by Jack Fernley
For twenty minutes, the British cannonry threw everything at the woods. Then Cornwallis halted the firing and sent a dozen scouts ahead to the trees. They gingerly made their way through destroyed trunks and battered stumps, coming to the line where the trees were unharmed, and slowly entered the forest, rifles pointed ahead of them, bayonets fixed.
There among the treetops awaited a further surprise for these British grenadiers.
As the scouts moved in, there was a sudden crack and two fell to the ground. The others looked around them in confusion. They barely had time to figure out where the firing was coming from before they were all cut down. The Stormtroopers had their first kills in the war for American independence.
In the open field, Cornwallis watched for the return of his scouts. For ten minutes or more, he held firm and then cursed aloud: ‘These woods need to be cleared!’, before sending in the Jäger infantry to do just that.
Again the Hessians advanced into the wood and again the Stormtroopers executed brilliantly their response, picking off individuals before the rest of the infantry fled from the wood.
Furious, Cornwallis screamed at his artillery to move up the road. ‘Destroy these woods and these rebels, hiding like monkeys within them!’
‘Time to go,’ said Conze to Hand. Whistling a series of low notes, the fifty Stormtroopers he had placed among the branches, at once eased themselves down from their positions to the ground and set off to retreat to the next position. Hand marvelled at their calm movements. They were agile, fast and quiet.
Within minutes, these Stormtroopers had met up with the Riflemen at a third point, a small ravine, known locally as the Stockton Hollow, which looked down upon the road, no more than half a mile from the centre of Trenton.
They had a longer wait now. Cornwallis had been convinced that the main body of Washington’s army had engaged with them in the trees and spent the best part of thirty minutes grinding the woods into kindling and splinters. But of the American army, there was no sign, which only added to the confusion of the British. It took a further half hour before the general came to accept that the woods were now empty and he had not been fighting the entire Continental Army, before he understood he was a victim of delaying tactics, cursed loudly and had his troops reform. There was not much daylight left and he was still a long way from Trenton. Consequently, he placed some cannon at the front of his columns, prepared to fire at the earliest opportunity and set off down the Post Road once more. This time he would not be stopped.
It was this formation that met the combined Riflemen and Stormtroopers at fifteen minutes past three, the light beginning its descent into wintry darkness.
The Stormtroopers, with their shorter-range weaponry, were placed closer to the enemy, the Riflemen further back, but, on the signal from Hand, both sets let roar with a cascade of shot that pelted the front and middle range of the British columns. Cornwallis’s preparation though proved good. Within a few minutes, his guns were firing. The first fusillade from his cannons pierced the top of the ravine. Miraculously, no one was injured, as trees splintered and crashed to the ground above them, but the warning sign was clear to the joint leaders. ‘We need to get the hell out of here, Werner. These guns are going to going to do for us.’
From the top of the ravine, Forrest’s repositioned artillery replied to the British.
Conze shouted to Hand above the din, ‘Take the Riflemen first. We’ll keep them off with covering fire while Forrest makes his retreat.’
Hand nodded his assent and passed the message down the line. The Riflemen drew away as Forrest’s guns hammered away their reply. Finally, the coal miners picked up the ropes and started to drag the guns back to Trenton, while the Stormtroopers maintained their fire as best they could. In truth, there was not a man among them who did not curse the primitive nature of their weaponry, who yearned for the reliability of a Karabiner 98, or even better the metal regularity of a Maschinengewehr 42. They had only a few months of training in the musket, but it made little difference. The issue was not the men’s capability, but the primitive nature of the weapons. The smooth inner barrel of the musket, the lack of sights, the unreliability of flint and the constant frustration of having to rip and pour powder and to deal with the unpredictable flash in the pan, all restricted their ability to seriously harm the enemy. But then the same was true for their foes: not one of Conze’s men received anything more than a slight graze throughout the exchange.
The British cannon continued to roar up the ravine, much more dangerous than the flailing rifle shot, throwing up mud and rock. Once Conze felt Forrest and his artillery had enjoyed enough headway, he called the retreat into Trenton, down the main turnpike. They passed Forrest and his artillery, who were finding the Post Road something of a quagmire on the outskirts of Trenton, the miners swearing as they heaved on the heavy ropes. Conze stopped to ask Forrest:
‘How long will you need to get to the bridge, do you think?’
‘Once we clear this stretch, we should make it through Trenton quickly. The road is cobbled in places there. But this bit, it’s like wading through treacle. We’re damned if Cornwallis sends any cavalry ahead.’
‘I suspect he won’t send any advance horses. We’ve frightened him enough so that he’s putting cannon at the head of his column. He’ll have the same problem as you, but let me leave fifty men here with you until you reach the cobbled road.’
So Conze stayed with Forrest and the six guns all the way to Trenton’s main thoroughfare. Cornwallis did not send an advance horse party, but he was managing to move his guns quicker than the Colonists, despite the larger size of his cannon. In the darkening light, Conze saw them inching closer on the horizon. But finally, the American artillery hit the hard road and Forrest went off with his men with a cheery ‘See you over the bridge’ to Conze.
The Pennsylvanian Riflemen and the Stormtroopers now lay in wait for the British, dotted around the homes and buildings of Trenton, covering the main road down to the Assunpink Bridge and the side streets around it. They waited patiently.
Rifle ends poked through window frames. Men crouched around corners. Riflemen poured their powder. Stormtroopers fixed bayonets. Quietness pervaded the air. The tension was palpable.
Among them darted Pat O’Leary. As the expert gunsmith, he issued fresh flints and powder, and cleaned the rifles of the more callow Riflemen. By the time he had finished, not one of the Americans or Germans was not primed and ready for the British and Hessian attack.
Conze and Hand met once more in the timber doorway of a small cottage. ‘Your Riflemen should continue to fall back, Ed. My Stormtroopers know how to fight this kind of battle. They have experience that you cannot imagine in house-to-house fighting.’
‘I think I’ll struggle to persuade my boys to give up the fight just yet. They sense British blood; they’re almost too keen for it. No, we’re good for this just now. I think there must be an hour before nightfall; we must do our best to hold them back until then. The general was clear on this.’
Conze looked up at the closing sky. ‘My instinct tells me we shall be fine.’
A blast from a Brown Bess signalled the start of the fighting in the streets of Trenton. At first, both sides exchanged long-range fire but within seconds men were upon men in hand-to-hand fighting. The Stormtroopers had quickly abandoned their long rifles, throwing them with disdain to the ground, and attacking the British with either short pistols or knives, but always with total ferocity. The speed at which they moved, the courage they showed in directly throwing themselves at British riflemen with fixed bayonets, was a source of awe to all the Colonists, but none more so than Pat O’Leary.
He was as good as any other with a musket in the open field, but reloading and then shooting in the midst of a street fight was difficult for him. His big hands lacked the flexibility and speed for such immediate combat. After discharging a load though, he was crouched in a doorway pouring a fresh purse of powder when a Redcoat surprised him. The Br
it used his bayonet to spin the rifle out of O’Leary’s hands and prepared to follow up with a charge. O’Leary thought he was done for. He awaited the plunge of the steel, but it didn’t come. Instead, he saw the red jacket lifted into the air and then tossed away as if he were a turnip harvested from the field. It was Lothar Kluggman, the huge blond Stormtrooper who had been taking on all-comers in arm-wrestling five days earlier.
Kluggman was a beast, an absolute beast. He followed the flailing trooper into the open street and stuck his knife into his shako and right through the skull. As Redcoats came streaming into the street, he threw himself at them with his knife and an axe, slicing, cutting, chopping, hacking, and carving up the enemy. At one stage, four grenadiers attacked him together, from all sides. Kluggman dropped his weapons and grabbed the first one by the head. Twisting the soldier’s neck with a sickening crunch of bone and muscle, so the head suddenly faced backwards, he turned the torso, and the bayonet charge of the next solder went through his comrade’s chest. Releasing one of his massive hands, Kluggman cracked his fist down on that fellow’s head, sending him senseless to the ground. As the remaining two men leaped on top of him, Kluggman bit off the ear of one with a snap of his jaw and then smashed a right hook straight into the nose of the fourth man, so splintering cartilage, flesh and blood flew through the air. He then finished the job with an almighty roar that was just as frightening as anything O’Leary had just witnessed.
‘Jesus wept, where did you come from?’ O’Leary asked.
But Kluggman could speak no English and simply grunted before moving on, with O’Leary running after him.
The fighting made its way down to the bottom of Green Street. In the fading light, Hand could make out the Colonist forces. They stretched for what seemed like a mile along the east side of the creek, from a contingent on the left side of the Delaware and up to the right by the town millpond. Troops were stationed on top of each other, so they appeared to cover the entire slope from top to bottom. Clever, thought Hand, our forces look greater than they are. And close to the bridge and directly in front of the bridge, blocking its path, were Knox’s artillery. He could see Washington, just behind the bridge on his horse. And next to him, also on horseback, von Steuben.
They reached the top of the bridge with the Redcoats hacking and prodding them with bayonets, a problem for the Riflemen. A shot of cannon exploded over their heads. And then a human roar: ‘Riflemen, Stormtroopers, retreat now across our lines!’ Among them, on top of a chestnut mare, was von Steuben, slashing at the British with his sword. ‘Fall back at once!’ And then in German, directed at Kluggman who appeared to have no desire to stop the fighting, ‘Stoppen Sie jetzt, verdammt!’
Hand, Conze, O’Leary and the others crossed the bridge, ran past the cannonry and fell scrambling on to the embankment, exhausted, panting, their hearts beating fast. The Irishman looked up when he heard a familiar voice: ‘Good sport today, gentlemen?’ and then George Washington rode off, back to the bridge.
TWENTY-ONE
Three times Cornwallis threw his troops at the bridge across the Assunpink. Three times the Colonists threw them back, with cannon and musket, until the bridge was stained red with blood.
Night fell and further attacks seemed pointless to Cornwallis. He had his troops withdraw to Trenton and made camp for the night, before readying his plans for a fresh and successful assault the next morning. He had the old fox Washington. He would finish him off before lunch the next day. He would bring this war to a swift end, then he could get out of this damn country and return to Britain.
However, in the darkness, Washington was having his men follow the von Steuben plan.
While a small number of men laboured with picks and shovels on the earth banks, to give the impression they were digging in to repel the expected British advance, and the occasional round of cannon kept the enemy from sleeping too soundly, the rest of the army moved out.
They wrapped the artillery in blankets and quietly withdrew from bridge and bank, by regiments, setting out silently on the back roads to Princeton, a squadron of infantrymen leading the way. By two in the morning, all – aside from the five hundred men Washington had ordered to stay to confuse the enemy – were on the road and heading towards Princeton.
Von Steuben, whose bravery on the Assunpink Bridge had been widely commented upon by both commanders and soldiers, travelled with Mercer. He had asked permission from Washington, who had readily agreed. Nor did the general have any issue with Hanna Reitsch joining them. The Stormtroopers had proved themselves alongside the Pennsylvanian Riflemen. Washington appeared keen to embrace whatever innovation the Germans brought with them, and Reitsch seemed to be just another example of the way they thought differently.
Mercer remained sceptical of the baron and this very modern woman, but could not refuse the request. The necessity for quiet restricted their conversation during the route march, but when Washington sent an order for Mercer and a detachment of his men to destroy a bridge at Worth’s Mill, it created an opportunity. Close by the bridge, there was an orchard and Mercer suggested von Steuben and Reitsch join him and his second-in-command, John Haslett, for a walk while charges were set and lit.
‘You served under that great monarch Frederick, sir?’
‘I was privileged to serve as his aide-de-camp until the close of the war in 1763.’
‘We have long studied his victories such as Leuthen, Rossbach and Torgau. I would suggest he is the finest military mind in all of Europe.’
‘Europe and probably the world – although perhaps we will be forced to reconsider once these events have played themselves out.’
‘Ha! We may indeed, sir, although our general would be far too modest to seek out such comparisons. Why did you not stay on his majesty’s staff?’
‘I would have hoped to have stayed for a further period, even once the wars had ended and peace had arrived. But I fell victim to an implacable enemy in the court. That, General Mercer, is one of the issues around a monarch: those who look to serve and maintain only themselves. It is one of the benefits of a republic, sir. The lack of sycophancy, of plotting.’
Mercer nodded in agreement. ‘I am sure there will be vices as well as virtues in any republic we form. That said, I have witnessed first hand the brutal tyranny of monarchs. I was a young surgeon, not yet twenty, in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army at Culloden. I saw the brutality not just on the field, but after. The best of my nation, friends, relatives, hunted down and slaughtered in their beds or in front of their wee ones. I was in hiding and smuggled myself out to this continent. Here we regard your Frederick as the very model of an enlightened monarch. If King George had demonstrated a tiny bit of the common sense of your king, I daresay we would not be fighting his army and there would be no talk of a republic.’
‘I would agree with you. Unfortunately, although a monarch may be absolute, he may not be absolute on the details of those around him. As I said: there was an enemy and I suffered as a result.’
‘The name, sir, of this enemy?’
Von Steuben had no recollection of a name, as Conze had never provided one in his briefings. He toyed with creating one. He also wanted to avoid coming close to why the real von Steuben had been forced out of Frederick’s court: his homosexuality. ‘I would rather not divulge it, sir. One is never sure how far the tentacles of a beast reach. Perhaps when our adventures have brought us closer to friendship, then, over a glass or two of brandy, I may allow myself – through a slip of the tongue – a name, to perhaps allow you some security.’
Sensing the unease, Reitsch aimed to deflect the questioning: ‘And you, General Mercer, I believe you and General Washington both served together in the British army.’
Mercer turned to face her, a smile across his face. ‘Indeed, madame. We served together under Johnny Forbes in the attack on Fort Duquesne, back in fifty-eight. I then retired to Fredericksberg, and took up medicine once more. George and myself were both members of the Masonic Temple, s
o we retained our close friendship. Indeed, I bought my family home at Ferry Farm from him. So I am as close to General Washington as any man can be. And as loyal.’
Reitsch thought to herself, And you may shortly see the price of that loyalty.
‘General, I think we have a problem.’ Haslett pointed up to the ridge along which ran the Princeton to Trenton road. Down it marched a column of British troops.
Von Steuben and Reitsch looked at each other, he making a curt nod towards her. Once again Conze’s preparation was proving to be excellent.
‘Come, let us quickly prepare. Men fall into line! The enemy is upon us!’ Mercer yelled, as he mounted his horse and galloped towards his troops.
The 300 men under his control were surprised; it took them some minutes to collect both their weapons and their wits. By which time, the British were off the road, down the hillside and marching towards them, preparing an opening volley as they went. Eighty yards away, they stopped, presented arms and a burst of fire followed. The barrage had no bite, however, and not one colonist was hit. Mercer ordered his troops to return fire. One volley fired and was met almost instantly by a return from the British, to which the Americans replied. Mercer’s line was forced to step back, until it was mostly in the orchard.
Men began to fall, as much from shot ricocheting off trees as from the accuracy of the marksmen. A burst of cannon from the British brought down several limbs of an ancient apple tree, more annoying to the Colonists than dangerous. But the battle was soon bloody; casualties began to mount on both sides as they exchanged shots for a good ten minutes. Then the British made a significant change in tactic – a bayonet charge.
The Colonists, with their bayonet-less muskets, were at a definite disadvantage. Mercer had no option. ‘Retreat!’ he roared and almost at once his boys ran for their lives deeper into the orchard. In the chaos, they gave up the two small cannon that they had brought with them, which were soon turned on them by the British overrunning the line.
