by Howard Fast
Apparently his second horse was a white, and this was characteristic of the legend that had already grown up about him and his white horses. The Virginians, who were perhaps two hundred yards to the north of where Washington lost his mount, could see the horse with the man on it. They sent up a yell of anger and poured down the pasture to support their commander in chief. At the very same time, Johnny Stark and his Vermont and New Hampshire men were racing up from the south. Suddenly the force of Hessians—there were almost eight hundred of them that Rahl had rallied into action—found themselves inside a circle of Americans.
Rahl continued to sit on his horse, losing blood and heartbroken at what had happened. The defeated Hessians stood where they were. They presented their wet muskets almost as objects of atonement.
Washington misunderstood their gesture of surrender and imagined that they were forming up to fire a volley into the Americans. Afterward, some people censured him for this. But it is impossible to conceive that in the excitement of the moment he would have remembered or even taken the chance that no musket could be fired on that day in that weather. In any case, Washington shouted for Captain Forrest to fire into the Hessians, and if this order had been obeyed, a storm of canisters would have torn through their close-packed ranks and perhaps hundreds of them would have been cruelly cut down. Fortunately, young Captain Forrest kept his head, and he ran up to where Washington sat on his horse and shouted to him: “Sir, they have struck!”
Washington leaned over his horse now and looked down at Forrest’s smoke-blackened face.
“Struck?” Washington asked.
“Yes, sir, their colors are down!” Forrest yelled.
The exchange with Forrest appeared to bring Washington to his senses. Suddenly the fury left him and he became very cold and formal. He rode his horse toward the Hessians, Captain Forrest and Captain Hamilton pressing after him, and after them the shouting mob of American soldiers. As the great mass of bearded and unkempt Americans, their rags hanging from wet and mud-grimed bodies, pressed around the cluster of Hessians, they saw now the fear that had gathered over the Hessians’ faces. Now the Hessians were no longer the hated and frightful enemy. They were German boys, very far from home, facing a mob of wild men, who already were so close with their naked bayonets that the Hessians believed that their last moment on earth had come.
All the hunger, all the terrible defeats that the Americans had experienced over the past six months were summed up in their anger now; yet, when they saw the pale dread, the horror on the Hessians’ faces, the Americans stopped.
[29]
MEANWHILE SULLIVAN’S MEN had closed around Rahl and Knyphausen, who was holding Rahl erect in his saddle. On the other side of Rahl, also on horseback, was a young Hessian officer, who with Knyphausen was supporting his commander.
Rahl dropped his sword, and a Hessian soldier picked it up and gave it to him. His hands trembling, tears running down his cheeks, Rahl reversed his sword and said in German that he must surrender like a Hessian officer.
Hundreds of Americans pressed around the three mounted Hessian officers, staring up at them curiously. The great battle shout became a whisper, and the whisper gave way to the sound of the rain, and suddenly a stillness settled over Trenton.
Sullivan called to his men to find someone who spoke German, and a young German captain from Pennsylvania pushed through the mass of Americans to face Rahl.
Washington, however, kept his distance, observing the scene from about thirty yards away. He made no attempt to get through the intervening space and join Sullivan’s confrontation of Rahl. The young Pennsylvania captain translated for Sullivan, telling Sullivan that Rahl wanted to surrender like a Hessian officer. Sullivan replied with words to the effect that he didn’t give a goddamn how Rahl surrendered, so long as he surrendered. He reached out and took the sword, looked at it for a long moment and then passed it over to Johnny Stark.
Knyphausen then talked to Sullivan in German, and the young Pennsylvania officer translated for him, saying that now he, Knyphausen, was in command, since it appeared that Colonel Rahl was hurt very badly, and that he, too, would surrender.
Then Knyphausen drew his sword, reversed it and gave it to Sullivan.
He then asked Sullivan would it be all right if they found a place where Rahl could lie down and where his wounds could be attended to? When this was translated for Sullivan, the American said yes, and he ordered off a guard to accompany them. Slowly, the three Hessian officers on their horses moved through the crowd of Americans.
Sullivan then pushed his way through the Pennsylvanians to where Washington sat with his staff officers and aides. Old Hugh Mercer was at his side. Mercer was suffering great arthritic pain. But he was so exhilarated with what had happened that he was able to ignore the pain and participate in the triumph over the Hessians.
From the expression on Washington’s face it was evident that this was no triumph for him. The forty-eight hours that he had just lived through caught up with him, and his body sagged with fatigue. Sullivan reported to him, and then Colonel Stark pushed through and talked to him, and then other officers, one after another. The officers who had pressed around Washington now went off to the business of concluding the victory and gathering their men.
Meanwhile, the guard of a dozen men that Sullivan had detailed to go with the Hessian officers accompanied Rahl, Knyphausen and the young officer to the home of Stacey Potts. Potts was a Quaker and a tavernkeeper, and like most of the Quakers in Trenton, he had remained in the town after its occupation by the Hessians. The Quakers in Trenton had carried themselves in a remarkable manner throughout this battle. They had remained in their homes without panic and without excitement, and throughout the fighting they had administered to the wounded of both sides. They had bound the wounds Captain William Washington had suffered in the initial attack on the guardhouse, and they had bound up the wounds of the Hessians.
The two Hessian officers, assisted by two more Hessian enlisted men, carried Rahl into the Potts home and upstairs to the second floor. Potts told them to lay the colonel down on a bed in the front room, that is, on his own bed. Potts’s daughter had suffered a slight skull wound, and her head was bound up. Pale, quiet, she watched the whole thing, and only when Rahl had been laid out on the bed did she come toward him and help her mother to cut away his blood-soaked clothes and to see whether or not they could attend to his wound.
As unbelievable as it sounds, only forty-five minutes had passed since the battle began, that is, since Captain William Washington and Lieutenant James Monroe had stormed the guardhouse and cut down the sentry. The total American casualties in the battle consisted of two men who were frozen to death on the march and, therefore, could not actually be considered battle casualties; Captain William Washington, shot through both hands when he stormed the guardhouse; and Lieutenant James Monroe, slightly wounded at the same time. There were no dead Americans in the battle.
The Hessians, on the other hand, had suffered much greater losses. The British newspaper reports of the time put the Hessians’ loss at about ninety men, but this is very hard to substantiate. Some of those Hessians who had fled deserted and lost themselves in the colonies. Certainly, if they ran from the field of battle and returned to their ranks, they would have been court-martialed and possibly shot for cowardice. It was much easier to lose themselves in America.
[30]
WASHINGTON STAYED IN THE FIELD. He refused all offers of dry clothing and shelter. He had to know how the battle had finished, and, most of all, he had to convince himself that the battle indeed was over. He was still unaware of what had happened to General Ewing and General Cadwalader. Immediately following the quiet of the battle’s end, he sent riders off to bring him news. When the news came, it was inexplicable. General Ewing was supposed to have crossed before daylight a mile below Trenton and to have taken up a position along the Assanpink Creek and then detach forces to cross the creek and advance upon Trenton.
; He never showed up, and as a matter of fact, he had never crossed the river. Washington learned this news after the Battle of Trenton was over, and he also learned that Ewing’s reason was that there had been too much ice. But most damaging to Washington was the fact that Cadwalader of Philadelphia, a man he had trusted so and had indeed made into a general just before the battle, had failed him. After managing to bring the majority of his troops across the Delaware River about nine miles below Trenton, Cadwalader found it too difficult to load the cannon. Instead of having the courage and the audacity either to come to Washington’s assistance or to attack Von Donop, the Hessian leader encamped at Bordentown, Cadwalader reembarked his men and recrossed to the west bank of the Delaware River and safety.
This news was brought to Washington, but he could neither comprehend nor digest it. Washington, who had apparently never known the terror that men can experience in battle, was at a loss to understand or to sympathize with it in others, especially among his own general officers. A private soldier might exhibit fear; in an officer Washington found it unforgivable.
The end of the battle had left him cold as ice, emotionless and depressed. He called grimly for a search of every house, every cellar, every stable in Trenton. He ordered every woodpile turned over. He demanded that all the Hessians in Trenton and in the region around it be taken prisoner and accounted for.
Already, at Mercer’s orders, a list of the British losses was being prepared. It would seem from the information they had at hand that Lossberg’s regiment had surrendered one lieutenant colonel, one major, one captain, three lieutenants, four ensigns, thirty-eight sergeants, six drummers, nine musicians and nine servants of the officers, with two hundred and six rank and file.
From Rahl’s regiment there had been three colonels, a major, a captain, two lieutenants, five ensigns, two surgeon’s mates, twenty-five sergeants, three drummers, four musicians, nine servants of officers and two hundred and forty-four of the rank and file.
From Knyphausen’s regiment a major and two captains, two lieutenants and three ensigns, twenty-five sergeants, six drummers, six servants of officers and two hundred and fifty-eight of the rank and file.
From the artillery regiment a lieutenant and four sergeants and two servants of officers and thirty-eight of the rank and file.
These were the figures brought to Washington early that day. Later, perhaps, they might be adjusted, but nothing would change the fact that he had taken the vast bag of over nine hundred prisoners, six double-fortified brass three-pound cannon, with carriages complete, three ammunition wagons, twelve drums and all the colors of three Hessian regiments. This last in particular must have given a singular pleasure to the man who had begun to learn the bloody game of war with the slaughter in Brooklyn.
The booty of the great victory went further than Hessian prisoners. There were great piles of muskets, enormous stores of all sorts of military supplies, drums of powder, iron kettles filled with musket balls.
Already the freezing Yankee soldiers were pulling the coats off the Hessians and covering up their own rags. Some of them had found two drums of rum among the Hessian stores. When the first rum was breached, Greene realized that the great victory could still be turned into a fiasco. Rum was the last thing the young soldiers needed, and he confiscated it immediately. By the hundreds the Americans had dropped to the wooden sidewalks and to the muddy streets, sleeping where they fell. Their officers walked among the men, beating them with canes and with the flats of their swords, to get them to stand guard duty over the shivering, defeated Hessians.
Sitting on his horse in something of a daze, Washington moved across the captured town, looking at the booty that was being assembled, piles of thick woolen blankets—his men would be cold no longer—mounds of sheets and linen and scarves and coats and boots. Soldiers watching him wondered afterward why he should have been so deeply depressed and sad, having gained so great and spectacular a victory against all odds, against all reason, against all hopes.
[31]
GENERAL GREENE RODE UP alongside of Washington, took his arm gently, and said to him, “General Washington, Colonel Rahl is dying.”
Washington’s response was to the effect that war was always a matter of life and death, and if Rahl was dying, let him damn well die.
Greene argued that Washington could not let Rahl die in this manner, that every dictate of military courtesy urged the commander in chief to go to the Hessian, face him and sympathize with him as gentlemen did with each other, even when they served on opposite sides.
Washington answered to the effect that he wanted no words with any Hessian.
Now Mercer joined them and pressed him to do as Greene suggested. At this point Washington had neither the will nor the strength to argue further, and he rode along with Greene to the Potts house. The house was sealed off by a guard of Pennsylvania riflemen, who opened their ranks to let the commander in chief and Greene through.
Washington and Greene then went upstairs to where Colonel Rahl had been laid out on the bed of the owner of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Potts were in the room and also their daughter, three Hessian officers and a young American lieutenant. Greene, who was a Quaker himself, had hurriedly explained to Washington who the Pottses were and the circumstances that had brought Rahl to the house. Washington did not respond. What Quakers did was their business, not his. He walked into the room and stood with a stony face before Rahl.
Rahl whispered, and his words went unheard. He raised an arm a trifle, and then Washington bent over the bed to hear him. A young noncommissioned Hessian officer wrote down afterward what Rahl said to Washington.
“Meine Männer sind gute tapfere Männer. Berauben Sie sie nicht. Nehmen Sie ihre Waffen, aber lassen Sie ihnen ihr Geld und ihre Würde.”
“My men are good brave men. Don’t rob them. Take their arms, but leave them their money and their dignity.”
Washington listened to the German words without understanding them, and no one dared to translate in the presence of the cold, bitter commander in chief. Mercer came into the room then and bent over Rahl’s bed as a doctor does. The Hessian closed his eyes. A moment later Mercer raised his eyelids, and they remained open. Colonel Rahl was dead in a strange, cold land thousands of miles from his home.
Washington stood erect and without speaking walked out of the room. The contest was over. It had begun in New York six months before, and now the score was settled. Never again would the Hessian on American soil be the figure of terror that he had once been; but neither could Washington forget on that day. He was too spent.
Greene and Mercer followed Washington out of the room. Instead of commenting on Rahl’s death, Washington said coldly to Greene and to Mercer that their position was untenable. He asked them whether they realized the luck that had surrounded them every inch of the way? Cadwalader and Ewing with their two armies were still on the west bank of the river. Nothing had gone right, and the lunatic miracle that had just taken place should not deceive them. So far as any of them knew, the Hessian Von Donop was leading his army against Trenton at this very moment.
Washington asked Greene where his men were, and Greene replied that they were sleeping. Washington told Greene to wake them up and get them ready to march.
[32]
HE HIMSELF REFUSED to lie down and rest. He mounted his horse again and rode back and forth through the town, giving orders whenever he met one of his general officers or one of the colonels, this division to be responsible for these stores, that division to be responsible for those stores. He met Sullivan and told him that he wanted the army in marching order by noontime. They were to return to the landing place and recross the river to the Pennsylvania shore. His officers listened to this order, as Sullivan did, with astonishment and disbelief. Yet, when they began to protest, the look on his face stopped them. They remained silent and did as he had commanded.
Wherever he went, he asked for Glover. Men directed him, and finally he found Glover together with Colonel S
tark. Stark and Glover were on foot now. The New Englanders walked over to the commander in chief, and the three men stood together and talked.
All around them private soldiers, noncommissioned officers and regular officers stopped to watch the three men and listen. Colonel Johnny Stark of the Bennington Rifles was grinning with pleasure and triumph. His clothes were torn. He had lost his fancy white wig, which he affected at that time, and his hair, face and clothes were caked with mud and blood. He carried no weapon except a big Hessian cutlass that he clutched in his right hand. He shifted it to his left so that he could offer his right hand to the commander in chief.
He said words to the effect that they had done it.
There was no one, including George Washington, who could be angry or distant with Johnny Stark of Vermont. Only Glover was beyond smiles now as he told the tall skinny Virginian that he had heard that they were crossing the river again.
“Before nightfall,” Washington replied.
Glover said that he, his commander, was mad; but then, in a manner of speaking, they were all mad.
An hour later the army began to march out of Trenton. They took with them over nine hundred prisoners, six brass cannon, gun carriages, at least two hundred Hessian horses, wagons of ammunition, food, clothing, blankets, wagons of medicine, indeed, life, victory and the ability to continue the war.
For how long? As it seemed to them then, forever.
AN
AFTERWORD
BETWEEN THE TWO CROSSINGS of the Delaware River by the army under the leadership of General Washington, only twenty days elapsed, a very small part of a war that lasted eight years.
