Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (23 page)

Whatever Washington felt, he had little time to lick wounds inflicted through letters. He had barely squeezed his troops out of Fort Lee, and in fact had almost been trapped between the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. He and his army arrived at Newark the next day, November 22, without cannon or much of anything else. His rear guard had given him some time in which to pull his force together by destroying the bridge over the Hackensack.

Cornwallis, now delegated by Howe to bring Washington to bay, allowed his enemy to rest for almost five days. There was no kindness
or mercy intended by this act, for Cornwallis had some regrouping of his own army to do. There was also the problem of the roads, difficult to march over accompanied by artillery and supply wagons because of their mud and roughness.

When Cornwallis got under way from Fort Lee, Washington resumed his flight. The British almost caught him as he left Newark, but he made it to New Brunswick on November 29. There were reinforcements of a sort in New Brunswick: two thousand men in General Stirling’s brigade, which had gone ahead a few days before Washington’s retreat from Fort Lee began. Fortunately they were fine troops—five regiments of Virginians and another from Delaware, about twelve hundred new soldiers in all. Unfortunately, they too were largely without equipment, lacking tents, blankets, and in some cases shoes. Still, their presence gave comfort to the weary men who marched in, and over the next few days this augmented force received militia from Pennsylvania.
³⁴

Then it was off to Princeton for the army, and then to the Delaware River and Trenton, where boats were collected to transport Washington’s group across. Cornwallis had not pursued him out of New Brunswick. Howe had given up the idea of catching Washington, who had proved to be elusive and faster on his feet than expected. Never a venturesome man, Howe had decided on winter quarters for his troops. He would resume his operations in the spring, as any good eighteenth-century general would.

Washington made no such decision about his army, as there was no certainty that he would have an army after his long retreat following the debacle at New York. He did not know Howe’s intentions, in any case, but thought that the chances were that the British would continue their advance and not stop until they had taken Philadelphia. Scooping up all the boats in the Delaware would slow the enemy down, but they could build small craft. Given that, there was no certainty that the British would not attempt a crossing soon.

Meanwhile, he pulled his troops together and decided on the locations of defenses and camps. He also tried to add to his forces with new enlistments. While he was attempting to cope with his situation along the river, he watched his enemy closely, trying always to anticipate what the British were plotting.

——

These were defensive measures. While fashioning them, Washington thought of another kind of tactic, a surprise attack across the river at Trenton. Such an attack by his forces was for him more than a strategic (or tactical) move; it was political action. He had felt concern, throughout the days of his retreat from Fort Lee to the western bank of the Delaware, about the effects of his movements on the Revolution. He asked himself in these desperate days if the revolutionary cause could survive the loss of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. General Howe had, on November 30, offered pardons to Americans who declared their loyalty to Britain, an offer that, Washington learned, many in New Jersey were accepting. The prospect of a colony returning to the British fold seemed dangerous, and Pennsylvania might fall if Howe sent his army across the Delaware River. By mid-December intelligence reports—at least one from a Tory who wrote from New Jersey to a friend in Philadelphia—suggested that Howe waited only for an opportunity to close with Washington’s army. The prospects did not look promising: If the ice froze over, the British would cross; and if they found boats or made them, they would cross.
³⁵

To avert such a strike would not be easy. The best way seemed to be to strike first, a big risk at best. The surprise of such an attack would give him an advantage, and, given the precariousness of his situation—an army weakened by defeat and reduced by the departure of its troops—what did he have to lose? The decision to attack thus grew out of his political as well as his military sense. It is not known when he came to his decision, but it is clear that his military thinking and his political understanding were linked in what he planned. He had about fifteen hundred men in five Continental regiments and a handful of militia; a few more militia might come to his camp, but there was no certainty in his estimates of their coming.

What Washington had in soldiers did not make an imposing force. But he had made up his mind to risk these men. If he was to preserve the public’s faith in the Revolution, he had to act to hold the tenuous attachments of the people in the Mid-Atlantic states and perhaps all over America.

There was feeling besides political calculation in his decision to go across the river, the old passions and instincts that could be satisfied
only by an attack for glory and honor. He did not show much of how he felt to the troops at this time. He recognized their physical discomfort—many could not stay warm in the cold weather that had set in weeks before, for they lacked warm clothing, and some still had no shoes. A summons to glory would have seemed barren of meaning to such men. Yet some also yearned to get at the enemy that had forced them to run all the way across New Jersey. Washington insisted that the people of New Jersey would be satisfied if the army simply looked the enemy in the face, and his soldiers seem to have entertained the same feeling. They were tired of showing the British only their backsides. Challenging them may have appeared foolhardy, but they too wanted some action favorable to the American cause.

The Hessians across the Delaware were actually less formidable than they looked, strung out from Trenton to Burlington, near Philadelphia. This was where Colonel Carl von Donop stationed himself, near the southern end of these posts at Mount Holly; Colonel Rall with three regiments held Trenton, and General Alexander Leslie remained at Princeton. The British forces in New Jersey were now commanded by General James Grant, who reported to Howe.
³⁶

To the surprise of the Hessians, who had a dismissive opinion of their enemy, the Americans around them on the east side of the Delaware resented their presence. It should not have been a surprise, given the plundering they did wherever they were. Like most occupying armies in the eighteenth century, they were in the anomalous position of simultaneously protecting and exploiting the inhabitants around them. They needed meat, grain, and forage and took what they found, despite the protests of New Jersey farmers. Before long there were reprisals, and Hessian commanders complained that the security of the chain Howe had strung them along did not exist. To get a letter to Princeton, Colonel Rall had to send a heavy patrol of fifty men. Hessian patrols, foraging parties, and outposts were regularly mauled by local partisans and raiders from both sides of the Delaware. Rall did not, given these conditions, even bother to throw up fortifications about Trenton; the enemy surrounded him, he explained, and he could not cover such outposts adequately.
³⁷

Neither Rall nor his chief expected Washington to attack on Christmas night. The weather brought rain and snow, and the Delaware River, though not covered with ice, carried large blocks of it downstream.
Washington planned carefully, though he had not expected the weather to conceal his movements. He ordered an attack of three prongs: Brigadier General James Ewing, with seven hundred men, would cross at Trenton Ferry and seize the bridge over the Assunpink Creek, just south of the town. Lieutenant Colonel John Cadwalader, farther to the south, would strike over the river at Bristol and hit Donop’s force at Mount Holly, a diversion to keep the Hessians so occupied there as to prevent reinforcement of Trenton. The main objective of the attack was Trenton, and Washington himself would lead this attack, which, if all went well, would push through Princeton and beyond, perhaps as far as the main British magazine at New Brunswick.

After dark on Christmas night, the main force, some 2,400 soldiers, assembled behind the low hills overlooking McKonkey’s Ferry, about eight miles upriver from Trenton. Washington wanted to cross them all by midnight and march south to Trenton by five in the morning, well before daylight, but the storm, the rough water, and the ice prevented him from holding to this schedule. Knox’s artillery, eighteen pieces in all, proved difficult to handle in the snow and sleet and was not put ashore until three in the morning. Washington, who had crossed with the advance party in Durham boats, stood on the bank and watched—he knew that his presence would not go unnoticed even in the dark. By four o’clock all of his troops were on the east bank and assembled for the thrust into Trenton.
³⁸

Two columns formed, one on the upper road, Pennington Road, the other on the lower, River Road. Washington, with Nathanael Greene, commanded the force on the Pennington, and General John Sullivan led on River Road. By skill or by good luck, both forces reached Trenton within minutes of eight o’clock. The lower road curved into the southern end of town; the upper carried the troops to King and Queen Streets, running north and south, the main thoroughfares of the town. Washington’s van drove in a company on outpost duty on the north edge and in a few minutes had unlimbered their cannon on King and Queen Streets. Two young captains commanded the fire of these guns: Thomas Forrest and Alexander Hamilton.

Gunfire brought two Hessian regiments pouring into these streets, and a third remained unengaged for the moment, in reserve at the southwestern edge of town. Colonel Rall, who had celebrated Christmas
night with the usual enthusiasm, took charge on the streets, but a bullet cut him down almost immediately, and his men never formed to fight effectively. Much of the village was empty, the inhabitants having fled three weeks earlier, and its houses and stables were soon turned into arenas for vicious bayonet fights. The American artillery prevented the Hessians from fighting as organized units, and American infantry gradually forced their surrender after a short period in which they showed their proficiency with muskets and bayonets. In an hour it was over, with twenty-two Hessians dead, ninety-eight wounded, and almost a thousand prisoners. Two American officers and two privates were wounded.

These were satisfying figures, but there was disappointment too, for Ewing had not been able to make it over the river, leaving a route of escape across Assunpink Creek that five hundred Hessians and a handful of British dragoons used. Nor had Cadwalader crossed in force farther south. Washington took his tired but triumphant men back across the river to Pennsylvania in the afternoon. He had learned of Cadwalader’s failure, and there seemed nothing else to do. Without Cadwalader in place, Washington anticipated that the enemy downriver would be coming up in number to attack him. He was wrong on this score, as in the next few days the Hessians abandoned every post on the river in favor of withdrawal to the east.

Two days later, somewhat rested, Washington took his troops back over the river, directly into Trenton. Once in the town, he ordered Cadwalader up and gave General Mifflin, who had occupied Bordentown with 1,600 militia, the same order. As the year ended, Washington had an army of 5,000 and forty howitzers in Trenton.

He now faced a greater challenge. On the news of the debacle, Howe ordered Cornwallis, then sitting in Princeton, to move quickly against Washington, and Cornwallis responded by marching out with 5,500 regulars and twenty-eight fieldpieces. Washington expected him and did not ease his way south. The British had to use Princeton Road, which was churned into mud, and as they marched, small parties of Pennsylvania and Virginia Continentals harassed them with musket fire and quick strikes along their flanks. Late in the afternoon of January 2, Cornwallis found Washington’s army drawn up along the ridge of Assunpink Creek. The British sent advance units against Americans in an effort to cross the creek. They failed, punished by American
artillery and infantry fire. Several unsuccessful attempts convinced Cornwallis that he should delay a major assault until the next day. A subordinate or two protested, arguing that Washington would not be there in the morning. The answer to that was a question: Where would he go? He had no boats to carry him back across the Delaware. He was trapped.

Washington answered the question that night by quietly taking away his army on a new and lightly used road southeast of the main highway to Princeton. He masked his departure by leaving behind several hundred men who in the darkness kept campfires ablaze and made noise by digging into the ground. The British across the creek saw the fires and listened to what they assumed was an army preparing for an assault when daylight came. But by daybreak Washington had reached the outskirts of Princeton. There the Americans found two regiments of British infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood. The fight that followed did not last long. Mawhood’s troops, at first giving a good account of themselves, seemed on the verge of breaking the American van, but Washington, with most of his troops, soon recovered control—it has been commonly said that resisting Washington on horseback was too much for any enemy—and in this case he had the advantage of surprise. Mawhood pulled back and escaped, his army in near disintegration as it made its way to Trenton. He had left behind a third regiment, which failed at first to give battle and then retired to New Brunswick. It, too, took severe losses, and Washington captured almost two hundred of its soldiers.
³⁹

New Brunswick had figured in Washington’s plans, for it contained a large supply facility that he hoped to seize. He soon discovered that his own soldiers were just about as tired as those under Cornwallis, and he gave up all thought of fighting his way into the town. Cornwallis, fearing the worst from his slippery enemy, had in the meantime marched his command from Trenton to New Brunswick. He was taking no chances on losing his supply depot. Hackensack and Elizabeth Town fell to other American forces detached from Washington’s command on January 8, the day Washington’s army entered Morristown. Howe, who had dominated New Jersey two weeks earlier, now saw his forces there confined to Amboy and New Brunswick. He decided to spend the winter in the relative comfort of New York City. Washington would be thirty miles to the west in Morristown.