Patriots (62 page)

With that, the fury subsided. A stream of visitors, rich and poor, brought food to the Hessian barracks. A few days later the Hessian privates were marched off to work on Pennsylvania farms in Lancaster County; the officers were sent to Baltimore and then on to Virginia. Before they left, General Israel Putnam shook hands with several officers and insisted they share a glass of Madeira with him. During the ritual, one Hessian inspected Old Put, now in his forty-ninth year, and concluded that he might be an honorable man, but only the Americans would have made him a general.

—

With his Eton education and his military tutoring from a Prussian officer, Charles, Lord Cornwallis was closer to a Hessian’s idea of a proper general. Cornwallis had justified that good opinion during the battle for Long Island the previous August and later at Fort Washington. When William Howe decided to put his army into winter quarters, he had given Cornwallis permission to return to England, where his wife was ailing. From the way Washington was fleeing through New Jersey, it looked as though the war might soon be over. If there was another campaign in the spring, Cornwallis could return for it. Then, suddenly, with the attack on Trenton Howe had to question his optimism. He canceled Cornwallis’ leave just as he was about to sail, and on New Year’s Day 1777 Cornwallis rode fifty miles through the rain in one day to arrive at Princeton after dark. He worked throughout the night to prepare his men to march against Washington’s troops. At daybreak on January 2, Cornwallis left one brigade behind in Princeton and led seven thousand men down the main road to Trenton.

The Hessians in the British column were determined to make the Americans pay for their victory over Colonel Rall. Their commander went through the ranks telling the Germans that any man who took a prisoner would receive fifty stripes of the lash. They
understood him. They were to kill any American who surrendered.

When the British reached Trenton, near sunset, Cornwallis found George Washington in a worse predicament than he could have hoped. Washington’s inexperience, coupled with his pride in the fluke he had brought off a week ago, had left his army with its back to the Delaware. But this time no boat could cross. The river was frozen, and yet not frozen solid enough to march men across it. From the outskirts of Trenton, Henry Knox’s artillery was lobbing shells into the town, but that was merely to annoy the British upon their arrival. All that separated Cornwallis’ men from the Americans was Assunpink Creek, and the Hessians escaping from the earlier battle had proved that it was possible to ford it.

From the British camp, Lord Cornwallis sent invitations to the ranking officers back at Princeton and at Maidenhead, off the Trenton road, to join him the next day and celebrate his victory over the Continental Army. An officer on his staff, Sir William Erskine, recommended not waiting until daylight but attacking across the Assunpink this same night.

“My lord,” Erskine warned, “if Washington is the general I take him to be and you trust these people tonight, you will see nothing of them in the morning.”

But the terrain was unfamiliar, and Cornwallis knew that his men were almost as tired as their commander. “Nonsense, my dear fellow,” he said. “
We’ve got the old fox safe now. We’ll go over and bag him in the morning. The damned rebels are cornered at last!”

Erskine and the ranking Hessian colonel urged Cornwallis at least to send a patrol to the creek to keep watch over the American flank facing away from Trenton. Cornwallis didn’t think that was necessary.

Cornwallis had not learned the lesson of Brooklyn Heights. Washington kept his campfires burning throughout the night while he led his men stealthily along an unobserved stretch of land well east of Trenton. Washington was going to confound every conventional expectation by not retreating but going on the offensive instead. His target was British supplies where they were now poorly defended, at Princeton. The weather relented and became Washington’s ally. A thaw that day had threatened to leave the roads a mire of mud, but the night brought a freeze. The Quaker Road
hardened, and Washington took his men and cannon, their wheels muffled with rags, north to Princeton.

At dawn, a cold sun revealed the branches of an orchard near the town. The trees were glistening with hoarfrost, and behind them were British scouts. As the Americans drew closer, the British opened fire. An early shot hit General Hugh Mercer as he was shouting for his men to retreat. When the Americans scattered, British soldiers ran after them and stabbed to death men who were trying to surrender. Mercer was wearing an overcoat that concealed his rank, and the British troops were sure they had captured George Washington. They jeered at Mercer, calling him a rebel and demanding he give up. Instead, he struck out with his sword. They overpowered him and stabbed him with their bayonets, seven times to the body, twice to the head. Mercer, mortally wounded, lay absolutely still. He heard one of his assailants say, “
Damn him, he is dead. Let us leave him.” But Mercer guessed from shouts in the far distance that the battle had turned. He died a few days later.

When Washington saw Mercer’s men running away from the British, he galloped to the very front of his own ranks and cried out to the men to hold their ground. The new militia from Pennsylvania seemed to waver, but the Continental Army veterans from New England didn’t break. With that shield, Washington could retrieve some of Mercer’s soldiers and point them back to battle. Riding a white horse, he led the troops as they moved up a hill toward the British line. When they were within thirty yards, he called, “Halt!” and then “Fire!” Washington was so near the enemy guns that Colonel John Fitzgerald at his side pulled his hat down over his eyes so that he wouldn’t see the general fall. The Americans fired, and the British began dropping back. As the smoke cleared, Fitzgerald looked to Washington’s position. The general still sat unharmed on his white mount.

Fitzgerald broke into tears of relief and called to him, “Thank God, Your Excellency is safe!”

“
Bring up your troops, my dear Colonel,” Washington answered him. “The day is our own.”

—

The victory was as sweet as it had been unorthodox. Writing to his wife, Henry Knox told of Washington’s two daring strokes in
language a civilian could understand: “
The enemy were within nineteen miles of Philadelphia; they are now sixty miles. We have driven them almost the whole of West Jersey.” Washington intended to march from Princeton to Brunswick, where General Howe maintained another supply depot and a reported seventy thousand pounds in cash. But his men were too fatigued to make the seventeen-mile march. At the first halt, soldiers dropped to the ground and refused to move. Washington instead took them north to an easily defended site in the hills near Morristown. A solar eclipse had been forecast, and Washington issued a warning so that his troops wouldn’t become frightened when the sun vanished from the sky.

William Howe’s army was only twenty-five miles away. But Howe himself, snug in New York with Elizabeth Loring, was done with fighting for the winter.

The hour’s battle at Princeton had stirred Washington’s blood. He had felt for a moment that he was back on the plantations of Virginia, and when the British began to run he had stood in his stirrups and shouted, “A fine fox chase, my boys!” Both he and Cornwallis had likened the struggle to a gentlemen’s hunt, but the world quickly understood who had been run to earth.

General Howe wrote home to Lord George Germain, the secretary for America, that he couldn’t see a way to end the war except with a major offensive. His previous tactic of attrition, accompanied by a campaign to win over the people of the conquered territories, was not working. Receiving news of the two American victories, Lord Germain thought he knew a better way to end the war. The Howe brothers had been soft on the rebels, he said. From now on, the Americans must feel the horror of warfare until “
through a lively experience of loss and sufferings, they may be brought as soon as possible to a proper sense of their duty.”

Before these last battles, America had respected George Washington because of the title that Congress had bestowed upon him. A few rival generals might have questioned his skill, but his men had responded to his imposing calm and a courage verging on recklessness. With these successes came a new reputation for the Continental Army, and for its commander. The troops noticed that the same residents of New Jersey who had been sullen and skeptical only a few weeks ago were cheering now as they marched through the countryside, and more civilians were coming forward to take
up arms. As for George Washington, the new nation was ready to elevate him to the realm of folklore and myth. According to a letter in the
Pennsylvania Journal
, “
If there are spots in his character, they are like spots in the sun, only discernible by the magnifying powers of a telescope. Had he lived in the days of idolatry, he would have been worshipped as a God.”

Washington did not become intoxicated by the legends rising around him. When affairs had gone badly, he had let his friends and family know the degree to which others were to blame for each disaster. Even in victory he complained to Martha Washington’s son, Jack Custis, about the “mixed, motley crew” of undependable men he had to rely upon as soldiers. After two battles already being hailed as classics in the history of warfare, Washington was telling his stepson, “
In a word, I believe I may with truth add that I do not think any officer since the creation ever had such a variety of difficulties and perplexities to encounter as I have.” He knew exactly how much of his recent success had been due to German sloth and British overconfidence, to turns in the weather, to luck or, as he preferred, to Providence.

Washington’s mother in Fredericksburg agreed that George was receiving too much credit. When neighbors came to congratulate her on the outcome in New Jersey and to read aloud newspaper accounts of her son’s genius, Mary Washington dismissed the reports as far too flattering. But she could assure her listeners that the American commander could withstand the excessive praise.
“George,” said his mother, “will not forget the lessons I have taught him.”

T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON’S
behavior since he drafted the Declaration of Independence had exasperated even his closest allies. When the Congress asked him to go to France with Benjamin Franklin to urge the Comte de Vergennes to aid the beleaguered American Army, he refused. His colleagues accused him of preferring his comfortable life in Virginia to the hardships of serving his country. Jefferson tried to hint at his reasons for abandoning politics, but his explanation was couched so obliquely that he only angered the other delegates even more.

The month after the Declaration was approved, Jefferson had been worried about his wife’s health. Martha Jefferson was apparently pregnant, and, given her history of childbearing, her husband knew she was going through a painful and dangerous time. But since he hadn’t told his fellow representatives about his wife’s distress, they were impatient when he resigned his seat in the Congress
to be with her. That time the immediate crisis had subsided; Martha Jefferson seems to have suffered a miscarriage. By the time Jefferson was asked to travel to Paris in the fall of 1776, she was pregnant again. Jefferson thought that taking her with him on a rough ocean crossing was as unthinkable as spending months abroad without her. He tried then to make his reasons for refusing the assignment clearer. He wrote to Hancock, as president of the Congress, that “
circumstances very peculiar in the situation of my family” dictated his refusal. But other delegates faced domestic crises and resented the implication that Jefferson’s problems were more pressing. Richard Henry Lee, who was also concerned about an ailing wife, wrote to remind Jefferson that if everyone put his personal concerns above his country, the result would be slavery.

Not long after Jefferson had left the Congress, John Adams accepted another term. Following a brief respite in Braintree, he returned to his duty, leaving Abigail Adams pregnant for the sixth time. Adams, in lamenting Jefferson’s absence, had expressed his own priorities when he wrote that their country was not yet secure enough “
to excuse your retreat to the delights of domestic life.”

The delegates were even more frustrated by Jefferson’s refusal to go to France because his knowledge of French and his tact would have made him an admirable companion for Dr. Franklin. As for Franklin, he seemed to be taking the arduous new challenge in stride. He told Benjamin Rush, “
I am old and good for nothing, but as storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you are pleased to give.”

When Jefferson remained adamant, the Congress asked Richard Henry Lee’s brother Arthur, who was in London, to join Franklin in France. The third member of the delegation was Silas Deane, a former delegate to the Congress from Connecticut who had gone to Paris the previous March posing as a private merchant. Deane, thirty-eight, the son of a blacksmith, was a graduate of Yale, a successful merchant and an odd choice for any enterprise that required subtle judgment. He also had reasons to beg off from the assignment: his wife had been too frail to join him even in Philadelphia. In his role as a trader, Deane was authorized to buy goods from Frenchmen who sided with America. For that he would receive a five percent commission. No one in the Congress seemed troubled that Deane’s profit-making activities might conflict with his duties as a secret agent.

Deane was still a novice at diplomacy, having been America’s sole representative in France for only the last six months of 1776. He took his orders from the Committee of Secret Correspondence, which tried to lessen his distractions by forbidding him to sightsee around Paris “
as so many foreigners are tempted to do.” He also changed his lodgings often, partly because England had spies everywhere but also because the Congress was slow in forwarding his funds. Deane was not likely to be seduced by the Parisian salons; his wife had reproached him for being so indifferent to Philadelphia society that he had been unable to describe the latest fashions to her. And Deane was faring badly in other ways. Behind his back, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais called him the most silent man in Paris—he wouldn’t open his mouth in front of Englishmen for fear of revealing his mission and he couldn’t speak six consecutive words in French.