Prelude to Glory Vol, 3

by Ron Carter

  Wiederhold struggled for a moment to understand, then spoke in broken English. “I will tell my commander. Wait.”

  He carefully, steadily walked back to Biederholdt.

  “The American General St. Clair demands our surrender.”

  Biesenholdt’s chin went up. “No. I will not surrender.”

  Wiederhold nodded and turned on his heel and retraced his steps to Wilkinson, while St. Clair walked out and Wiederhold waited for him.

  “You are General St. Clair?”

  “I am.”

  “My commanding officer refuses your demand to surrender.” The words were badly accented and St. Clair struggled for a moment before he understood.

  “Tell him he is surrounded. He has no chance. If he chooses to fight, his command will be destroyed.”

  Wiederhold’s face clouded for a moment while he struggled with the English words, then he nodded. “He knows he is surrounded. That does not matter to him.”

  St. Clair felt his temper rising. “Tell him Americans hold every bridge, every road, every ferry, every ford. Trenton is surrounded.” Then St. Clair paused, his head thrust slightly forward, and no one could mistake the anger in his voice. “Tell him if he does not surrender immediately, I will blow you all to pieces! Tell him!”

  Wiederhold stared into St. Clair’s eyes and he knew one thing. St. Clair would do exactly what he had said. He nodded and turned on his heel and once more walked back to face Biesenrodt.

  “Herr Commander, I am told to tell you the Americans control Trenton.” He paused for a moment, pondering the wisdom of finishing the message, and then continued. “He said you shall surrender immediately or he will blow all of us to pieces. Right now.”

  Biesenrodt stared into Wiederhold’s eyes and Wiederhold did not flinch.

  Biesenrodt’s shoulders slumped and all the air went out of him. “I will talk with St. Clair.”

  Both commanders ordered their men to stand down and two hundred muskets clicked off cock as the two men walked to meet each other in the open ground.

  “I will surrender if you will allow my officers to keep their swords and their baggage.”

  “Done.”

  In full sight of both commands the two men reached to shake hands.

  It was over.

  Wilkinson turned to St. Clair. “I’ll inform General Washington.”

  St. Clair handed Wilkinson the reins to his horse, then drew his watch from his pocket and stared at it. It was not yet half past nine o’clock in the morning.

  Notes

  This lengthy chapter covers two of the most important events of the Revolutionary War: Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River and the subsequent battle at Trenton. The actions and events depicted in this chapter are as accurate as possible and are based almost exclusively on pages 248-65 in Ketchum’s The Winter Soldiers, which provides an excellent outline and summary of the historical events. The battle was fought in a howling blizzard and was one of the wildest scenes recorded in the Revolutionary War.

  This chapter also touches on some additional points of interest.

  Before the American soldiers embarked on their journey across the river, Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis was read to them (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 248). Paine’s stirring words helped warm the hearts of the men preparing for battle.

  Traditionally, historians have reported that Major James Wilkinson delivered a letter to Washington from General Gates the day of the crossing informing him that Gates had departed to Philadelphia. However, Gates’s reasons for leaving Washington at this critical juncture have been debated for years afterward. Some accuse Gates of going to Congress to gain favor in hopes of replacing Washington (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 249), while other defend his motives, proposing that Gates left the army due to poor health (see Nelson, General Horatio Gates, p. 77 and Chase, The Papers of George Washington, vol. 7, p. 418). In addition, many historians doubt the reliability of Wilkinson’s memory, as it was several years before the major recorded the incident and by then had developed a deep animosity towards Gates (see Nelson, General Horatio Gates, p. 76 n. 34). The debate remains unresolved.

  The day of the Delaware crossing was clear, though the skies grew darker and the storm clouds moved in throughout the day. By eleven o’clock at night, a heavy storm finally broke, pelting the American army with snow, sleet, and eventually hail. The storm persisted, adding to the delay in Washington’s schedule (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 252).

  Some of the lines of dialogue in this chapter are variations on dramatic and descriptive quotations from the men who experienced the events firsthand. James Wilkinson made famous the observation that the snow was “tinged here and there with blood from the feet of the men who wore broken shoes” (as quoted in Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 248), and Thomas Rodney recorded that the night march to Trenton was “as severe a night as I ever saw” (as quoted in Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 252). Washington did scrawl a note to Sullivan, ordering him, “Use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton” (as quoted in Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 253).

  Brigadier Generals Ewing and Cadwalader attempted to cross the river as portrayed in the novel, but inadequate boats and an approaching storm motivated Ewing to cancel the crossing and hope for the best. Not so with Cadwalader. Being unable to cross at Bristol, Cadwalader’s men ferried the boats farther south to Dunk’s Ferry, where they attempted a second crossing. Cadwalader had managed to cross most of his men but was unable to ferry his artillery. He recalled his troops and was about to attempt a third crossing the next day when word reached him that Washington had secured Trenton (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, pp. 268-69).

  The battle in Trenton was every bit as fierce and frenetic as the novel illustrates. In a raging storm that made muskets an unreliable weapon, men fought with bayonets while violent cannons fired grapeshot through the streets. The remaining Hessian pickets from the outlying posts retreated into Trenton and Rall’s command quickly turned to chaos and confusion; Rall never did manage to gather his troops enough to effect a counterattack. The Americans managed to force the Hessians into the orchard on the east side of town, where Rall was hit twice and then moved to the relative safety of Trenton proper, while Scheffer and Biesenrodt surrendered to the American army (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, pp. 258-65).

  Part Two

  Trenton, New Jersey

  December 26, 1776

  CHAPTER IX

  A strangeness comes stealing over a battlefield after the guns have fallen silent. Hills, or streets, or valleys, or breastworks where men clashed in death struggles are no longer so high, so wide, or so unattainable. Magically they have become ordinary, normal, vulnerable. Places where men fell have lost their terrible, bright fascination and are once again just places, like a thousand others. Fallen comrades somehow seem diminished, smaller. Fallen enemies become ordinary men, no longer great and fierce and unconquerable.

  Billy and Eli hunched their shoulders against the howling northeast wind that drove the sleet stinging in their faces and walked into the open field north of the Assunpink Creek. They silently picked their way through the litter and the dead towards fifteen hundred men who milled among the black craters where unnumbered cannonballs had ripped the frozen, black earth. Eight hundred stone-faced Americans with cannon and loaded muskets and leveled bayonets had surrounded seven hundred blue- and green-coated Hessians, hands held high, and they were coming out in small groups on command to stack their arms in the wind and snow.

  Billy and Eli narrowed their eyes against the wind as they searched for the tall, dark shape of General George Washington in his black cape, sitting his bay horse among the silent soldiers. He was not there, and Billy and Eli turned west, trotting towards the town. They came into Trenton on Fourth Street and crossed Quaker Lane in silence, wind nearly at their backs, peering wide-eyed at the destruction and the dead and wounded as though it were all new to them.

  A young Hess
ian moaned and Billy turned to look. The smoothcheeked boy sat propped against the door frame of a small home, black blood frozen on his coat front and on the flagstones to his left side. The door had been blasted off its hinges by grapeshot. His long, blonde hair blew in the wind as he turned pain-glazed blue eyes to Billy, licked parched lips and tried to speak, but could not. He lifted his left arm towards Billy and Billy gasped and bit off a groan. There was no hand extended from the empty sleeve. It had been blown off above the wrist.

  Billy knelt beside the young man and pushed back the coat sleeve and shuddered. Eli handed him his belt knife and Billy cut a piece from the rope he used to tie his coat at his waist and quickly fashioned a tourniquet, while Eli pulled the cork from his canteen and held it to the dry, fevered lips. Billy moved the boy inside the doorway, out of the wind, and propped him against the wall as best he could, then placed the boy’s good right hand on the stick of wood he had used to twist the tourniquet. He looked into the blue eyes until the young German understood and his fingers tightened to hold the twisted rope tight while tortured eyes peered up at Billy.

  Billy said, “I will send help.” He repeated it, waiting to see if the boy understood.

  The head nodded once, and then the face dropped as the boy looked at the stump of his left arm. Billy stood and for a moment stared down and swallowed, then turned back out the door into the wind, Eli beside him. They walked west to Queen Street and paused to look up and down at the trees and homes shattered by cannon fire. Hessians in their great winter coats lay dead and dying where they had fallen. The carcasses of a dozen horses lay on the frozen ground, some still hitched to the cannon they had been pulling when the American grapeshot came whistling. One horse was patiently scraping the street with a front foot, trying to rise, unable to understand why its hind legs would not work. Eli looked and saw the broken spine just ahead of the hindquarters. He shot once in the middle of the forehead and the animal’s head dropped.

  Behind them Americans began filtering into the town, systematically going through each home, business, building, searching out the stores of food, blankets, medicine, powder, and ammunition the Hessians had laid in for winter. Ten yards to his right Billy saw a Hessian officer, bareheaded, coat open, hands smeared with blood, moving south, pausing at each body to feel for a pulse, then move on. Beside him a young lieutenant carried a bag.

  Billy stopped the man and spoke. “Are you a doctor?”

  The man puzzled for a moment. “Doktor? Ja.”

  “There’s a man up there with a hand gone. Do you understand?”

  The doctor shook his head.

  Billy took him by the arm and with Eli, led him trotting back down Fourth Street and pointed to the vacant doorway. The doctor paused, then suddenly his eyebrows arched and he nodded his head violently. In a moment he was through the doorway with his assistant.

  Billy and Eli traveled west on Third Street to Queen and they could see Rall’s headquarters on the far side of King. The once graceful home of Stacy Potts was streaked with black marks left by grapeshot. Windows were shattered and the walls broken where a dozen cannonballs had punched halfway through the house. Third Street was littered with smashed tree limbs, parts of houses and buildings, abandoned cannon, dead horses and Hessians. The two men moved north staring tightlipped, silent.

  Ahead they saw Major Wilkinson emerge from Fourth Street onto Queen. From the west, they saw mounted soldiers riding down Third Street towards them. In the instant of seeing they recognized the tall black shape of General George Washington on his big bay horse, and at the same moment they saw a group of Hessians carrying someone to the entrance of a church. Washington and his cluster of officers stopped and Washington dismounted to follow the enemy soldiers inside the small, white building while his officers waited.

  Inside the church, Washington removed his hat and held it beneath his arm as he walked to the group of Hessian officers, who pulled back to give him entry. Before him Colonel Rall opened his eyes and squinted in the dim light until he recognized the tall figure standing over him.

  Washington peered down at him, and it was Rall who spoke first, slowly. “General, I surrender my command.”

  An aide translated the German to English, and Washington nodded. “I accept.”

  “Will you treat my soldiers humanely? They are good men who have served well.”

  “I will, colonel. I will.”

  “I thank you, and I congratulate you on your victory.”

  “I wish you well.”

  There was little else to be said, and Washington stood for a moment, staring into the eyes of the defeated, dying officer before he straightened. He bowed slightly from the hips, then turned. The other German officers stepped back to give him passage and he strode from the room, out into the wind, closing the door behind.

  Inside, Rall’s officers began removing his clothing to get to the two wounds in his side when one of them discovered the folded note in his vest pocket. Puzzled, he read it, then passed it to Rall. In an instant Rall remembered the late night card game at the home of Abraham Hunt—the written message he had not taken time to read—and he forced his eyes to focus as he read.

  “The Americans are coming tonight to attack Trenton.”

  His eyes closed and his head rolled back as his hand lowered, and the note fluttered to the floor. He opened his eyes and spoke to those hovering over him. “If I had read this at Mr. Hunt’s I would not be here.”

  Outside, Washington remounted his horse and turned west down Third Street as Wilkinson rode up and both men halted. Billy and Eli stopped five yards behind Wilkinson.

  “Sir,” Wilkinson said, “I have come to report the last of the Hessians down by the creek have surrendered. Trenton is ours.”

  Washington leaned to shake Wilkinson’s hand. “Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day for our country.” For a rare moment Washington allowed himself the luxury of a smile while he savored the moment of this impossible victory. Then, with the wind at his back, he once again shouldered the crushing load.

  “Major, would you carry a message to the general officers east of town handling the surrender. Tell them to turn those proceedings over to the junior officers as soon as possible. I need them at Rall’s headquarters. Tell General St. Clair I will need a report on our own casualties, and those of the Hessians, immediately.”

  Wilkinson saluted and reined his horse around and raised it to a lope, then turned east on Third Street. Billy and Eli watched him until he disappeared, then turned back to Washington, and moved out of the street to let him and his aides and officers pass.

  Washington did not move. He stared down, studying them. He peered at Eli’s wolf skin coat, and suddenly spoke. “Don’t I know you? What is your name and regiment?”

  “Eli Stroud. Scout.”

  Washington’s expression did not change. “Didn’t you carry a message for me recently?” He did not speak the name “Honeyman” or “Griggstown” and Eli understood.

  He nodded. “I did.”

  The officers at Washington’s side looked at Eli, then at Washington, waiting for the general to demand that he be addressed as “Sir.” He said nothing as he turned his eyes to Billy. “What is your name and regiment?”

  “Corporal Billy Weems, sir. Originally Company Nine, Boston Regiment, lately assigned to General Mercer.”

  Remembrance was instant. “Do I recall you and Mr. Stroud guiding Colonel Glover to stop General Howe in the wheat fields south of White Plains?”

  “Yes, sir, we were with the colonel.”

  “Have you seen him today? Is he all right?”

  “Yes, sir. We were with him half an hour ago when he and Colonel Stark took the last of the Hessians down by the creek. He was fine then, sir.”

  Relief showed in Washington’s face. “Good. Stay close to your regiment. I may need you later.”

  Eli nodded. Billy answered, “Yes, sir.”

  Washington tapped spur to horse to move on down to Rall’s headqua
rters when Billy spoke again.

  “Sir, may I inquire?”

  “What is it?”

  “Wasn’t that Colonel Rall the Hessians took inside the church?” He pointed.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “He is dying. There is nothing we can do for him. I left him the dignity of being with his own officers.”

  Billy glanced at Eli and Eli wiped his hand across his mouth and remained silent.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Washington nodded and moved down the street to stop at the graceful home Stacy Potts had given to Colonel Rall as his headquarters. Washington tied his horse and walked in through the splintered door, his aides and officers following.

  Billy turned his back to the wind and pointed to the ragged Americans entering every house. “They’re starting to pile supplies in the street. We better go on down to the Old Barracks and see if the horses and wagons are still there.”

  Eli nodded. “And the cattle. Enough meat there for a month.”

  The thick, ugly clouds overhead continued to lock Trenton in a pall of gray, and the wind held, driving the sleet nearly horizontal. There was no great celebration among the Americans of their miraculous victory, rather they anxiously searched the town in silence, desperate for the food and clothing they had been so long denied. They paused in kitchens only long enough to cram a loaf of bread inside their tattered shirts, or stuff a biscuit in their mouth as they carried anything they could eat from the pantries or root cellars to stack near the street.

  They broke into a warehouse and stood openmouthed at the sight of hundreds of blankets in bundles, half a dozen crates of boots, a thousand pairs of thick wool socks, shipping crates with trousers, shirts, and heavy Hessian overcoats. They called to those behind and the word spread. The tattered, shivering Americans came to silently strip their rags and pull on new trousers, shirts, warm socks, boots, and button the heavy overcoats tight against the storm, reveling in the luxury of warmth.