XIII. 1776. Wilkinson joined the troops, "whose route he had CHAP. easily traced, by the blood on the snow from the feet of the men who wore broken shoes." He de- Dec. livered a letter from General Gates. "From Gen- 25. eral Gates!" said Washington; "where is he?" "On his way to congress," replied Wilkinson. "On his way to congress!" repeated Washington, who had only given him a reluctant consent to go as far as Philadelphia. At that hour an American patrol of twenty or thirty men, led by Captain Anderson to reconnoitre Trenton, made a sudden attack upon the post of a Hessian subaltern, and wounded five or six men. On the alarm, the Hessian brigade was put under arms, and a part of Rall's regiment sent in pursuit. On their return, they reported that they could discover nothing; the attack was like those which had been made repeatedly before, and was held to be of no importance. The post was strengthened; additional patrols were sent out; but every further apprehension was put to rest; and Rall passed the evening hours, till late into the night, by his warm fire, in his usual revels, while Washington was crossing the Delaware. "The night," writes Thomas Rodney, "was as severe a night as ever I saw ; "the frost was sharp, the current difficult to stem, the ice increasing, the wind high, and at eleven it began to snow. It was three in the morning of the twenty-sixth before the troops and cannon were all over; and another hour passed before they could be formed on the Jersey side. A violent northeast storm of wind and sleet and hail set in as they began their 26. XIII. 1776. Dec. CHAP. nine miles' march to Trenton, against an enemy in the best condition to fight. The weather was ter rible for men clad as the Americans were, and the 26. ground slipped under their feet. For a mile and a half they must climb a steep hill, from which they descended to the road, that ran for about three miles between hills and through forests of hickory, ash, and black oak. At Birmingham the army was divided; Sullivan continued near the river, and Washington passed up into the Pennington road. While Sullivan, who had the shortest route, halted to give due time for the others to arrive, he reported to Washington by one of his aids, that the arms of his party were wet. "Then tell your general," answered Washington, "to use the bayonet, and penetrate into the town; for the town must be taken, and I am resolved to take it." The return of the aide-de-camp was watched by the soldiers, who raised their heads to listen; and hardly had he spoken, when those who had bayonets fixed them without waiting for a command. It was now broad day. The slumber of the Hessians had been undisturbed; their patrols reported that all was quiet; and the night-watch of yagers had turned in, leaving the sentries at their seven advanced posts, to keep up the communication between their right wing and the left. The storm beat violently in the faces of the Americans; the men were stiff with cold and a continuous march of fifteen miles; but now when the time for the attack was come, they thought of nothing but victory. The battle was begun by Washington's party with an attack on the outermost picket on XIII. 1776. 26. the Pennington road; the men with Stark, who CHAP. led the van of Sullivan's party, immediately gave three heartening cheers, and with the bayonet Dec. rushed upon the enemy's picket near the river. A company came out of the barracks to protect the patrol; but surprised and astonished at the fury of the charge, they all, including the yagers, fled in confusion, escaping across the Assanpink, followed by the dragoons and the party which was posted near the river-bank. Washington entered the town by King and Queen streets, now named after Warren and Greene; Sullivan moved by the river-road into Second street, cutting off the way to the Assanpink bridge; and both divisions pushed forward with such equal ardor, as never to suffer the Hessians to form completely. The two cannon which stood in front of Rall's quarters were from the first separated from the regiment to which they belonged, and were not brought into the action. The Americans were coming into line of battle, when Rall made his appearance, received a report, rode up in front of his regiment, and, without presence of mind, cried out to them: "Forward, march; advance, advance," reeling in the saddle like one not yet recovered from a night's debauch. His own regiment made an attempt to form in the street; but before it could be done, a party pushed on rapidly and dismounted its two cannon, with no injury but slight wounds. to Captain William Washington and James Monroe. Forest's American battery of six guns was opened upon two regiments at a distance of less than three hundred yards, under Washington's own direction. CHAP. His position was near the front, a little to the XIII. right, a conspicuous mark for musketry; but he 1776. Dec. remained unhurt, though his horse was wounded 26. under him. The moment for breaking through the Americans was lost by Rall, who drew back the Lossberg regiment and his own, but without artillery, into an orchard east of the town, as if intending to reach the road to Princeton by turning Washington's left. To check this movement, Hand's regiment was thrown in his front. By a quick resolve, the passage might still have been forced; but the Hessians had been plundering ever since they landed in the country; and loath to leave behind the wealth which they had amassed, they urged Rall to recover the town. In the attempt to do so, his force was driven by the impetuous charge of the Americans further back than before; he was himself struck by a musket-ball; and the two regiments were mixed confusedly together, and almost surrounded. Riding up to Washington, Baylor could now report: "Sir, the Hessians have surrendered;" on which Washington, whose strong will had been strained for seventeen hours, gave way to his feelings, and with clasped hands raised his eyes, gleaming with thankfulness, to heaven. The Knyphausen regiment, which had been ordered to cover the flank, strove to reach the Assanpink bridge through the fields on the southeast of the town; but losing time in extricating their two cannon from the morass, they found the bridge guarded on each side; and after a vain attempt to ford the rivulet, they surrendered to Lord Stirling on condition of retaining their swords and their XIII. 1776. Dec. 26. private baggage. The action, in which the Amer- CHAP. icans lost not one man, lasted thirty-five minutes. One hundred and sixty-two of the Hessians who at sunrise were in Trenton escaped, about fifty to Princeton, the rest to Bordentown; one hundred and thirty were absent on command; seventeen were killed. All the rest of Rall's command, nine hundred and forty-six in number, were prisoners, of whom seventy-eight were wounded. The Americans gained twelve hundred small-arms, six brass field-pieces, of which two were twelvepounders, and all the standards of the brigade. taken Until that hour, the life of the United States flickered like a dying flame. "But the Lord of hosts heard the cries of the distressed, and sent an angel for their deliverance," wrote the præses of the Pennsylvania German Lutherans. "All our hopes," said Lord George Germain, "were blasted by the unhappy affair at Trenton." That victory turned the shadow of death into the morning. |