The Crossing

by Howard Fast

  —WILKINSON, Memoirs of My Own Times, 1, 105–106.

  Who to believe—Wilkinson or Tarleton? Both liars, both scoundrels, both men of small honor. History is filled with such alternate versions of the “truth.” Lee was captured—that is all we truly know. As for the “two French Colonels,” they remain one of the curious enigmas of the history of the Revolution.

  *This is not correct. The boats were commandeered for the army.

  NOTES FOR The Second Crossing

  (WEST to EAST)

  NOTES: Chapter 4

  It is perhaps too easy to use General Horatio Gates as a villain. History has structured him as the prime internal enemy of General Washington, and the so-called Conway Cabal was taught to generations of young Americans as proof of Gates’s infamy. But the infamy was more of a scholarly creation than a fact of the time, and his rivalry with Washington becomes far more understandable if one sees it as the rivalry of the agrarian democrat with the aristocrat—for all that Gates was British-born.

  In John C. Miller’s Triumph of Freedom, Little, Brown and Company, 1948, there is an excellent description of the Gates—Washington feud (pp. 234-261), one that upsets certain notions of Continental unity behind Washington. Thoughtful and respected men like Dr. Benjamin Rush and James Lovell honored Gates and despised Washington, while others, Thomas Paine, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox to mention only a few, worshiped the ground Washington walked upon. Paine’s adoration of Washington was not unconnected with his later miseries, and Lord Stirling, so close to Washington, was denounced as a fool and a drunkard by Washington’s enemies.

  It appeared to me—with some logic, I believe—that the Gates—Washington split began actively just before the crossing, with Gates’s cold rejection of Washington’s daring scheme. Upon this, I reconstructed the content of a meeting of which we have no exact record.

  The separation between these two men was very deep and many-sided, even extending to Mrs. Gates’s jealousy of Martha Washington and her bitterness at the public adulation offered to Martha. Gates believed in short-term militia; Washington believed in a trained, professional army. The differences went on, too numerous to specify here.

  NOTES: Chapter 14

  When the meeting at the Merrick house finally wound up, Washington dictated the following order:

  Each brigade to be furnished with two good guides. General Stephen’s brigade to form the advance party, and to have with them a detachment of the artillery without cannon, provided with spikes and hammers to spike up the enemy’s cannon in case of necessity, or to bring them off if it can be effected, the party to be provided with drag-ropes for the purpose of dragging cannon. General Stephen is to attack and force the enemy’s guards and seize such posts as may prevent them from forming in the streets, and in case they are annoyed from the houses to set them on fire. The brigades of Mercer and Lord Stirling, under the command of Major General Green, support General Stephen. This is the second division or left wing of the army and to march by the way of the Pennington road.

  St. Clair’s, Glover’s and Sargent’s brigades under Major General Sullivan, to march by the River road. This is the first division of the army, and to form the right wing. Lord Stirling’s brigade to form the reserve of the left wing, and General St. Clair’s brigade the reserve of the right wing. These reserves to form a second line in conjunction, or a second line to each division, as circumstances may require. Each Brigadier to make the Colonels acquainted with the posts of their respective regiments in the brigade, and the Major Generals will inform them of the posts of the brigades in the line. Four pieces of artillery to march at the head of each column; three pieces at the head of the second brigade of each division; and two pieces with each of the reserves. The troops to be assembled one mile back of McKonkey’s Ferry, and as soon as it begins to grow dark the troops to be marched to McKonkey’s Ferry, and embark on board the boats in the following order under the direction of Colonel Knox.

  General Stephen’s brigade, with the detachment of artillery men, to embark first; General Mercer’s next; Lord Stirling’s next; General Fermoy’s next, who will march into the rear of the second division and file off from the Pennington to the Princeton road in such direction that he can with the greatest ease and safety secure the passes between Princeton and Trenton. The guides will be the best judges of this. He is to take two pieces of artillery with him. St. Clair’s, Glover’s, and Sargent’s brigades to embark in order. Immediately upon their debarkation, the whole to form and march in subdivisions from the right. The commanding officers of regiments to observe that the divisions be equal and that proper officers be appointed to each. A profound silence to be enjoined, and no man to quit his ranks on the pain of death. Each Brigadier to appoint flanking parties; the reserve brigades to appoint the rear guards of the columns; the heads of the columns to be appointed to arrive at Trenton at five o’clock.

  Captain Washington and Captain Flahaven, with a party of forty men each, to march before the divisions and post themselves on the road about three miles from Trenton, and make prisoners of all going in or going out of the town.

  General Stephen will appoint a guard to form a chain of sentries round the landing place at a sufficient distance from the river to permit the troops to form, this guard not to suffer any person to go in or come out, but to detain all persons who attempt either. This guard to join their brigade when the troops are all over.

  * * *

  Such was the general order drawn up at the meeting by General Washington and with the advice of his staff officers. Stryker, in his book on the Battle of Trenton, quotes one of the several orders drawn up for the brigade leaders to send to their colonels as a specific of instruction for the crossing, and we have the text of this example that General Mercer sent to Colonel Durkee later the same evening or possibly after midnight, since the meeting went on into the small hours of the morning:

  “Sir: You are to see that your men have three days provisions ready cooked before 12 o’clock this forenoon—the whole fit for duty except a Sergeant and six men to be left with the baggage, and to parade precisely at four in the afternoon with their arms, accoutrements and ammunition in the best order, with their provisions and blankets—you will have then told off in divisions in which order they are to march—eight men abreast, with the officers fixed to their divisions from which they are on no account to separate—no man is to quit his division on pain of instant punishment—each officer is to provide himself with a piece of white paper stuck in his hat for a field mark. You will order your men to assemble and parade them in the valley immediately over the hill on the back of McConkey’s Ferry, to remain there for further orders—a profound silence is to be observed, both by officers and men, and a strict and ready attention paid to whatever orders may be given—in forming the Brigade Co. Durkee takes the right, Co. Stone left, Co. Bradley on the left of Co. Durkee and Co. Rawlings on the right of Co. Stone—the Line to form and march from the Right—Co. Hutchinson to form by themselves.”

  We note that McKonkey, as with so many names in field orders, is spelled in various fashions. The name of Rahl, the Hessian commander, was also spelled Rall and Ruhl.

  NOTES: Chapter 19

  What follows is an extract from a memorandum in General Robert Anderson’s letter book. This extract purports to solve the mystery of who fired at the Hessians at five o’clock on the twenty-fifth of December 1776. To my thinking it does not; however, it must be admitted as a historical curiosity. Speaking of his father, Captain Richard Clough Anderson of the 5th Regiment of the Continental Infantry, Robert Anderson wrote:

  His orders were to reconnoitre, to see where the enemy’s outpost were, to get such information as he could about them, but to be very careful and not to bring on an engagement.

  Having gone to the places designated without finding the enemy, he advanced upon Trenton. The party came close upon the Hessian sentinal, who was marching on his post, bending his head down as he met the storm, which beat heavi
ly in the driving snow in the faces of the patrol. He saw them about the same time that he was seen, and as he brought his gun to a charge and challenged, he was shot down. My father having now accomplished the object of his mission, and knowing the enemy’s forces would be promptly turned out, and that an engagement which he had been ordered to avoid would ensue, ordered his company to countermarch, and marched them back towards his camp. He had not gone far before he saw, very much to his surprise, Washington’s army advancing toward him. As he was there in a narrow lane he ordered his company to withdraw one side into an adjoining field. The advance guard seeing the body of soldiers ahead, and supposing they were the advance guard of the British forces, halted, and very soon an officer approached near enough to recognize them as American troops. General Washington approached and asked him who was in command and where he had been. I have frequently heard my father remark that he never saw Genl. Washington exhibit so much anger as he did when he told him where he had been and what he had done. He turned to Genl. Stephen and asked how he dared to send a patrol from camp without his authority, remarking, you sir may have ruined all my plans, by having put them on their guard. He then addressed my father in a very calm and considerate manner and told him that as he and his men must be very much fatigued after such hard service, he should march in the vanguard, where he would be less harassed by the fatigue of the march.

  This curious memorandum is quoted by William Stryker, but it does not to my satisfaction answer the problem of who attacked the Hessian camp at 5 P.M. on Christmas Day. For one thing, this account speaks of only a single shot and only of the sentry being killed. There was quite a volley of shots, and three Hessians were killed and three more were wounded. What may be the truth of the circumstances surrounding this memorandum of Robert Anderson’s will possibly never be known.

  NOTES: Chapter 20

  We do not know whether Washington’s angry letter reached Cadwalader that night. We do know that the two other divisions of his army were already accepting defeat. General Ewing with his fifteen hundred men never really made a serious attempt to cross. His men were reluctant, and he hadn’t the guts to force the issue. He finally bowed to the ferocity of the weather and the ice in the river. This crossing, a mile to the south of Trenton, would have supported Washington and opened the attack upon Trenton from the south.

  As to what occurred at Bristol, where Colonel Cadwalader, now brevetted General Cadwalader, was in command, we have a very clear and definite account in a letter by Thomas Rodney to Caesar Rodney, which he wrote on December 30, 1776:

  On the 25th inst. in the evening, we received orders to be at Shamony Ferry as soon as possible. We were there according to orders in two hours, and met the riflemen, who were the first from Bristol; we were ordered from thence to Dunk’s Ferry, on the Delaware, and the whole army of about 2,000 men followed as soon as the artillery got up. The three companies, a Philadelphia infantry and mine were formed into a body, under the command of Captain Henry (myself second in command), which were embarked immediately to cover the landing of the other troops.

  We landed with great difficulty through the ice, and formed on the farther shore, about 200 yards from the river. It was as severe a night as ever I saw, and after two battalions were landed, the storm increased so much and the river was so full of ice, that it was impossible to get the artillery over; for we had to walk 100 yards on the ice to get on shore. General Cadwalader therefore ordered the whole to retreat again, and we had to stand at least six hours under arms—first to cover the landing until all the rest had retreated again—and, by this time, the storm of wind, hail, rain and snow, with the ice, was so bad that some of the infantry could not get back till next day. This design was to have surprised the enemy at Black Horse and Mount Holley, at the same time that Washington surprised them at Trenton; and had we succeeded in getting over, we should have finished all our troubles.

  NOTES: Chapter 22

  Concerning the wet flints and powder during the night march in the rain, when Sullivan sent Captain Mott to Washington for instructions, our best information comes from Washington Irving’s Life of George Washington. According to Irving, Washington’s reply to Mott’s demand as to what they should do without guns that would not fire was an “indignant burst,” but anyone knowing of Washington’s gift for words in such moments of stress must conclude that his reply was more than an “indignant burst.” Again according to Washington Irving, he told the runner to return and tell Sullivan to “advance and charge!” But it is within the framework of probability to conclude that Washington’s instructions were more emphatic and more colorful than anything Irving could put to paper at the time he wrote.

  NOTES: Chapter 30

  The Hessian losses are confirmed in a map that was drawn on the fifteenth of April, 1777, by William Faden, a British cartographer, who sold the map at St. Martin’s Lane, Charing Cross, London. The map shows the details of the crossing, the march on Trenton and the battle. It also enumerates Hessian losses in both men and munitions.

  We also have available the proceedings of the courts-martial of the Hessian officers—selections translated by Washington Irving (Life of George Washington) and by William S. Stryker, The Battles of Trenton and Princeton.

  The most interesting details of this strange battle can be found in the Hessian accounts.

  A Biography of Howard Fast

  Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast’s commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

  Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast’s mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London’s The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

  Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

  Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast’s appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin’s purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

  Fast’s c
areer changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast’s books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).

  Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side’s Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. “They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage,” Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he “fell in love with the area” and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.