Washington’s precise objective was influenced by a series of independent spontaneous risings against the royal forces. Goaded by the rampant and indiscriminate plundering of Howe’s foraging parties, in late December, New Jersey’s inhabitants finally began turning upon their occupiers; rebel militiamen, who had been conspicuous by their absence during Howe’s advance, now mobilized and fought back on the Delaware front. Rall’s exposed brigade at Trenton came under mounting pressure, with constant, niggling harassment leaving his men exhausted and edgy. The strain on the Germans only intensified when bands of Pennsylvanian militia pitched in, mounting raids across the Delaware. Although spurning advice to fortify Trenton, Colonel Rall repeatedly appealed for reinforcements. After he wrote to General Grant three times in one day the Scot replied that there was no cause for alarm. After all, he reasoned, the rebel army in Pennsylvania numbered no more than 8,000 men, and they were shoeless, “almost naked . . . and very ill-supplied with provisions.” Beyond sending this blithe reassurance, Grant did nothing.4
Six miles south of Trenton, at Bordentown, Rall’s sector commander, Colonel Carl von Donop, was also becoming increasingly troubled by another force of New Jersey militia, under Colonel Samuel Griffin. The significance of their activities was emphasized in a message that arrived on December 22, sent by Washington’s adjutant general, Joseph Reed. Just weeks earlier Reed had wounded Washington deeply by criticizing his leadership to Charles Lee, but he now made ample amends. Raised in Trenton and educated at New Jersey College—the future Princeton University—Reed knew the locality intimately. Colonel Griffin’s progress at the head of a spirited militia had created a fine opportunity for action, Reed argued. He suggested that they should either reinforce the aggressive Griffin or mount a separate attack. In his opinion, “the latter bids fairest for producing the greatest and best effects.” Above all, Reed urged, it was necessary to do something, and soon. With the credit of the cause expiring, “even a failure” was preferable to inaction. Surely, the “scattered divided state of the enemy” afforded “a fair opportunity” for an offensive. He added: “Will it not be possible my dear General for your troops or such part of them as can act with advantage to make a diversion or something more at or about Trenton—the greater the alarm, the more likely success will attend the attacks.” There was no time to lose: “Our affairs are hasting fast to ruin if we do not retrieve them by some happy event.”5
As emphasized, in urging an offensive, Reed was recommending a response that Washington was already pondering. If, as seems likely, the customary council of war was summoned to debate the best course of action, no official record survives. Beyond doubt, it was swiftly decided to follow Reed’s advice. On December 23, Washington replied that the “attempt on Trenton” was scheduled for “Christmas day at night,” with the attack to go in “one hour before day” on December 26. The need for secrecy was paramount. “For heaven’s sake keep this to yourself, as the discovery of it may prove fatal to us, our numbers, sorry I am to say, being less than I had any conception of—but necessity, dire necessity will—nay must justify any attempt.” Indeed, Washington told Reed, he now had “ample testimony” of Howe’s intention to push on to Philadelphia immediately the ice in the Delaware River was strong enough. His plan was to strike first while the enemy was distracted by the militia: in conjunction with Colonel Griffin, Reed was ordered to attack as many of their posts as possible, thereby causing maximum confusion.6
By then, Griffin’s militia had already played a crucial role in Washington’s unfolding plan. News of a sizable concentration of rebels at the village of Mount Holly, some twelve miles south of Bordentown, had prompted Donop to march there with his entire command and confront them on December 23. After a brisk skirmish the militia was swiftly dispersed, but events then took an unexpected, and momentous, turn. That arch-professional, Captain Ewald of the jägers, could scarce credit what he witnessed with his own eyes: Donop, “who was extremely devoted to the fair sex, had found in his quarters the exceedingly beautiful young widow of a doctor.” The smitten colonel stayed put for the next three nights, only shifting on the morning of December 26. Instead of being poised with his men at Bordentown—within supporting distance of Trenton—“to the misfortune of Colonel Rall,” Donop was more than a day’s march away at Mount Holly, “detained there by love.”7
On Christmas Eve, as preparations for the attack on Trenton were under way, Washington’s intelligence-gathering operation continued. In New Jersey, Reed liaised with Griffin and his militia, seeking to pinpoint the whereabouts of Donop’s roving command. That same day, Captain Ewald recalled, “a trumpeter arrived in Mount Holly from General Washington,” inviting Donop to exchange prisoners. This, as Ewald soon divined, was no more than “a ruse” to confirm the colonel’s absence from Bordentown.8
Washington meanwhile finalized the details of the Boxing Day assault on Trenton, although once again there is no formal record of any council of war. The senior officers who were on hand for consultation that Christmas Eve provide a cross-section of the army’s unusually diverse leadership. Like Washington himself, Brigadier Generals Adam Stephen and Hugh Mercer had cut their teeth fighting the French and Indians in the Ohio Valley in the 1750s; during that same war, another of his brigadiers, Arthur St. Clair, had been an officer in the Royal American Regiment, soldiering alongside General Wolfe at the famous sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec; before winning acclaim for his courage and leadership at Bunker Hill, John Stark of New Hampshire had already survived many scrapes on New York’s frontier as an officer in the celebrated Rogers’s Rangers, serving with the late Lord Howe and still venerating his memory. Others present with Washington’s army—Major Generals Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan and Colonels John Glover and Henry Knox—had learned their new trade since 1775. Despite their differences in age, experience, and background, all were now veterans and, like their commander, eager to avenge the humiliations of the past summer.
Washington and his officers agreed upon an ambitious, three-pronged attack. The strongest column, consisting of 2,400 Continentals under Washington’s personal command, would cross the Delaware at McConkey’s Ferry about nine miles above Trenton, then surprise the town from the north. That force would split into two divisions, headed by Greene and Sullivan, with each taking different roads. Washington’s old comrade Adam Stephen and his brigade of Virginian Continentals formed the advanced guard; they were to be accompanied by a detachment of artillerymen without cannon, but carrying drag ropes to haul away the enemy’s guns should opportunity offer and tools to spike them if they couldn’t be moved. The succeeding brigades were allocated no fewer than eighteen field-pieces, an exceptionally high ratio of guns to men;9 for a small force, it packed a potentially powerful punch. Washington’s artillery commander, Colonel Knox, was entrusted with directing the embarkation of the men and guns at McConkey’s Ferry, to proceed “as soon as it begins to grow dark.” Once across the Delaware, the detachment would advance in “profound silence” with “no man to quit his ranks on the pain of death.” If all went smoothly, the leading brigades would hit Trenton at 5 a.m. on December 26.10
Meanwhile, a force of about 800 Pennsylvania militia under Brigadier General James Ewing was to cross the Delaware close to Trenton, secure the bridge over Assunpink Creek, which marked the southern limit of the settlement, and occupy its far bank, so blocking any breakout by the garrison in that direction. The third column, consisting of 1,800 Philadelphia Associators and Rhode Island Continentals under Colonel John Cadwalader, who had been appointed brigadier general of militia, was to cross the Delaware farther downstream, at Bristol and attack any Hessians and Highlanders still in the vicinity of Bordentown and Black Horse. If Cadwalader could “do nothing real,” he should “at least create as great a diversion as possible,” Washington implored.11
Despite Washington’s efforts to impose secrecy, Major General Grant received advance intelligence that the rebels were contemplating attacks on both Trenton
and Princeton; the spy has never been identified, but whether leaked by accident or design, his or her information must have originated with someone privy to the deliberations of December 22. Still inclined to underestimate the Americans, Grant doubted whether such a bold attempt would actually be made, yet he didn’t question the veracity of the report and therefore urged Rall to be on his guard. Grant’s warning reached Rall on the evening of Christmas Day, by which time two American deserters and a pair of local loyalists had already informed him that Washington’s army was preparing to move: a crossing of the Delaware, targeted at Trenton, looked imminent. But Rall remained unperturbed. Like Grant, he couldn’t credit that the rebels would dare to attack him in strength. And if they did, so much the better: the colonel was confident that his grenadiers and fusiliers, wearied though they were by incessant alarms, would deal with Washington’s rabble as they had done before—with professional discipline and cold steel.12
Washington’s daring plan to strike at Rall hinged upon precise timing. The troops must be ready to cross the Delaware by nightfall, giving them long enough to reach Trenton before dawn. Yet the operation was soon lagging badly behind schedule. Many of the Continentals were weary, poorly clothed, and ill shod, and their advance to the three assembly points adjoining the west bank of the Delaware was painfully slow. The weather, which had been sunny, now worsened with a vengeance. With darkness, drizzle began to fall; it soon thickened into rain, and by late evening, as the men neared the river, they were shuffling into the teeth of a storm loaded with snow, sleet, and hail. That evening, the increasingly severe conditions stymied both of the downriver operations intended to support the main attack under Washington. At their designated crossing point below Trenton, Ewing’s militia met an impassable combination of jumbled ice and swiftly flowing channels that defied attempts to cross either by boat or on foot. Brigadier Cadwalader’s command, which now hoped to target Donop at Mount Holly, encountered equally discouraging obstacles; after moving downriver to Dunks’s Ferry, several hundred men managed to reach the Jersey shore, but the bulk of the brigade and its artillery were unable to follow. Benjamin Rush, who was with Cadwalader, recalled how “great bodies of floating ice rendered the passage of the river impracticable,” forcing them to turn back “in a heavy snow storm in the middle of the night.”13
At McConkey’s Ferry, Washington still had no inkling that everything now depended upon his own column. By midnight on Christmas Day 1776, the crossing finally got under way as the troops embarked aboard a motley assemblage of craft: these included swart, sturdy, and stable flat-bottomed Durham boats, usually used for carrying freight on the Delaware but now packed with shivering soldiers, and ferries capable of transporting and unloading the guns, their ammunition carts, and teams of draught horses. Here, too, the river was a daunting obstacle. Besides the challenges posed by the unrelenting storm, the biting cold, and the intense darkness of the night, the boatmen had to counter a swift current that brought great cakes of ice swirling down the main channel, then find a way through the crusts that buttressed the river’s banks. Plying their oars and setting poles and urged on by the booming commands of the colossal Knox, they succeeded in getting the column across without losing a single man or gun.
It was a remarkable achievement, but, as Washington reported to John Hancock, “the quantity of ice, made that night, impeded the passage of boats so much, that it was three o’clock before the artillery could all be got over, and near four, before the troops took up their line of march.”14 There was now no chance of surprising Trenton under cover of night. But a withdrawal, with the enemy likely to interrupt any reembarkation, was unthinkable. The day before, Dr. Rush had called upon Washington at his headquarters to give assurances of Congress’s continuing support in such trying times and noticed him “play with his pen and ink upon several small pieces of paper.” Rush remembered: “One of them by accident fell upon the floor near my feet. I was struck with the inscription upon it. It was ‘Victory or Death’”: Washington had been writing the “countersign,” or password, to be used by his commanders during the impending attack.15 True to his uncompromising motto, he now “determined to push on at all events.”
Screened by an outlying cordon of sentries, Washington’s detachment prepared to march onward. Two forty-strong advance parties under Captains William Washington—a distant cousin—and John Flahaven moved out first: their task was to establish roadblocks three miles outside Trenton, detaining anyone coming in or out of the town. They were followed by Stephen’s advance guard of Virginians, then the main body. This marched off in one long column, sodden, numbed, and lashed all the while by the continuing storm. In the grim conditions, several dog-tired men fell out. At least two froze to death. The icy weather nearly proved fatal to Washington, who rode along the column, encouraging his troops. As Lieutenant Elisha Bostwick of the Connecticut troops testified, in “passing a slanting, slippery bank,” the hind feet of Washington’s horse slid from under him. He was only preserved by his strength and horsemanship, gripping his mount’s mane and yanking back its head until it recovered balance. Bostwick was equally impressed by the calm advice he heard Washington give to his weary men—“Soldiers keep by your officers. For God’s sake, keep by your officers”—delivered “in a deep and solemn voice.”16
After about five miles, when the column reached the halfway mark at the Birmingham crossroads, it split into its two divisions for the final approach. Greene’s took the upper or Pennington Road to Trenton, Sullivan’s the lower River Road. Each had roughly the same distance to march and were to attack as soon as they had pushed in the enemy’s pickets. Now, as his still-undetected troops neared their objective, Washington was astounded by the unexpected appearance of a band of Virginians heading toward him from the direction of Trenton. On Stephen’s orders, but without Washington’s authorization, these men had crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day on a mission to exact vengeance for a comrade killed in recent skirmishing with the Hessians. That very night, while Washington’s command was converging on McConkey’s Ferry, they had attacked a Hessian picket at Trenton and alarmed the whole garrison. This allegedly caused Washington to round on his old comrade and angrily accuse him of jeopardizing the entire operation. In fact, Stephen’s raid worked to Washington’s advantage, convincing Rall that this was the attack that Major General Grant had warned against and that the immediate danger was over; as Joseph Reed put it, this “truly casual or rather providential” event “baffled his vigilance.”17
At 8 a.m. on December 26, when the men of Greene’s division emerged from sheltering woods and began trotting across a field on the outskirts of Trenton, surprise was still on their side. The Hessian guard post on the Pennington Road spotted them but, with the storm in their faces, had trouble establishing their identity and numbers. After the Americans opened fire, the Hessians waited for them to come closer, gave a volley of their own and then made a disciplined and orderly withdrawal. Washington, who longed to have such professional troops under his own command, noted with admiration: “They behaved very well, keeping up a constant retreating fire from behind houses.”
Remarkably, Sullivan’s division on the lower road launched its attack just three minutes after Greene’s. Both advanced with determination, pushing on at “a quick step.”18 As Washington testified in his report to Hancock, all the hardships of the night did nothing to “abate their ardor” as they closed in on the enemy. Indeed, “each seemed to vie with the other in pressing forward.” Confronted by this sudden onslaught, the Hessians tumbled out of their billets and barracks and began forming up across the town’s two main thoroughfares, King Street and Queen Street. To Washington, who was observing developments from high ground to the north, they seemed bewildered, “undetermined how to act”; despite the enduring legend, they weren’t drunk, just worn out by sleepless nights—and understandably shocked to find hundreds of ragged rebels advancing upon them from out of a swirling snowstorm. When the Hessians wheeled out two guns,
the advance party under William Washington rushed forward and captured them. Captain Washington and his young second in command, Lieutenant James Monroe, were severely wounded during the fight; Washington survived to win a reputation as a brave and effective cavalry commander, Monroe to become the fifth president of the United States of America.19
By now, Knox had placed six guns under Captain Thomas Forrest and Alexander Hamilton at the northern heads of both streets, which acted like funnels for round shot and canister, and immediately opened fire on the cramped enemy; crucially, although most of the muskets on both sides were immediately made useless by the wet, the artillery was still able to function.20 When the Hessians sought refuge in side streets they became embroiled in a close-quarters fight with Washington’s Continentals. All the while, snow fell and the storm howled. As Nathanael Greene wrote to his wife, Catherine, the combined violence of man and nature evoked “passions easier conceived than described.”21 On horseback in the midst of his confused, milling men, Colonel Rall tried to regain the initiative by ordering a bayonet charge to punch through the encircling Americans. But Knox’s massed artillery took its toll, forcing Rall to retreat to an apple orchard on the eastern outskirts of the town.
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