The last volley is deadly canister shot—clusters of iron spheres twice the size of musket balls flying through the air at lethal speed, making a terrible squeaking noise—designed to wound large numbers of opponents with each single cannon blast.
“The bridge looked red as blood, with their killed and wounded and their red coats,” Sergeant White will recall of the carnage.
Indeed, British losses are significant, with dozens of dead and wounded.
As the sun finally sets and the sky over the New Jersey countryside turns pitch-black, the British leadership debates its next move. Attacking in the dark brings a host of tactical problems, but they are aware of Washington’s tendency to use the dead of night to his advantage.
“If Washington is the general I take him to be,” warns General Cornwallis’s quartermaster, Sir William Erskine, “his army will not be there by morning.”
But another general, James Grant, disagrees, arguing that Washington’s only avenue of escape is by crossing the Delaware yet again. He reminds Cornwallis that Washington has no boats nearby to make that flight possible.
Cornwallis knows he has the manpower to encircle Washington’s entire army right now and, perhaps, end the war. He is equally aware, however, that his soldiers are exhausted. The British regulars’ long march from Princeton, carrying their requisite sixty-pound load of weaponry and clothing, has taken the edge off his men. A hot meal and a night of sleep seem prudent.
Convinced that Washington is trapped, Cornwallis orders a halt to the attack. He confidently tells the council of war, “We’ll go over and bag him in the morning.”
The British will attack at first light with a frontal assault while simultaneously crossing the Assunpink on the right side of the rebel lines in a pincer movement.
The battle will be bloody, of that Cornwallis is sure. An entrenched foe is not defeated without great loss of life. The American artillery commanders have improved enormously since the war began, and will surely order their men to fire point-blank rounds into the advancing redcoat columns, as they did earlier today.
Setting up camp on the same hill where Washington observed the Battle of Trenton one week earlier, Cornwallis and the British build their campfires and stare across to the other side of the city, where it is clear from the many fires blazing that the Americans are doing the same. They can hear the sound of pickaxes and shovels working through the night as Washington’s men continue digging fortifications for tomorrow’s battle.
Tonight, Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis sleeps well, believing that victory is all but assured.
* * *
Come morning, Cornwallis arises and is stunned: Washington and his army are gone.
In fact, well before noon, after a silent nightlong march down a seldom-used back road unknown to the British, Gen. George Washington attacked and destroyed the small redcoat force occupying Princeton and captured the town. Among the heroes is a young artillery captain named Alexander Hamilton, whom Washington soon plans to promote.
Once Princeton is secure, the Continental Army is immediately on the move, heading north toward Morristown, thirty-seven miles away, a position separated from the British garrison in New York by a protective ridgeline called the Short Hills.
Cornwallis realizes that Washington has outsmarted him. He is now racing to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to protect British supplies and money there.
In this way, the war of rebellion continues, and Cornwallis’s dreams of returning to England are dashed.
* * *
The battle for Princeton was brief but intense. The American forces were led by Gen. Hugh Mercer. The fifty-year-old Scot is a physician and soldier who fought on the losing side during the Jacobite Rising in Scotland of 1745–46, then smuggled himself into America to escape persecution from the British. He settled down in Pennsylvania and began a private medical practice, only to take up arms alongside George Washington in the French and Indian War. Mercer is known for his bravery and his stubborn refusal to die, as evidenced by his one-hundred-mile solo march through thick forest to safety after being wounded in battle against Shawnee warriors in 1756.
LEGEND HERE
It is sunrise on January 3, 1777, as General Mercer leads the Continental Army’s advance column toward Princeton. A sudden freeze iced the roads after midnight, allowing the Americans to slip away from Trenton and march on Princeton without the thick mud that exhausted the redcoats less than twenty-four hours earlier. The wheels of the cannon are wrapped in cloth to dampen the sound. Once again, as in Brooklyn, the order has been spread that the men must not speak or even cough so as to maintain silence during the escape. Some Americans actually fall asleep on their feet during the ten-mile journey through the darkness, yet somehow the colonials manage to shuffle forward in unison. The rags covering the freezing feet of the shoeless are drenched in blood.
It is the job of General Mercer and his three hundred fifty men from Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to destroy the bridge at the Post Road, two miles outside Princeton. This will block Cornwallis’s force from a hasty return once it becomes aware of Washington’s ruse.
Suddenly, Mercer and his men come upon a large body of British troops marching south to reinforce the Trenton attack. Neither side expects to see the other at this early hour, so the British commander, Col. John Mawhood, at first mistakes Mercer’s army for Hessian reinforcements.
“They could not possibly suppose it was our army,” Bostonian soldier Henry Knox will later remember. “I believe they were as much astonished as if an army had dropped perpendicularly upon them.”
The surprise encounter brings forth confusion and violent death. When, after an early volley, the Americans are slow to reload their muskets, the British sprint into their lines with bayonets drawn. Mercer’s gray horse buckles as it is shot by a musket ball.
The courageous general finds himself alone and surrounded by a band of British soldiers. He is wearing an overcoat that covers his uniform and rank insignia. Aware that George Washington wears just such a cloak on the field of battle, the jubilant British believe they have actually captured the American commander in chief.
“Surrender, you damn rebel,” the redcoats command.
Mercer will not. Fifty yards away, he can see what happens to rebels who yield. One lieutenant with a broken leg was dragged from beneath the wagon where he was hiding, bludgeoned with a gun butt to the point of near unconsciousness, and then repeatedly bayoneted. Another captured lieutenant, Bartholomew Yates, was stabbed thirteen times and died.
Mercer draws his saber and attacks. The regulars swarm the Scottish immigrant, taunting him as they wait for the moment to pounce. It would be simple merely to shoot him, but they do not wish “General Washington” to enjoy such a hasty demise.
Finally, a swinging gun butt catches Mercer in the head. He collapses. More blows rain down on his skull, leaving the general unconscious. Then the British bayonet him, but still Mercer lives.
Soon afterward, the real George Washington gallops into battle to rally Mercer’s men, ultimately turning the tide of the battle in favor of the colonials.
He appears out of nowhere, his presence encouraging the Americans to press the attack at a time when many are beginning to flee in terror.
Colonel Mawhood’s two infantry regiments and his column of light cavalry stand between the Americans and Princeton. Turning back toward Trenton is not an option. Washington gallops through his army, pushing them back to the fight.
“Parade with us, my dear fellows,” the American general cries from astride his horse, his voice calm and cool. He fearlessly puts himself in range of British musket fire but behaves as if he were in no danger at all.
“There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly,” he shouts.
The rebels respond. They now fall upon the enemy with utter fury. British dead and wounded soon litter the local orchard. Colonel Mawhood and the rest of his terrified men sprint for their lives. Washington gives chase on h
orseback but then lets them go, ordering his army once again to turn toward Princeton—and victory.
“It was a glorious day.… I happened to be in the first and hottest of the fire,” Pennsylvania junior officer Joseph Reed will write home to his wife about the sight of Washington seizing command of the battle.
General George Washington
“I would wish to say a few words of the actions respecting that truly great man, General Washington, but it is not in the power of language to convey any just idea of him.
“His greatness is far beyond description. I shall never forget what I felt at Princeton on his account, when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as it were by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself. He is surely America’s better genius.”
* * *
Meanwhile, Gen. Hugh Mercer is carried from the field and taken to a farmhouse that has been converted into a field hospital, where his severe wounds are tended to by Dr. Benjamin Rush, coincidentally, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence. Mercer clings to life, his crumpled skull and stab wounds a vivid reminder of the fate that awaits George Washington should he ever fall into British hands.
Nine days after the battle, General Mercer breathes his last.3 Washington has already said good-bye to his dear belligerent friend, and is finally settling into winter quarters in Morristown, there to regroup and drill his army for the summer campaign. The tide of the war has turned, and Washington’s victories are celebrated throughout the colonies.
* * *
In London, some British are questioning the need to wage war in the colonies.
In Paris, where Benjamin Franklin has now labored for a month to entice the French into helping the rebel cause, the news of Trenton, Princeton, and Morristown is cause for jubilation. The French have long been waiting for a sign that the Americans can actually win this war.
Finally, Washington has provided one.
14
HÔTEL DE HAMBOURG
52 RUE JACOB, PARIS, FRANCE
JANUARY 19, 1777
MID-MORNING
Benjamin Franklin is being watched.
It is Sunday morning here in the small room serving as Franklin’s temporary headquarters. As usual, the Doctor rose at 5:00 a.m. for a leisurely three-hour period of bathing, breakfast, and planning. He shaves himself rather than submit to the “bad breath of a slovenly barber.” Franklin will work until noon, then “read or overlook my personal accounts, and dine” for two hours. In the afternoon, it is more work, then on to an evening of socializing before retiring to bed at 10:00 p.m.
The schedule is intentionally selfish. Just two days ago, Franklin celebrated his seventy-first birthday, and this routine helps conserve his energy. The Doctor is guarded, often cloaking himself in mystery even as his cult of celebrity in Paris society grows. The gray marten fur hat he wears at all times to keep his head warm has become so popular that many Parisian women try to emulate its appearance by forming their hair into the same shape, a hairstyle known as the “coiffure à la Franklin.” Local merchants are keen to make a profit from the eminent American’s mysterious and sudden arrival in their city, much to Franklin’s bemusement.
“My picture is everywhere,” Franklin writes home to his daughter Sally; “on the lids of snuff boxes, on rings, busts. The numbers sold are incredible. My portrait is a best seller, you have prints, and copies of prints, and copies of copies spread everywhere. Your father’s face is now as well known as the man in the moon.”1
Here on the rue Jacob, Franklin is assisted by his illegitimate teenage grandson, Temple, who now serves as the Doctor’s social secretary. Franklin’s other grandson, seven-year-old Benny, attends boarding school just outside the city, in Passy, where he will learn to speak French so well that he will nearly forget his English.2
Yet, Franklin’s fame does not come without a cost, which is why he now pens a response to a letter from Mrs. Juliana Ritchie, a Philadelphia expatriate in Paris who recently paid him a social call. Franklin’s desk is untidy, as it was on the day of her visit, with important papers spilling on top of one another. But it is Mrs. Ritchie’s letter he focuses on.
“You are surrounded with spies,” her note warned, “who watch your every movement: who you visit, and by whom you are visited. Of the latter there are those who pretend to be friends to the cause of your country but that is a mere pretense.”
This is perhaps the most poorly kept secret in Paris—and Franklin is not the only citizen under observation. The French capital swarms with undercover agents. It is almost impossible for anyone of social status to go anywhere without his actions being scrutinized and reported.
King Louis XVI, the twenty-two-year-old monarch who has been seated on the throne of France for a mere two years, has thousands of official spies in his employ.3 Political factions and organized crime networks throughout the city also use vast armies of snoops.
Benjamin Franklin has been in Paris just a month, but he is already the subject of a police report: “Doctor Franklin, who lately arrived in this country from the English colonies, is very much run after, and feted,” the report states in bemused fashion. “He has an agreeable physiognomy. Spectacles always on his eyes, but little hair—a fur cap is always on his head. He wears no powder, but a neat air. Linen very white [and] a brown coat makes his dress. His only defense is a stick in his hand.”4
Franklin’s response to Mrs. Ritchie is intentionally comical—and long overdue. The Paris mail arrives nine times a day, but the Doctor has waited a week to compose his letter. Jokingly, he promises that even if his personal valet “was a spy, as probably he is, I think I should not discharge him for that, if in other respects I liked him.”
Franklin’s attempt to mollify Mrs. Ritchie is sincere, but he would do well to heed her warning. For one of his closest friends and confidants is, in fact, a British spy—an agent of espionage so talented that his mission will not be publicly revealed for more than a century.
The young man’s name is George Bancroft, the same good friend and botanist whom Franklin once supported for election to the prestigious Royal Society, and who boldly supported him after the infamous hour of ridicule in the London cockpit in 1774. Believing Bancroft to be a man he can trust, Franklin personally requested that he be hired as secretary to the American delegation in Paris, responsible for handling all manner of diplomacy and sensitive paperwork.5
Big mistake.
Within months, King George III will know the Doctor’s every move.
* * *
Surrounded by spies, embraced by the temptations of Parisian society, and struggling to communicate in a language he is only now learning, Franklin comes to realize that his task will be neither quick nor simple, and that he may end up living in France for a very long time. Yet, as he takes up residence in a luxurious château on the outskirts of the city, and becomes more acquainted with some of the wealthiest widows and libertines of Paris, this thought troubles him less and less.
Even as Franklin settles into Paris, though, a wealthy French teenager has decided to sail for America to join the rebellion. Indeed, he is so determined to fight that he spends more than a hundred thousand livres of his own money to purchase a vessel that will take him to the American Revolution.
The teenager’s name is Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.
Or, as history will record him, Lafayette.
The wealthy young marquis is well connected in Europe and determined to make his reputation on the battlefields of America. In order to do that, he has to impress Gen. George Washington, who is openly disdainful of European aristocrats. Upon meeting Lafayette in August 1777, Washington is polite but dismissive of his military desires.
This will soon change.
15
FREEMAN’S FARM
EIGHT MILES SOUTH OF SARATOGA, NEW YORK
SEPTEMBER 19, 1777
3:15 P.M.
America’s boldest general attacks.
A crazed Benedict Arnold gallops his horse into the center of the British Army, ignoring the grapeshot flying all around him. Stumps still cover the recently cleared farmland. The brilliant red and gold of autumn frame the thick white musket smoke. The general’s left leg still aches from the musket ball that nearly caused its amputation two years ago, just outside Quebec, but Arnold refuses to acknowledge the pain.
“Riding in front of the lines, his eyes flashing, pointing with his sword toward the advancing foe, with a voice that runs clear as a trumpet,” one American soldier will later remember, “[Arnold] called upon the men to follow him.”
The battle has raged almost four hours. The fight has been a chess match, with each army wheeling right and left to answer the many charges and feints of its opponent. Periods of intense shooting are followed by long stretches of calm before the battle ignites once again. Arnold, considered “the very genius of war” by one of his men, singlehandedly leads the bold American attack. His small force is nimble but outnumbered.
LEGEND HERE
On the north side of the battlefield are nine thousand British and Hessian troops commanded by Gen. “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne. The British plan, approved in London by Lord George Germain, secretary of state to the British colonies, is for Burgoyne’s army, now marching south from Quebec, to link with the army of Gen. William Howe, marching north from New York City. The two forces will connect in Albany, thirty miles south of Burgoyne’s current location. Together, they will control the strategically vital Hudson River Valley, driving a wedge between the patriot hotbeds in New England and the rest of the colonies south of Connecticut.
Nine thousand American soldiers now stand between Burgoyne and Albany, but the general is unworried. His adversary is Gen. Horatio Gates, the British-born commander of the Continental Army’s Northern Department. Gates is an indecisive, risk-averse career soldier fond of digging in and fighting a defensive battle rather than going on the attack.
Killing England Page 14
