The Crossing (19 page)

At this point the Americans were less than fifty yards from where Rahl rallied his men and coming on very fast. It can be said to Rahl's credit that he was without fear, calm and collected. Never for a moment did he panic or lose his head. He shouted to his men to follow him, which they did in good order. Wheeling his horse and holding it to a tight trot, he managed to lead several hundred of his men down Third Street and to the left to Fourth Street, up on Quaker Lane and then off Quaker Lane into a pasture. Once in this pasture, he reined his horse around and called to his men to form up and make a defensive square.

The Hessians rallied to Rahl's control and military posture. They ran toward him from every direction. Rahl ordered them to form a three-sided square facing the Americans, who now were leaping over fences, racing through backyards, as well as along Third Street and Fourth Street and down from the Princeton Road through the north end of the town toward the pasture.

Catching sight of Colonel Rahl sitting on his horse in the pasture, so calm and rocklike, issuing his orders as if he were on a parade ground, several of the mounted Hessian officers rode through the Americans to be at his side.

It must be remembered that except for a few rifles in the hands of soldiers who had kept their primer dry in closed powder pans and who had been told to hold their fire for Hessian officers, the American small arms were wet and useless. Unless the Americans could bayonet the Hessian officer as he rode by, there was nothing they could really do to impede his progress. They might try to grab at his reins and pull up his horse, but a Hessian officer would be cutting left and right with his saber. Half a dozen Hessian officers on horseback managed to gather around Rahl, demanding that he order a retreat.

What we know of this conversation between Rahl and his staff comes at third and fourth hand from those soldiers in Washington's army who came out of the German population in Pennsylvania and who thought at least they could understand and remember what the Hessian officers had said. It would seem that Rahl kept shouting at his officers to be calm and to tell him how many Americans were in Trenton.

The phrase in German: “How many are there?” seems to have been repeated over and over.

No one knew, and no one could guess. The answers ranged from four thousand to six thousand men.

The insistence on retreat angered Rahl, and for the first time he lost his composure and shouted at his fellow officers to end this talk of flight. He called to his Hessians to fix bayonets and prepare to attack. A trumpeter joined them and managed to sound a Hessian bugle call. Several drummers came running across the pasture, beating to arms as they ran. In a matter of minutes Rahl had turned a disorganized, retreating, frightened group of men into a disciplined little army that was ready to fight.

Rahl looked at them with pride and pleasure, shouted his own war cry, drew his sword and gave the order to advance. He spurred his horse in front of them and then checked it, so that it pranced properly, like a well-trained horse at a cavalry display.

The mood of the Hessians had changed completely now, and Major Knyphausen rode after Rahl, echoing his shouts to attack. At that moment one of the Pennsylvania riflemen who had kept his powder dry, one of no more than a handful among the Continental forces, drew a bead on Rahl and shot him.

Rahl swayed in the saddle, dropped his sword and cried out that he was hit. Now the Hessians ceased their advance and they turned toward Rahl, looking at him desperately and waiting for him to lead them again. Rahl said again that he was wounded, and Major Knyphausen attempted to ride out in front of him and take his command. Knyphausen sat there on his horse, waving his sword for the Hessians to follow him, but the wounding of Rahl had broken the spell that the gallant colonel had woven.

For perhaps thirty seconds the Hessian soldiers remained in a tight group around their wounded commander. Then they broke, most of them throwing down their useless muskets, and ran across the fields to the south in the direction of Assanpink Creek.

The shot that wounded Rahl had probably come from a member of Colonel Hand's brigade of Pennsylvania riflemen. The riflemen, running swiftly at the head of the advancing American forces, had poured north across the meadow from the junction of Fourth Street and Quaker Lane. Washington spurred after them, Colonel Hand at his side, shouting for the Pennsylvanians to form up in a long line and block any retreat to the north.

For the moment, this maneuver was successful, and then perhaps a minute later General Greene's men came running down from the direction of Dark Lane to back up the Pennsylvania riflemen and spread the net still further.

One must remember that all of this happened more quickly than the telling. No more than two or three minutes passed between Rahl's rallying his men and his being wounded. During that time Washington was riding toward this center of action.

In the course of this action, Washington's horse was shot under him. Nobody appeared to remember exactly when it had happened, but everyone agreed that Washington's response had been one of irritation as he leaped clear of the falling animal. At his age, almost forty-five, he was remarkably agile. He had gone two nights without sleep. Considering how many times he had paced the column in two directions, back and forth, he had ridden at least thirty miles since crossing the river. Again and again he had dismounted, leading his horse by hand and talking to the men, whispering to them, consoling them, begging them to overcome their fatigue and to hang on. In spite of this, he was out of the saddle of the dying horse and swinging up onto a new mount almost in a matter of seconds. Like his men, he had transcended himself and was lost in the excitement of the battle.

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.