, Rall’s grenadiers were almost immediately rudely greeted by an explosion of musket and rifle fire that erupted from the rifles and smoothbore muskets of Mercer and Stirling’s troops east of King Street. Additionally, Sergeant White and his New England and Pennsylvania gunners and Knox’s extra gun crew also blasted away at Rall’s grenadiers with the two captured Hessian guns at close range, after turning around the three-pounders to face east in anticipating Rall’s spirited resurgence. Therefore, the grenadier’s tentative surge toward King Street was stopped hardly before it had begun along Pinkerton’s Alley that had become a death trap for Rall’s most prized soldiers: an ill-fated, almost hesitant advance that got nowhere under a furious storm of lead and with elated Americans seemingly swarming everywhere through the town, now shrouded with a thick pall of battle-smoke, which had been transformed into a raging battlefield.

  Through the storm of projectiles and nature’s wrath, the hard-hit Rall Regiment fell back under the punishment, retiring east to regroup and lick its wounds. For the second time, the much-touted grenadiers, who had never known defeat, had been repulsed to Rall’s utter disbelief. To escape the swirling urban combat, the Rall Regiment troops limped back east through Pinkerton’s Alley toward Queen Street. Understandably, the troops of Mercer’s brigade, seasoned Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts boys, were emboldened by the rather remarkable sight of these fabled grenadiers, battered and bruised, retreating east, leaving their dead behind them.

  Raising a resounding victory cheer, the elated Americans pursued their reeling opponent to exploit their success and the tactical opportunity, charging eastward through the blizzard of snow and drifting palls of battle-smoke. After repulsing the finely uniformed grenadiers and advancing east through the dark alleys and between the snow-covered houses to take up new firing positions vacant wooden structures along the west side of Queen Street, behind fences, and in backyards around smokehouses, outhouses, and wells, Mercer’s marksmen now spied new and most lucrative targets to the east: the suddenly exposed left flank of the von Lossberg Regiment advancing relentlessly up Queen Street, surging north with flags flying, bayonets flashing, and drums beating. Now unleashing a vicious fire on the vulnerable left flank of the Scheffer’s fusiliers, Mercer’s opportunistic infantrymen, including men advancing closer and fighting on their own hook, had fully exploited the tactical advantages bestowed by Rall Regiment’s repulse just west of Queen Street.

  Caught in a deadly quandary, the von Lossberg regiment was especially devastated by the fire of Hamilton’s six-pounders at Queen Street’s head. From their elevated terrain, the fairly salivating New York gunners unleashed blasts of canister down the long slope that tore remorselessly through the fusilier’s ranks. At even closer range, scorching enfilade fires from the west poured forth from Stirling, Haslet, and Mercer’s riflemen, from north to south respectively, who had surged forward in pursuit of Rall’s hard-hit grenadiers, when they limped eastward and all the way to Queen Street. Because the grenadiers had been thwarted more quickly in attacking west of Queen Street than the von Lossberger’s northward surge up Queen Street, Scheffer’s counterattack was thoroughly outflanked and hence doomed to failure.

  Consequently, the von Lossbergers took severe punishment from both north and west, causing an ever-increasing number of fusilier bodies to litter Queen Street. The fallen Hessians stained the snow-covered artery in bright red, leaving Prussian-style weapons and the debris of accouterments scattered across the road. After having just rejoined his fusilier regiment with his powder-streaked pickets from the northern part of Queen Street in the upper town, Captain Altenbockum’s band of warriors was caught in an exposed position. A volley exploded from attackers on the left of Stirling’s Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Delaware brigade and tore down Queen Street, striking Altenbockum and killing two of his men, Heinrich Spier and Heinrich Baude of Wieden, Bavaria, in today’s southeast Germany.

  Suffering a grazing head wound when a bullet broke the skin and splattered him with blood, the highly respected captain was knocked unconscious, dropping to the snowy ground. Altenbockum, however, was soon revived by his men. He then managed to get back to his feet with assistance. While his head was hastily bandaged, the resilient captain was determined to stay in action as long as possible to share the fate of his tough fusilier comrades whatever that may be. Gamely shaking off the pain, the half-dazed Altenbockum continued to encourage his hard-fighting men, who busily loaded and fired at their swarming tormentors.

  Only age seventeen but with four years of solid service, Ensign Franz Friedrich Grabe, who had been born in Rinteln, Hesse-Cassel, took over the hard-hit company, leading the battered left of the von Lossberg Regiment. But in the same volley that dropped Altenbockum, other von Lossberg fusiliers went down to rise no more, such as Sergeant Christian Eyssel, who hailed from the rolling, neatly cultivated hills of the Rinteln area. Both Eyssel and Baude were members of Captain Altenbockum’s company that had picketed the Pennington Road until they had been swept aside by the onrushing Virginians. As earlier on body-covered King Street, the von Lossbergers lost more good men for no tactical gain or glory in suffering another bloody setback, but this time on Queen Street.

  Indeed, in record time, the smartly uniformed Lossbergers suffered the identical dismal fate (hit by fires from multiple directions) earlier suffered by the Rall Regiment just to the west: punished by artillery—Hamilton’s two barking six-pounders at the head of Queen Street and Baumann’s nearby three three-pounders—from the front and by a hail of musket and riflefire of Mercer’s and Stirling’s troops from the west, or flank, and front, respectively. Even the Knyphausen Regiment’s cannon had proved ineffective in adequately supporting Rall’s bold offensive effort straight up the broad stretch of Queen Street.

  As Washington had long known with certainty, no troops, no matter how experienced or disciplined, could long withstand such concentrated and severe artillery punishment, especially from a dominant, high ground position. Consequently, and as ordered by Rall, the badly chastised von Lossberg Regiment, now situated just north of the Rall Regiment, began to fall back toward the town’s east side to escape the leaden storm sweeping down Queen Street. The grim harvest reaped by Hamilton’s and Baumann’s death-dealing row of New York field pieces, State and Continental, respectively, created a good many new widows and orphans across the land that would become Germany one day.

  Then, to exploit the sudden withdrawal of the von Lossbergers, Stirling’s soldiers, mostly the brigade’s left, renewed their push down the northern part of Queen Street, now lined with debris of battle, broken German dreams, and bodies. Wrapped in their odd assortment of ragged civilian winter apparel and parts of well-worn uniforms, these veterans now surged south with banners, most likely Liberty flags
since the Stars and Stripes was not yet adopted by the fledgling nation, waving through the steady deluge of snowflakes, while a chorus of American cheers rose higher in the sulphurous haze laying low over Trenton. However, the overall lack of close coordination and the time lapse (inevitable during a snowstorm and swirling urban combat) between Captain Washington’s and Lieutenant Monroe’s earlier attack down King Street before the advance of the left of Stirling’s brigade south and down on the parallel street (Queen) had bought Rall some precious time and a badly needed respite.36

  Indeed, as ordered by Colonel Rall to duplicate the eastward withdrawal of his own grenadier regiment, the battered von Lossbergers retired slightly northeastward and farther off bloody Queen Street and toward the head of the small, snow-covered avenue known to locals as Dark Lane, that ran northeast from Queen Street and parallel to the Princeton-Trenton Road to the north, and the lower ground and relatively slight natural cover along Petty’s Run to escape the brutal punishment. Yet mounted and exposed, Rall accompanied the mauled von Lossberg fusiliers slightly northeast through the choking battle-smoke, while a handful of reliable grenadiers of his own regiment guarded the fusilier’s rear in protective fashion to keep the surging Americans at bay.

  Meanwhile, just to the south, Ensign Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmidt, adjutant of the Rall Regiment, likewise led the Rall Regiment on a parallel course northeastward toward the open ground east of town. Clearly, escaping the deadly fires and confused street fighting of Trenton—a raging urban environment that had become almost a mini-Stalingrad-like struggle to the greatest disadvantage to such conventionally trained troops as the Hessians—was now the top priority of Rall and his hard-hit men.