American Aurora

by Richard N. Rosenfeld

  Saturday, December 7, 1776. New Jersey is at the mercy of the British. Today, George Washington retreats from New Jersey across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. His army camps along the western shore of the Delaware, facing Trenton, New Jersey.889

  Sunday, December 8, 1776. Today, the British seize Newport and the rest of Rhode Island. With George Washington in full retreat across New Jersey, British General Sir Henry Clinton withdrew some British troops from pursuing Washington in order for them to conquer Rhode Island. There is no resistance.890

  Today, having arrived at the port of Nantes in France, Benjamin Franklin writes the president of the Continental Congress:

  Our Friends in France have been a good deal dejected with the Gazette Accounts of Advantages obtain’d against us by the British Troops. I have help’d them here to recover their Spirits a little …

  Our Voyage tho’ not long was rough, and I feel myself weakned by it: But I now recover Strength daily, and in a few days shall be able to undertake the Journey to Paris …

  I find it is generally suppos’d here that I am sent to negociate, and that Opinion appears to give great Pleasure, if I can judge by the extream Civilities I meet with from Numbers of the principal People, who have done me the Honour to visit me …891

  Tuesday, December 10, 1776. Today, George Washington writes:

  Our numbers … being reduced by sickness, desertion, and political deaths (on or before the first instant, and having no assistance from the militia), were obliged to retire before the enemy … I tremble for Philadelphia. Nothing, in my opinion, but Gen. Lee’s speedy arrival … can save it …892

  Today, in Paris, the French Foreign Ministry orders the police to arrest “with great publicity and severity” any French soldier who claims to have government support for service in America!893

  Wednesday, December 11, 1776. Congress can’t believe that Washington won’t defend Philadelphia. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:

  Whereas a false and malicious report has been spread … that the Congress was about to disperse;

  Resolved, that General Washington be desired to contradict the said scandalous report, this Congress having a better opinion of the spirit and vigor of the army … than to suppose it can be necessary to disperse …894

  Thursday, December 12, 1776. Reassurance from Washington isn’t forthcoming. Today, fearing the British will seize Philadelphia, the Continental Congress flees to Baltimore, where it will remain until March. Masses of Philadelphia’s citizenry also flee.895 The Pennsylvania Gazette will not appear again till February.

  Today, in Paris, congressional emissary Silas Deane (whose arms shipments and volunteers to America have been embargoed by the French government) writes the Committee of Secret Correspondence:

  Just as I closed my despatches … I was agreeably surprised with a letter from Dr. Franklin, at Nantes [France], where he arrived after thirty days passage, with two prizes … Nothing has for a long time occasioned greater speculation than this event, and our friends here are elated beyond measure … [F]or me, I will not attempt to express the pleasure I feel on this occasion, as it removes at once difficulties under which I have been constantly in danger of sinking.896

  George Washington’s second in command, General Charles Lee, doesn’t appreciate Washington’s generalship and doesn’t want to leave New Jersey to join him in Pennsylvania. Today, Lee writes General Horatio Gates:

  The ingenious manoeuvre of Fort Washington has unhing’d the goodly fabrick We had been building—there never was so damn’d a stroke—entre nous, a certain great man is most damnably deficient. He has thrown me in a situation where I have a choice of difficulties— if I stay in this Province, I risk myself and Army, and if I do not stay, the Province is lost forever.897

  Saturday, December 14, 1776. Ships of Roderique Hortalez et Cie., loaded with arms and ammunitions that Caron de Beaumarchais has acquired from French government arsenals, remain in French ports. Today, as Silas Deane feared, the ships are restrained by new French government orders. Caron de Beaumarchais reports:

  At the beginning of the present business, that is to say, in 1775 and 76, all that transpired of the designs of the King of France … was that this sovereign intended to observe the most strict neutrality …

  M. de Beaumarchais’ company, trading under the title of Roderique Hortalez & Cie … had bought for the Americans sufficient goods to form immense cargoes and had freighted for its American correspondents eight or ten vessels in various French ports … The [French] Ministry [was] distracted with the complaints of [the British Minister to France] Viscount Stormont …

  At last, having heard the English Ambassador say that there were munitions of war in the Company’s vessels, the administration sent to Havre, on the 14 December 1776, an order to stop all these vessels and to examine them minutely.

  This caused such a stir that the Company, not being able, by any submission or offer, to obtain permission for these vessels to leave port, was obliged to disarm them entirely …898

  Sunday, December 15, 1776. Today, General Washington writes the Council of Safety of Pennsylvania:

  The Spirit of disaffection that appears in this Country, I think, deserves your serious attention. Instead of giving any Assistance in repelling the Enemy, the Militia have not only refused to obey your General Summons and that of their Commanding Officers, but, I am told, exult at the approach of the Enemy and our late misfortunes …899

  Tuesday, December 17, 1776. Charles Lee won’t come to Washington’s rescue. He has been captured by a party of British dragoons at Mrs. White’s Tavern in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Today, George Washington laments the event:

  Gen Lee. Unhappy man! Taken by his own imprudence, going three or four miles from his own camp and within twenty of the enemy … [A] party of light horse seized him in the morning … and carried him off in high triumph and with every mark of indignity, not even suffering him to get his hat or surtout coat.900

  Wednesday, December 18, 1776. Today, General Washington writes:

  [I]f every nerve is not strain’d to recruit the New Army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up, owing, in a great measure, to the insidious Arts of the Enemy, and disaffection of the Colonies … and placing too great a dependence on the Militia …

  You can form no Idea of the perplexity of my Situation. No Man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of difficulties and less means to extricate himself…901

  Thursday, December 19, 1776. Today, the first of Tom Paine’s sixteen “Crisis” essays appears.902 With the power of expression that persuaded America to choose independence, Tom Paine tries to raise America’s morale. George Washington will order Paine’s words to be read to every regiment camped along the Delaware:

  These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands [for] it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph …903

  Friday, December 20, 1776. The British have decided not to attempt a Delaware crossing for an attack on Philadelphia but rather to return to New York for the winter. Washington is clearly at their mercy. Today, Washington writes the president of Congress:

  We find Sir that the Enemy are daily gathering strength from the disaffected. This Strength like a Snow ball by rolling, will Increase unless some means can be devised to check effectually the progress of the Enemy’s Arms … [T]he militia of those States which have been frequently called upon will not turn out at all or with so much reluctance and sloth as to amount to the same thing. Instance New Jersey! Witness Pennsylvania! Could any thing but the River Delaware have sav’d Philadelphia? …

  Every exertion should be used to procure Tents … [A]bove all, a Store of Small Arms should be provided, or Men will be of little use … Militia
… coming in without were obliged to be furnished, or become useless. Many of these threw their Arms away; some lost them, whilst others deserted and took them along …904

  Today, in Paris, Britain’s Minister Plenipotentiary to France David Murray (Lord Stormont) prepares another report on Ben Franklin’s arrival in France:

  If reports are true, [Franklin] has already abused their ignorance … concerning the Americans as far as to proclaim roundly … that the affairs of the rebels are in a flourishing condition, while ours are desperate …905

  Saturday, December 21, 1776. Today, from Philadelphia, Committee of Secret Correspondence member Robert Morris writes Benjamin Franklin and the other American commissioners in Paris:

  I am the only member of Congress in this city … [T]hese unfortunate events commenced with the loss of Fort Washington, by the reduction of which the enemy made about two thousand seven hundred prisoners … [B]efore General Washington had time to make any new arrangements at Fort Lee, on the west side of the North [Hudson] River, to which he had crossed with about eight thousand men, a large body of [British] troops landed above and another below him, so that he was near being inclosed with a force vastly superior. In this situation he had nothing left for him but to retire … leaving behind him … most of our large cannon and mortars. He retreated to Hackensack [New Jersey], and was there in hopes of making a stand … but the vigilance of the enemy did not give him time for this. They pursued, and he retreated all the way through the Jerseys to Trenton, and thence they forced him across the Delaware, where he remains …

  General Howe issued a proclamation on the 30th of November, offering pardon to all who should submit … and all Jersey, or far the greater part of it, is supposed to have made their submission …

  In this perplexing situation of things the Congress were informed this day [last] week that an advanced party of Hessians and Highlanders … were pushing for Cooper’s Ferry, opposite the city [of Philadelphia] … There were no troops to oppose them … [I]t was therefore deemed unsafe for Congress … This city was for ten days the greatest scene of distress that you can conceive; everybody but Quakers were removing their families and effects, and now it looks pretty dismal and melancholy …

  [Britain’s] General Clinton, with from three to four thousand men, has invaded Rhode Island, and, it is said, has taken possession of it …

  For my part I see but two chances for relief; one is from you. If the court of France open their eyes … they may … afford us succors that will change the fate of affairs; but they must do it soon; our situation is critical and does not admit of delay … If they join us generously in the day of our distress, without attempting undue advantages because we are so, they will find a grateful people to promote their future glory and interest with unabating zeal…906

  Physician General Benjamin Rush will recall:

  After the retreats and retreats of our army in the year 1776, I went out as a volunteer physician to General Cadwalader’s corps of Philadelphia militia. During this excursion I rode with Colonel J. Reed from Bristol to headquarters on the Delaware nearly opposite to Trenton. On the way he mentioned many instances of General Washington’s want of military skill and ascribed most of the calamities of the campaign to it. He concluded by saying “he was only fit to command a regiment.” General Gates informed me … that Patrick Henry of Virginia had said the same thing of him when [Washington] was appointed commander in chief.

  A little time later than this time, General Mifflin told me “he was totally unfit for his situation, that he was fit only to be the head clerk of a London countinghouse.”907

  This afternoon, at two (Paris time), Ben Franklin and his seven-year-old grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, arrive in Paris, France.908

  Wednesday, December 25, 1776. Today, Christmas Day, George Washington begins the first of two victories he can claim in the American War of Independence. Benny Bache (as an adult) will write:

  The small microscopic exploits of Trenton and Princeton (which succeeded one another) were like the efforts of despair and the acts of a partizan rather than of a great commander in chief …909

  Tonight, using the presumed sanctity of Christmas as a cover for his actions, George Washington leads two thousand troops across the icy Delaware River to surprise a Hessian detachment of about half his number who are sleeping off the effects of Christmas grog and homesickness at their outpost in Trenton, New Jersey.910 George Washington reports:

  The evening of the 25th I ordered the Troops intended for this service to parade back of McKonkey’s Ferry … that we might easily arrive at Trenton by five in the Morning … But the quantity of Ice made that Night impeded the passage … This made me despair of surprising the Town … before the day was fairly broke, but as I was certain there was no making a Retreat without being discovered and harassed on repassing the River, I determined to press on … The upper Division arrived at the Enemys advanced post exactly at Eight O’clock … The out Guards made but small opposition … We presently saw their main body formed, but from their Motions, they seemed undetermined how to act … Finding from our disposition that they were surrounded and that they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further resistance, they agreed to lay down their arms … Our loss is very trifling indeed, only two Officers and one or two privates wounded.911

  Monday, December 30, 1776. Today, from Baltimore (where Congress has fled from fear of a British attack on Philadelphia), the Continental Congress issues revised instructions to its Paris commissioners:

  Upon mature deliberation of all circumstances, Congress deem the speedy declaration of France and European Assistance so indispensably necessary to secure the Independence of the these States, that they have authorized you to make fresh tenders to France … Your wisdom, we know will direct you to make such use of these powers as will procure the thing desired …912

  These broad instructions allow the commissioners to offer France an alliance! John Adams:

  I had myself the honour to be the first … on the subject of foreign alliances … to contend … that we ought not to give France any exclusive Privileges … That diminishing the Power of the natural Enemy of France … was quite enough to make it her interest to support us … They put me upon the Committee to draw up the Treaty, and the Committee appointed me to draw it, which I did … It was in perfect conformity to these Principles, and accepted by Congress … After the Treaty was finished and Dr. Franklin sent off with it, who sailed in October, I went home for a visit to my Constituents. [W]hile I was gone in the month of December, [t]he terms of enlistment of the Army expired, General Washington was obliged to retreat across the Jersies, and some gentlemen Saw the Necessity of Foreign alliances in a Stronger Light, and moved for Instructions to the Commissioners to offer some Additional Motives to engage.—These Propositions had been made before, and I had always combated them with success, but now they prevailed … I never was more mortified in my life than upon finding, at my Return to Congress, what they had done.913

  Friday, January 3, 1777. Today, in his second, equally small victory, Washington engages and defeats a group of British stragglers at Princeton, New Jersey. Though Washington’s force is small, it outnumbers the enemy twenty-five to one. Washington describes the engagement:

  Our Situation was most critical and our strength [force] small … On the Second, according to my expectation, the Enemy began to advance … and after some skirmishing, the head of their Column reach’d Trenton … We were drawn up on the other Side of the Creek. In this Situation we remaind till dark … [A]t twelve O’Clock after renewing our Fires and leaving Guards at the Bridge in Trenton … [we] March’d by a round about road to Princeton where I knew they could not have much force left … We found Princeton about Sunrise [on the 3d] with only three Regiments of Infantry and three Troops of Light-Horse in it, two of which were upon their March for Trenton. These three Regiments made a gallant resistance … upwards of one hundred of them were left dead in the Field …914
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  British General Sir William Howe reports, “The loss upon this occasion to his majesty’s troops is 17 killed …”915 Timothy Pickering observes:

  The most brilliant military exploits ascribed to Washington are the capture of the Hessians at Trenton, and the maneuvers by which he … fell victoriously upon some of [Cornwallis’] regiments left at Princeton … In themselves, these were small affairs …916

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LIGHTENING-SNATCHER

  Mr. Bache has another claim on my respect, as being the grandson of Dr. Franklin, the greatest man & ornament of the age and country in which he lived.

  THOMAS JEFFERSON,

  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1801–1809917

  Before the visible dawn of American freedom, the colonies were known to Europe but as the magazines from which England drew materials for her fabrics, her manufactures and her commerce … An obscure man, a native of America, penetrating the gloom in which this vast continent was obscured, by the force of natural genius and the strength of his mind, placed himself, without effort, among the first philosophers of the age … [T]he moral apothegms of Franklin soon became as celebrated as his philosophical experiments were new and successful, and Europe learned to consider the American people as a society whose wisdom and virtue rivaled if not surpassed the classical Arcadians … The Father of American liberties became the object of general respect and love.