by Ann Rinaldi
Having missed the chance to capture and destroy Washington’s force, General Howe and Lord Charles Cornwallis and the British army settled down for the winter in New Jersey. Posts were established at Bordentown, Penny Town (Pennington), Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick. General Howe announced an offer of pardon to those Americans who would take an oath of loyalty to the king, and many did.
Meanwhile, Washington’s army stood on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, freezing and waiting. Many men were sick, and all were poorly clothed. Enlistments would be up on December 31. Then there would no longer be an army unless morale and spirits could be raised. Only a victory would give life to the dying cause. Washington knew this and formed a plan to cross the ice-clogged Delaware River on Christmas and attack and take the town of Trenton. He conferred with his officers—Generals Sullivan, Mercer, Lord Stirling, and St. Clair, Major General Greene, Colonel Knox and others. The plan to take Trenton was kept secret, even from the enlisted men who were about to take part in the crossing. Washington’s army in Pennsylvania was joined by Continental troops who had been left in New York before the retreat. New Jersey militia (citizen-soldiers who fought and went home after fighting) harassed the British and Hessians (paid German soldiers fighting for King George) at the Trenton outposts every chance they got.
“I think the game is pretty near up,” Washington wrote to his brother. But he did not for a moment weaken in his high resolve. Aided by secret information given to him by spies, Washington did not hesitate to take the gamble and attack Trenton. But first he had to cross the icy Delaware River, under cover of darkness, with 2,400 men and horses and artillery.
Safe in their winter quarters in Trenton, where they were celebrating Christmas, the Hessians, under the command of Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall, did not expect the attack. The crossing took longer than planned because of the weather. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning of December 26 before Washington’s army was across the Delaware and the march on Trenton could begin.
This, then, is the historical background for my story. I have done my utmost to preserve the historical integrity of the Revolutionary era. During the Hessian occupation of Trenton in 1776, for example, no Americans were killed. In keeping with this fact, I have one American in my fictional family who is killed, lured out of town by the British. I have been careful not to tamper with the character of General Washington or any other important historical figure of the day. In doing research, I found that information about townspeople who stayed in Trenton at the time of the battle is scarce. It took me three months of research to find personal papers of a family who stayed in Trenton at the time of the battle.
The Emerson family is fictional, as are the Moores, John Reid, grandfathers Emerson and Henshaw, Canoe, Lucy, and Cornelius. But there were Indians living in Trenton at the time as well as black slaves and certainly many Quakers. Reverend Panton of St. Michael’s and Reverend Spencer of the First Presbyterian, John Barnes, Stacy Potts, Isaac Allen, Daniel Coxe, Sam Henry, Dr. William Bryant, and others all actually lived in Trenton at the time, as did Sam Tucker, head of the Provincial Congress (the congress the colony of New Jersey organized to assume the power of government for those who wanted independence, since the New Jersey Assembly, under Royal Governor William Franklin, was split over the issue).
John Fitch, a staunch Patriot in Trenton, was later credited as being one of the inventors of the steamboat. Captain Andrew Bygrave and Lieutenant Colonel William Harcourt of the 16th Light Dragoons were two of twenty British in town at the time. I have used them in the book for my own purposes.
The Battle of Trenton marked an important turning point in the American Revolution. In one brilliant stroke, General Washington turned a ragtag, starving, ill-dressed, and defeated band of Rebels into a victorious army that defeated the most powerful army in the world—the British and their Hessian mercenaries. It brought confidence back to the cause for independence. Hundreds of men rallied to join Washington’s ranks, and many people contributed much-needed money. It revived the hopes of not only the American people, but of the army itself and the Continental Congress. It proved that Washington was more than a capable commander in chief, that more victories were possible in the future, and that the American army need never again apologize for not being able to stand up against a foreign power.
Ann Rinaldi
September 15, 1985
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have reached completion without the support, friendship, and inspiration of many good people, some of whom I would like to thank here.
For their kindness and assistance, the staffs of both the Academy Street and Cadwalader branches of the Trenton Public Library. For continued encouragement and friendship, the staff of Washington Crossing State Park, Washington Crossing, Pa., where my family and I have been taking part in the Crossing since 1976; Kels Swan, curator of Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, N.J.; the good people at Historic Summerseat in Morrisville, Pa.; Cynthia Koch, Director, and the staff of the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton; Charlotte Gulliver, curator of the Trent House, Trenton; Mary Alice Quigley of the New Jersey Historical Commission; Loretta Brennan of the New Jersey School Boards Association, for her invaluable support when I needed it most; the Staff of Dey Mansion in Wayne, N.J., and the Passaic County Park Commission, for allowing us to use the mansion for artwork for the cover since this is the house I had in mind for the Emerson family in my book; Emil Slaboda, editor of The Trentonian newspaper, for sending me on a story about the 200th anniversary of the crossing of the Delaware in 1976; Reverend John Wiley Nelson of the First Presbyterian Church, whose sermon about the concept of freedom in 1776 made me decide to set my story in Trenton; and Reverend Raul Mattei of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, where so many prominent citizens of Trenton from 1776 are buried in the historic cemetery.
Thanks also to the men, women, and children of the Brigade of the American Revolution with whom I have traveled from Georgia to Canada to reenact America’s struggle for independence; in particular the Egg Harbor Guard and the Bergen County Militia, for providing the color, drama, and pageantry that gave me a feeling for the era; my writer friends Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Gina Cascone, Barbara Cohen, Judith Gorog, and Avi Wortis (who said write it), and historian and fellow journalist Bill Dwyer, for their continued patience, listening, and advice; my husband, Ron, for his devotion and understanding; my daughter, Marcella, for posing as Jem for the book cover and for her services as courier with the manuscript on her many trips to New York City; my son, Ron, not only for posing as John Reid for the cover, but also for his rendering of maps for the book, the use of his extensive library on the American Revolution, for continually lending his historical expertise, and for being the original catalyst who encouraged my interest in our country’s history.
Last and wholeheartedly, I thank my editor, Margery Cuyler, and John Briggs, President of Holiday House, Inc., for believing in this book when nobody else in the publishing world would.
Ann Rinaldi
September 15, 1985
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A historical novel like this one would be impossible to write if one could not refer to the scholarly writings of men and women who have researched the period. Because I love American history, I have read widely about the eighteenth century in this country. That reading, combined with the years I spent reenacting the encampments and battles of the War for Independence with the Brigade of the American Revolution, gave me a fundamental knowledge of the era. The books and original papers I used for reference for this work, the ones I found most useful, are listed below, with many thanks to the authors who so painstakingly did the original research.
Original Papers
The Papers of Jemima Condict, 1771–1778: Courtesy of the New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, N.J.
A Grandmother’s Recollection of Old Revolutionary Days: Recollections of Martha Reed Shannon, as Recorded by Her Granddaughter, Susan Pindar Embury, in 1875: Co
urtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Firestone Library, Princeton, N. J.
“Trenton, New Jersey 1719–1779: A Study of Community Growth and Organization” by Stephanie Smith Toothman. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1977. Courtesy of the Academy Street Branch of the Trenton Public Library.
Books
Bakeless, Katherine, and John Bakeless. Spies of the Revolution. New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1973.
Bill, Alfred Hoyt. New Jersey and the Revolutionary War. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964.
Bowman, Larry G. Captive Americans: Prisoners during the American Revolution. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1976.
Connors, Richard J. The Constitution of 1776. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975.
Cunliffe, Marcus. George Washington, Man and Monument. New York and Ontario: New American Library, 1958.
De Pauw, Linda Grant. Founding Mothers: Women of America in the Revolutionary Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1975.
De Pauw, Linda Grant, and Conover Hunt. Remember the Ladies. New York: Viking Press in association with the Pilgrim Society, 1976.
Gruber, Ira D. The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972.
Ketchum, Richard M. The World of George Washington. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1974.
Kull, Irving S., and Nell M. Kull. A Short Chronology of American History, 1492–1950. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1952.
Lender, Mark E. and Joseph Kirby Martin. Citizen Soldier, the Revolutionary War Journal of Joseph Bloomfield, Newark, N.J.: The New Jersey Historical Society, 1982.
Myers, Albert Cook, ed. Sally Wister’s Journal: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution. New York: New York Times and Arno Press, 1969 (Philadelphia: Ferris and Leach Publishers, 1902).
Neuenschwander, John A. The Middle Colonies and the Coming of the American Revolution. Port Washington, N.Y.: National University Publications, Kennikat Press, 1973.
Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775–1783. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1975.
Seely, Rebecca, and Carey Roberts. Tidewater Dynasty: A Biographical Novel of the Lees of Stratford Hall. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
Smith, Samuel Stelle. The Battle of Trenton. Monmouth Beach, N.J.: Philip Freneau Press, 1965.
Stone, Irving. Those Who Love: A Biographical Novel of Abigail and John Adams. New York: New American Library, 1965.
Stryker, William S. The Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1898. Reprint, Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co., 1967.
Stryker, William S. Trenton, One Hundred Years Ago. MacCrellish and Quigley, 1878; Narr, Day, and Narr, 1893.
Trenton Historical Society, A History of Trenton, 1679–1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1929.
