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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, like those which had been made repeatedly before, was held to be of no importance. The post was strengthened; additional patrols were sent out; but every apprehension was put to rest; and Rall, till late into the night, sat 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 twentysixth before the troops and cannon were all over; and another hour passed before they could be formed on the Jersey side. A violent north-east storm of wind and sleet and hail set in as they began their nine miles' march to Trenton, against an enemy in the best condition to fight. The weather was terrible for men clad as the Americans were, and the ground slipped under their feet. For a mile and a half they had to 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 force 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 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." The return of the aide-de-camp was watched by the soldiers; 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 and left wings. 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 that they were near the enemy, they thought of nothing but

victory. Washington's party began the battle with an attack on the outermost picket on the Pennington road; the men with Stark, who led the van of Sullivan's party, gave three cheers, and with the bayonet rushed upon the enemy's picket near the river. A company came out of the barracks to protect the patrol; but, 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. The Americans were coming into line of battle, when Rall made his appearance, received a report, rode up in front of his regiment, and cried out: "Forward, march; advance, advance," reeling in the saddle like one not yet recovered from a night's debauch. Before his own regiment could form in the street a party pushed on rapidly and dismounted its two cannon, with no injury but slight wounds to Captains William Washington and James Monroe. Under Washington's own direction, Forest's American battery of six guns was opened upon two regiments at a distance of less than three hundred yards. His position was near the front, a little to the right, a conspicuous mark for musketry; but he remained unhurt, though his horse was wounded 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

farther back than before; he was himself struck by a musketball; and the two regiments were mixed confusedly and almost surrounded. Riding up to Washington, Baylor could now report: "Sir, the Hessians have surrendered." 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 private baggage. The action, in which the Americans 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 taken prisoners, of whom seventy-eight were wounded. The Americans gained twelve hundred small-arms, six brass field-pieces, of which two were twelve-pounders, and all the standards of the brigade.

Congress by its committee lavished praise upon the commander-in-chief. "You pay me compliments," answered Washington, "as if the merit of that affair was due solely to me; but, I assure you, the other general officers, who assisted me in the plan and execution, have full as good a right to your encomiums as myself." The most useful of them all was Greene.

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 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

ASSANPINK AND PRINCETON.

DECEMBER 26, 1776-JANUARY 1777.

AFTER snatching refreshments from the captured stores, the victorious troops, worn out by cold, rain, snow, and storm, the charge of nearly a thousand prisoners, and the want of sleep, set off again in sleet driven by a north-east wind, and, passing another terrible night at the ferry, recrossed the Delaware. But Stirling and one half of the soldiers were disabled, and two men were frozen to death.

Up to this time congress had left on their journals the suggestion that a reunion with Great Britain might be the consequence of a delay in France to declare in their favor; at Baltimore, before the victory at Trenton was known, it was voted to "assure foreign courts that the congress and people of America are determined to maintain their independence at all events." Treaties of commerce were to be offered to Prussia, to Vienna, and to Tuscany; their intervention was invoked to prevent Russian or German troops from serving against the United States, and a sketch was drawn for an offensive alliance with France and Spain against Great Britain.

The independence which the nation pledged its faith to other countries to maintain could be secured only through the army. On the twenty-sixth of December the urgent letters of Washington and Greene were read in congress, and referred to Richard Henry Lee, Wilson, and Samuel Adams; and, on the next day, "congress having maturely considered the present crisis, and having perfect reliance on the wisdom, vigor, and uprightness of General Washington," resolved that, in addition to

the eighty-eight battalions to be furnished by the separate states, he might himself, as the general of the United States, raise, organize, and officer sixteen battalions of infantry, three thousand light horsemen, three regiments of artillery, and a corps of engineers, to be enlisted indiscriminately from all the people of all the states. He was authorized to displace and appoint all officers under the rank of a brigadier-general, and to fill up all vacancies. He might take necessaries for his army at an appraised value. These extraordinary trusts were vested in him for six months. The direct exercise of central power over the country as one indivisible republic was so novel that he was said to have been appointed "dictator of America." This Germain asserted in the house of commons, and Stormont at Paris repeated to Vergennes. But congress granted only the permission to the general to enlist and organize, if he could, a national increase of his army. To the president of congress Washington thus acknowledged the grant of unusual military power: "Instead of thinking myself freed from all civil obligations by this mark of confidence, 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 laid aside when those liberties are firmly established. I shall instantly set about making the most necessary reforms in the army." For the disaffected whom he received authority to arrest, he was directed to account to the states of which they were respectively citizens. Authority was given to the commissioners in France to borrow two million pounds sterling at six per cent for ten years; vigorous and speedy punishments were directed for such as should refuse to receive the continental currency; and "five millions of dollars were ordered to be emitted on the faith of the United States." Till the bills could be prepared, Washington was left without even paper money.

An hour before noon on the twenty-seventh Cadwalader at Bristol heard of Washington at Trenton, and took measures to cross into New Jersey. Hitchcock's remnant of a New England brigade could not move for want of shoes, stockings, and breeches; but these were promptly supplied from Philadelphia. Donop, on hearing of the defeat of Rall, had precipi

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