George Washington's Surprise Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Like a well-oiled machine, grenadiers and fusiliers surged onward through the snow flurries, moving parallel to that ice-covered watercourse. Proud veterans of the von Lossberg Regiment and Rall Regiment, from north to south, pushed forward with fixed bayonets “to recapture the cannons” of the Rall Regiment, in the words of Private Johannes Ruber, the seventeen-year-old grenadier. All the while, the spirited beating of the Hessian drums rose higher and split the morning air, alerting Washington’s troops of the full-scale assault and allowing them time for appropriate preparations. However, Rall’s final opportunity to reap a dramatic tactical success had been already largely negated by one single misunderstood order, thanks to the confusing fog of war that helped to doom what should have been the mightiest, and very likely overwhelming, Hessian offensive effort—from all three regiments—of the day.

  Unfortunately for Rall, meanwhile, the Knyphausen Regiment, including much-needed fighting men like eighteen-year-old Ensign Wilhelm von Drach, born in Ellrichshausen, continued to push relentlessly onward in another direction entirely different from his two other regiments. Hundreds of Dechow’s experienced fusiliers now marched not side by side with their sister regiments advancing on a western course, but due south and all alone.

  In misinterpreting Rall’s verbal directive communicated by a Knyphausen officer, Dechow evidently believed—and this made some sound tactical sense for perhaps yet thwarting Washington’s double envelopment—that Rall would push Greene’s Second Division troops out of Trenton’s northern end, while he would accomplish the same tactical feat against Sullivan’s First Division troops in the lower town in a dual offensive effort: a last-ditch attempt to reverse the extensive gains of the Americans and to pry open the closing arms of Washington’s pincer movement meant to encircle the Rall brigade and destroy it. In addition, the left flank of Rall’s two counterattacking regiments on the south needed protection against Sullivan’s surging troops, especially its highly mobile guns that moved forward through the streets as flying artillery. And Major Dechow, who had served in the Prussian Army under Frederick the Great, knew that this pressing tactical objective of protecting the vulnerable flank of Rall’s assault on Trenton could only be accomplished by the Knyphausen Regiment moving south instead of west to give a chance for Rall’s counterattack to succeed.

  Indeed, if all three regiments had advanced together west into the northwestern edge of Trenton as Rall wished, then their collective left flank would be completely exposed to a flank fire from Sullivan’s Division to the south. Consequently, the tactical concept that the Knyphausen Regiment should protect the southern end, or left flank, of Rall’s frontal assault back into the maelstrom of Trenton made such good tactical sense that Lieutenant Wiederhold, and no doubt other experienced officers as well, now believed that his fusilier regiment “had been ordered to cover the [left or southern] flank:” an exposed flank that would shortly be hit by Sullivan’s troops attacking north up King Street at the most critical moment.

  Consequently, Rall’s jumbled order that the Knyphausen Regiment “should march about left,” had resulted in the fact that the Rall brigade was once again separated in a key battlefield situation as throughout this morning of decision: the old classic case of divide-and-conquer. Amid the thick layers of battle-smoke hovering over the frozen field and the cascading snow showers that refused to let up, Rall had failed to see this startling tactical development that had so suddenly taken place just beyond the Rall Regiment’s left, or southern, flank: the von Knyhausen Regiment was in fact moving off at a good pace in the wrong direction—south—while he led the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments west.

  Most of all, Colonel Rall needed all three regiments together because he now hoped to reverse the day’s fortunes by negating the dramatic gains achieved by Washington’s left wing, Greene’s Second Division, by prying open one-half of the lethal pincer movement to upset the double envelopment by regaining control of King Street, especially the high ground at the street’s head. Because the apple orchard was located just below Petty’s Run and only slightly northeast of his old King Street headquarters at Stacy Potts’s house near the town’s center, Rall led his two regiments in a slightly southwest direction. Before reaching the first small wooden houses on the town’s northeast outskirts, the lengthy Hessian formation of two regiments pushed across open country west of the apple orchard and north of Perry Street, a block above Fourth Street, running parallel to Petty’s Run to the north. Perry Street was the northernmost street to enter Queen Street, before eventually entering King Street, one block to the west.

  Imploring everyone onward while the sharp rattling of Hessian drums echoed louder through the streets to warn Washington’s men, Rall led his grenadiers and fusiliers toward the old battleground of King Street, where bodies of dead, wounded, and dying comrades lay in the snow, as if certain of reaping yet another victory over the rustic Americans as so often in the past. Rall directed his two regiments, moving with disciplined ease, toward the relative shelter offered by the northern row of wood-frame houses on Perry Street to avoid the blistering fire of Washington’s cannons on the high ground above, especially Hamilton’s two New York six-pounders that had eased down Queen Street to an advanced position just below Queen Street’s head.

  Meanwhile, Haslet and Mercer’s infantrymen were already ready and waiting in good firing positions with loaded flintlocks in and around the mid-section of the town’s eastern outskirts, after having sprinted across Queen Street to take good firing positions from the vantage point of second-story houses that overlooked the snowy approaches and open ground to the east. Here, from the protective cover and especially from the lofty perch of wide-open second story windows that allowed gusts of freezing air inside, these veteran marksmen prepared to deliver more punishment upon the fast-approaching Rall and von Lossberg Regiments. All the while, Rall’s two embattled regiments surged relentlessly onward and roughly parallel to the Princeton-Trenton Road, nearing the town’s eastern edge.

  As if nothing could stop it, Rall’s lengthy formation rolled over the open fields of white just east of the town’s eastern outskirts, until rudely greeted by a fiery explosion of gunfire that erupted from doorways and windows, including two-story vantage points, and from behind wells, wooden fences, smokehouses, cellarways, and outhouses on the town’s east side. To the Hessians who continued onward through the leaden storm, it now seemed that “Americans [were] firing from every window” of every house in Trenton.

  Additionally, Forrest’s “flying” artillery, under Irish Lieutenant Duffy, in King Street had been pushed east by the hardworking Pennsylvania artillerymen toward Queen Street and now opened fire. The two captured Rall Regiment cannon, brought south down debris-strewn King Street from where they had been taken just north of Petty’s Creek, were also in action, blazing away. Sergeant White and his New Englanders and Pennsylvania gunners blasted away with one three-pounder while the other gun was fired by Knox’s preassigned gun crew. These veteran artillerymen relished using the German’s own ammunition to cause havoc among the advancing Hessians.

  But the most punishment delivered upon Rall’s counterattackers stemmed from a blistering fire unleashed by Mercer’s Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts men, with dried muskets, firing pans, flints, and plenty of equally dry black powder. Taking careful aim, these savvy veterans blasted away from the west at Rall’s foremost ranks, while Haslet’s Delaware Continentals, above Mercer, and some of Stirling’s men from the brigade’s right fired from the northwest and Stark’s New Hampshire soldiers fired northeastward from the south and into Rall’s exposed left flank. Not committing the folly of marching through the open fields and meadows, just south of Petty’s Run, to the north, the von Lossberg fusiliers gained the vicinity of Perry Street, where houses on the street’s north side offered some protection, while the grenadiers just to the south surged west in the Fourth Street sector. By this time, Rall’s two resurgent regiments again neared embattled Queen Street, with Sc
hneffer’s von Lossbergers continuing to advance above, or north, of Rall’s grenadiers, who pushed toward Rall’s King Street headquarters near the town’s center. Then, just below the head of Queen Street on the open slope, Hamilton’s New York guns unleashed fire from the north, raking the von Lossberg Regiment’s right flank once exposed in the street. Blasts of canister swept down Queen Street and into the von Lossberger’s exposed right flank, dropping more young fusiliers in the snow. But most of the Lossbergers, like Lieutenant Ludwig Wilhelm Keller who died of disease in October 1777, survived the hail of lead and continued onward, following their colorful battle flags in the tempest. Caught in the open and without any cover, Rall’s troops, especially on the north, were so hard-hit by the maelstrom of projectiles, including from Baumann’s guns to the left-rear of Hamilton’s artillery, that some confusion resulted. Nevertheless, Rall’s two regiments somehow continued to push onward and across Queen Street under fire, while the Germans continued to ignore not only their losses but also their greatly reduced capabilities to return fire with wet muskets and ammunition.

  In the meantime, Rall and other experienced officers restored order in the shaky ranks on the hard-hit right. Running the deadly gauntlet, the grenadiers and fusiliers continued to push west through the storm, both leaden and from Mother Nature. Finally, after passing across the killing ground of bullet- and cannonball-swept Queen Street, the steadily advancing Hessians then entered the more sheltered area between King and Queen Streets, especially protective Church Alley. Mounted before his surging troops and with snow-laden houses spitting fire and seemingly overflowing with sharp-eyed American marksmen, a mounted Rall suffered a “slight wound.” But the colonel ignored the pain, remaining in front of his troops to set the inspirational example, waving his saber and shouting orders.

  Colonel Rall then continued to lead his grenadiers toward King Street in a determined bid to regain possession of his old headquarters and his two lost cannon that had been brought farther south by the victors from where they had been captured just north of Petty’s Run. While a hail of bullets zipped by, Rall implored his troops farther west by way of the relative shelter of Church Alley, which led straight to his headquarters near King Street’s midpoint. Amid the excitement of battle and only concerned about salvaging a no-win situation, Rall was evidently not aware of steadily growing weaker from the loss of blood from his wound.

  Farther south in the smoke-laced lower town, meanwhile, Sullivan’s veterans continued to perform exceptionally well. Leading his hard-charging brigade of New Hampshire and Massachusetts Continentals, General St. Clair’s experience as a respected British officer under General James Wolfe, who was a Culloden veteran like Mercer but on the winning side, in the decisive English victory at Quebec in 1759, continued to pay dividends. “Genl Saint Clear,” in one New England soldier’s words, was popular among his Continentals, who fought as much for him as for heady Age of Enlightenment ideology. The tactically astute Scotsman’s leadership experience now translated into a long line of his veterans blasting away at the Rall Regiment’s exposed left flank and inflicting damage.6

  As Haslet and Mercer’s riflemen punished the dark-colored ranks of Rall’s disciplined grenadiers surging west through the whipping wind and snow flurries, additional troops on the right-center of Stirling’s brigade continued to ease southeast down the sloping ground at the town’s north end while firing to bring heavier pressure on Rall’s vulnerable right flank. More importantly to the south, a New England regiment of St. Clair’s brigade, the reserve unit of Sullivan’s First Division column and in the rear, was ordered farther north up King Street not only to fulfill Washington’s tactical ambitions of uniting with Greene’s Second Division, but also to intercept head-on Rall’s desperate attempt to regain King Street at any cost. With battle flags flying and an eagerness to meet the Hessians, Colonel John Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts Continentals pushed north to parry Rall’s counterattack, heading toward the Rall Regiment’s exposed left flank as it neared its tactical objective of King Street.

  While the foremost three New Hampshire regiments of four-regiment St. Clair’s New England brigade had surged east in pursuit of the Knyphausen Regiment, after crossing King Street to eventually gain the vicinity of Queen Street just below Mercer’s men, the last regiment—St. Clair’s rearmost unit, Colonel John Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts Continental Regiment—had turned north and now advanced up King Street. In pushing north with smooth-bore flintlocks on shoulders, Paterson, a Yale graduate, and his Massachusetts troops were in an advantageous position to confront the fast-emerging threat of Rall’s counterattack, steamrolling toward King Street, to the northeast. But Paterson’s veteran Bay State regiment was not alone in advancing north to intercept Rall’s counterattack. The Sixteenth Massachusetts Continental Infantry, Sargent’s brigade, was also hurled north up King Street, by either Sargent or Sullivan, to support the northward advance of Paterson’s Fifteenth Massachusetts up King Street in the bid to head off Hessian westward counterattack now targeting Rall’s headquarters.

  With Mercer in front to the west, Haslet to the northwest, Stirling to the north, and St. Clair south of Rall’s two advancing regiments and while two Massachusetts Continental Regiments rushed north up King Street to intercept Rall’s desperate bid calculated to regain King Street, Washington’s First and Second Divisions continued to gradually move nearer to each other to close the noose around the two advancing Hessian regiments, which were now unknowingly entering a deadly trap. Consequently, and unknown to Rall, the jaws of Washington’s pincers were finally about to slam shut on King Street and on the final Hessian ambitions on December 26. Evidently, Haslet and Mercer’s riflemen immediately before Rall’s advance retired back from the foremost houses on the town’s eastern outskirts to lure—although out of necessity rather than by deliberate design or plan—Rall’s two regiments deeper into the heart of town.

  Worst of all for Rall although he did not realize it at the time, some enterprising Americans, mostly likely Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Maryland riflemen, remained inside houses to allow the Hessian formations to pass by. These opportunistic soldiers then pushed forward to ease around the flanks of Rall’s two regiments, getting into advantageous positions behind the advancing Hessian formations to threaten a complete encirclement. Meanwhile, isolated bands of Washington’s troops continued to gain ground in other sectors, rushing ahead to find better firing positions to inflict more damage upon the German interlopers. Meanwhile, with each passing minute in surging farther west and deeper into Trenton, Rall’s two regiments found themselves even more isolated, becoming separated farther from the Knyphausen Regiment to the south. Indeed, Major Dechow and his fusiliers had not only withdrawn farther south down Queen Street but also were forced by Sullivan’s northernmost attackers farther southwest of Rall’s counterattack, to where they could offer no assistance when most needed by Rall to the north.

  All the while, the clatter of musketry erupting from Washington’s men picked up in volume and intensity, with lucrative targets, especially Hessian officers in resplendent uniforms, closer and easier for sharpshooting veterans to hit, especially with clean head shots, during Rall’s thrust back into Trenton. Rall’s two regiments marched west along narrow, darkened avenues lined with flashes of American gun fire. Leaping flames of musket-fire licked at and raked the Rall and von Lossberg Regiments from three sides, and especially at the exposed flanks: along with officers leading the way through the storm of crackling musketry, these were the coveted targets of opportunity for Washington’s marksmen armed with Long Rifles. During his determined push west to regain King Street in his headquarters area, Rall led his fusilier and grenadier regiments into a three-quarters circle of blazing gunfire, amid a sulphurous cauldron of intensifying close-range combat, which made the Hessians even more vulnerable.

  After running the gauntlet and somehow reaching a “place obliquely opposite Rall’s quarters,” in the words of thirty-year-old Lieut
enant Ernst Christian Schwabe, who indicated how far the von Lossbergers, led by the stalwarts of the “body company” of which he was a proud member, had now advanced west to a point just northeast of Stacy Potts’s house, the Hessians now found themselves in the very vortex of Trenton’s fiery storm. With wet muskets and firing pans, a large percentage of Rall’s men could no longer return fire, however. In easing closer to Rall’s tactical objective of reaching King Street, the battle-hardened grenadiers and von Lossberg fusiliers were consumed by a surreal nightmare of bitter, close-range combat in a confused urban setting, which was dominated by thick layers of battle-smoke, too many swarming American soldiers to count, and an ugly death that could come at any moment.7

  In the embattled northern sector located just above Church Alley, where the blaze of musketry directed upon the von Lossberg fusiliers on the north became even heavier when “obliquely opposite Rall’s quarters” at the two-story Potts’s house, Lieutenant Schwabe wondered if he would ever see his native Rinteln again. He never forgot the vicious swirl of a full-blown urban conflict that raged like an uncontrollable wildfire around him. Here, in this hellish sector, the von Lossbergers “fired on the enemy who were hidden in the houses, cellars and behind fences . . . and through a continual snowfall and heavy rain and the men’s guns would not in some instances fire off any longer.”8

  In desperation, Captain Adam Christoph Steding, age thirty-nine, yelled for his frustrated von Lossberg fusiliers to chip their musket flints in the hope that fresh sparks from newly cut—or dry—flints (something that the Americans had already done) might ignite powder charges in smoothbore muskets. Clearly, this hard-fighting bachelor from the little town of Fischbeck near Rinteln who possessed more than two decades of solid military experience, knew exactly what to do in this emergency situation. Steding’s fast-thinking initiative might have succeeded except that the black powder in most German’s muskets, and evidently leather cartridge-boxes as well, was wet by this time, negating the impact of larger sparks from steel hammers striking re-cut musket flints to ignite powder charges in musket barrels.9