Washington: A Life (54 page)

The mythology of the Battle of Trenton portrays the Hessian mercenaries as slumbering in a drunken stupor after imbibing late-night Christmas cheer. In fact, Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall had kept his men on high alert, and they felt frazzled and exhausted from constant drills and patrols. Quite shrewdly, Washington had worn them down by irregular raids and small skirmishes in the surrounding countryside. If the Hessians were caught off guard that morning, it was only because they thought the forbidding weather would preclude an attack. These tough, brawny hirelings, with a reputation for ferocity, inspired healthy fear among the Americans. But handicapped by their patronizing view of the Americans, they couldn’t conceive of something of quite the scale and daring that Washington attempted. “I must concede that on the whole we had a poor opinion of the rebels, who previously had never successfully opposed us,” said Lieutenant Jakob Piel.
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Having received multiple warnings of the surprise attack, Rall was so certain of the superiority of his men that he dismissed these reports with blithe bravado: “Let them come.”
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As Washington approached Trenton, he was astounded by the valor of his men, who had marched all night and were still eager to attack. Though a snowy tempest still whirled around them, the squalls now blew at their backs as they raced forward at a brisk pace. Intent on exploiting the element of surprise, Washington wanted his men to startle the Hessians. Emerging from the Trenton woods shortly after eight A.M., he divided his wing of the army into three columns and spearheaded the middle column himself, trotting forward in an exposed position. As his men surged ahead, he reported to Hancock, they “seemed to vie with the other in pressing forward.”
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Washington heard artillery blasts exploding on the River Road, confirming that the two American wings had coordinated their arrival.

Trenton consisted of a hundred or so houses, long since deserted by their occupants. Knox’s cannon began to fire with pinpoint accuracy down the two main streets, King and Queen, with Alexander Hamilton again in the thick of the fray. “The hurry, fright, and confusion of the enemy was [not] unlike that which will be when the last trump shall sound,” said Knox, who forced the German gunners to abandon their weapons and scatter to the southern end of town.
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Colonel Rall mobilized a group of men in an apple orchard, then tried to steer a charge toward Washington. Responding to this move, Washington adroitly positioned his men on high ground nearby. As John Greenwood recalled, “General Washington, on horseback and alone, came up to our major and said, ‘March on, my brave fellows, after me!’ and rode off.”
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Washington’s quick-witted action stopped the Hessian advance in its tracks. Colonel Rall, who was riddled with bullets, “reeled in the saddle” before being rescued from his horse and carried to a church. Washington conversed with the dying Rall and ordered that all Hessian prisoners be treated honorably. When he learned from Major James Wilkinson of the surrender of the last regiment, he beamed with quiet pleasure. “Major Wilkinson,” he replied, shaking his hand, “this is a glorious day for our country.”
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Since he had crafted the strategy and led his men to glory, the stunning victory belonged to Washington lock, stock, and barrel.

The American triumph was accomplished in less than an hour.“It may be doubted,” wrote George Trevelyan, “whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.”
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The battle toll was a bloody one for the Hessians: 22 killed, 84 wounded, and nearly 900 captured (500 escaped to safety) versus only 2 American deaths in combat plus another 4 or 5 from exposure to cold. A huge bonanza of muskets, bayonets, cannon, and swords fell into American hands. The patriots also took possession of forty hogs-heads of rum. Trying to enforce sobriety, Washington ordered the rum spilled on the ground, but many men, unable to resist the comfort of warming liquor, grew wildly intoxicated. The patriotic myth about Trenton inverts the reality: it wasn’t the Hessians who were inebriated before the battle, but the patriots afterward.

Mindful of the frigid weather and the wobbly state of the drunken troops, Washington and his officers decided to hasten back to the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, an operation complicated by the need to shepherd Hessian prisoners as well. The proud but weather-beaten army had endured a sixty-hour marathon of frostbite, disease, and exhaustion and needed rest. In his general orders for December 27, Washington thanked his men with unstinting fervor, banishing all traces of the snobbery he once felt toward them: “The General, with the utmost sincerity and affection, thanks the officers and soldiers for their spirited and gallant behavior at Trenton yesterday.”
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The army had harvested a trove of Hessian trophies, ranging from guns to horses, and Washington had the cash value of these spoils distributed proportionately among his soldiers. Even though some had gotten roaring drunk at Trenton, Washington relaxed his usual practice and had more rum ladled out to his thirsty men.

In truth, Washington had little time to rejoice after this bravura performance. Now headquartered in the “old yellow house” of widow Hannah Harris, he convened a war council on December 27 at which the generals digested a startling piece of news: that morning, Colonel Cadwalader had belatedly crossed the Delaware with eighteen hundred militiamen, hoping to mount a second New Jersey offensive. The generals grappled with a tough predicament. They voiced doubts about recrossing the Delaware and tempting fate again, but they were loath to strand Cadwalader and wanted to prove that the first crossing hadn’t been a fluke. A consensus slowly took shape to strike again at Trenton. “It was a remarkable and very instructive success for Washington’s maturing style of quiet, consultative leadership,” notes David Hackett Fischer.
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The Trenton victory had wrought a wondrous transformation; the deliberations of Washington and his generals were now informed by a newfound confidence.

On December 28, amid thickening snow flurries, Washington ordered militia units in northern New Jersey to stymie the enemy and “harass their flanks and rear.”
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Then on December 29 he set in motion the enormous gamble ratified by his generals, sending his men back across to Trenton. This second crossing, even more ambitious than the first, encompassed eight crossing points and twice as many cannon. A fresh sheet of ice impeded the boats and retarded the operation. Washington himself didn’t cross the Delaware until December 30, when he stationed his men on a secure slope behind Assunpink Creek, a narrow, fast-moving creek at the southern end of Trenton. This entrenched position posed more formidable risks than the swift hit-and-run raid launched on Christmas Night.

The first Delaware crossing had afforded graphic proof of the advantages of speed and flexibility in improvising military operations. With many enlistments about to expire, General Greene had lobbied Congress to give Washington additional powers while “reserving to yourself the right of confirming or repealing the measures.”
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Greene insisted that Washington would never abuse a wide-ranging new grant of authority. “There never was a man that might be more safely trusted,” he asserted.
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On December 27 a once-carping, meddlesome Congress granted extraordinary powers to Washington for six months, allowing him to muster new troops by paying bounties, to commandeer provisions, and even to arrest vendors who didn’t accept Continental currency. These powers, breathtaking in scope, aroused fears of a despot in the making—fears that Washington quickly laid to rest. He understood that liberties should be affirmed even as they were being temporarily abridged, and he planned to set aside emergency powers the instant they were no longer needed. As he informed Congress, “I shall constantly bear in mind that, as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.”
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In this manner, Washington strengthened civilian authority over the military.

The immediate task at hand was to persuade men to linger whose enlistments expired on New Year’s Day. By bringing his soldiers to Trenton, Washington made it more difficult for them to decamp, and he mustered all his hortatory powers to retain them. On December 30 he had a recalcitrant New England regiment lined up before him. Sitting erect on his horse, he made an impassioned appeal, asking them to extend their service by six weeks and offering them a ten-dollar bounty. As one sergeant recalled, Washington “told us our services were greatly needed and that we could do more for our country than we ever could at any future date and in the most affectionate manner entreated us to stay.”
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The word that leaps out here is
affectionate
. Here was George Washington, patriarch of Mount Vernon, addressing farmers, shoemakers, weavers, and carpenters as intimate comrades-in-arms. A year earlier this hypercritical man had frowned on these soldiers as an unsavory rabble; now he lavished them with praise. When Jacky Custis told him of squawking in Virginia about New England troops, Washington took umbrage: “I do not believe that any of the states produce better men, or persons capable of making better soldiers.”
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Though he still believed in hierarchical distinctions, especially between officers and their men, the war was molding him into a far more egalitarian figure.

When drums rumbled out a roll call for volunteers, nobody at first stepped forward. One vocal soldier piped up and spoke of their shared sacrifices, how much they had dreamed of heading home. Pulling up his horse, Washington wheeled about and rode along the entire line of men. With his reserved manner and austere code of conduct, he didn’t frequently voice his feelings, only making it more impressive when he did so. “My brave fellows,” he said, “you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected. But your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear … If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.”
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As the drums resumed beating, the soldiers huddled and conferred among themselves. One was overheard to say, “I will remain if you will,” while another told his fellows that “we cannot go home under such circumstances.”
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A small knot of men stepped forward grudgingly, prompting several more to do so; finally all two hundred joined in. For Washington, the war had become a constant game of high-stakes improvisation, played out under extreme duress. For these two hundred men, the extra six weeks entailed no small commitment: half would perish from combat wounds or illness. The same scene was soon reenacted with other regiments as Washington, showing dramatic flair and plainspoken eloquence, held on to more than three thousand men. In another inspired gesture, he told subordinates that the men who agreed to stay didn’t need to be formally enrolled but would be trusted to make good on their verbal pledges. He was treating them not as commoners, but as tried-and-true gentlemen.

To ferret out enemy intentions, Washington sent a cavalry patrol to reconnoiter around Princeton. Several captured British dragoons revealed that the British had amassed eight thousand men at Princeton and were girding themselves under General Cornwallis to attack Washington at Trenton. As this second Battle of Trenton loomed, the humiliated Hessians were in an especially vengeful mood, and their leader, Colonel von Donop, decreed a bloodthirsty policy of taking no prisoners.

Toward sundown at Trenton on January 2, 1777, Washington spotted the vanguard of Cornwallis, who had brought an army of 5,500 men. Washington arrayed his men on the slope behind Assunpink Creek in three horizontal bands, covering the entire hillside. As Hessian troops hurtled down King and Queen streets, American snipers fired at them. An advance force of Continental soldiers waded back across the rain-swollen creek while others fell back across the stone bridge. When it looked momentarily as if the retreating Americans would be hacked to death by Hessian bayonets, Washington swung into action. Sitting astride his horse at the far end of the bridge, he mobilized his men. Evidently he not only looked but
felt
like a godlike image of solidity; soldiers who bumped against him couldn’t shake his granite poise. Private John Howland left this evocative portrait:

This preternatural composure, coming in the heat of battle, made Washington a living presence to his men.

The British made three courageous attempts to take the bridge, and each time American artillery repulsed them, strewing many cadavers in their wake. “The bridge looked red as blood,” wrote Sergeant Joseph White, “with their killed and wounded and red coats.”
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Several hundred British and Hessian soldiers died in vain attempts to storm the American positions. Nevertheless, the patriots were heavily outnumbered by Cornwallis’s army and had no clear escape strategy. In the dying light of a winter day, Cornwallis and his officers conferred about whether to postpone the main attack. “If Washington is the general I take him to be,” Sir William Erskine said, “he will not be found in the morning.” An overly confident Cornwallis disputed this assertion. “We’ve got the old fox safe now,” he supposedly said. “We’ll go over and bag him in the morning.”
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