USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > The Continental Army at the crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night of 1776 > Part 2
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On the morning of November 23, General WASHINGTON con- centrated his force at Newark, and on the 28th he left that city and began his memorable retreat through the Jerseys. That same night the British troops, well officered, well equipped and, as stated by some, twelve thousand strong, entered Newark. As the American column passed through Brunswick, battalion after battalion left the army, their term of enlistment having expired. The British army made a singular halt at Brunswick, but on December 6, General HOWE, with an additional force, joined them, and they then left for Princeton. When the American army reached Trenton, weary, ragged, well-nigh disheartened, they were reinforced by a German
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battalion, by three battalions of Philadelphia Associators, the Phila- delphia troop of light horse, a battery of artillery and two small regiments of New Jersey militia.
During the afternoon of December 7, and up to daylight on Sunday morning, December 8, small boats were constantly crossing and recrossing the Delaware river at Trenton ferry, a short distance below what is now the Pennsylvania railroad bridge, and at BEATTY's ferry, a few yards above the present bridge at Calhoun street. In this way the entire American army reached the west bank of the river. At about eleven o'clock on the same morning a brigade of HowE's army, which had remained, strange to say, seventeen hours at Princeton, entered this village with music and much display, and went down to the river bank, to find no boats for them to cross, and to receive a shower of grapeshot from a battery posted on the high ground opposite BEATTY's ferry. It was now too late for the skillful and powerful army of Britain to crush at one blow the apology for an army which bore arms for the young republic. STEDMAN, the great British historian, said it looked as if "HowE had calculated with the greatest accuracy the exact time necessary for his enemy to make his escape." But New Jersey was now virtually in possession of the British army; and since boats could not be procured, they had only to wait for the closing of the river by ice to cross the Delaware, to annihilate our forces and to seize Philadelphia, then the capital of the nation. The condition of the State was deplorable. The great city just beyond the northern boundary of the State was under the power of Great Britain, and Philadelphia was the objective point for British attack. New Jersey became the marching-ground of two armies. The consequence was that food and forage were taken, buildings burned, valuables stolen, the inhabitants ill-treated and despoiled, while society was broken up, hostile feuds between neighbors were engendered, and the good people of New Jersey were truly in a pitiable condition.
The HowE brothers, by instructions of their government, issued
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a proclamation, in which they tendered a pardon to all who would, within sixty days after November 30, renounce the cause of inde- pendence and subscribe to a declaration of their submission to the authority of Great Britain. This proclamation was scattered broad- cast over New Jersey. It is said that twenty-seven hundred men accepted the proffered protection. This increased the deplorable condition of the people of this State, in that it created a faction openly in favor of peace, and ready to give any secret intelligence which could aid the enemy. But the German soldiery did not regard these protection papers, which they could not read, and they despoiled friend and foe alike. The English soldiers also did not relish the fact that the Hessians were obtaining all the spoil, and they joined heartily in plundering the citizens.
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As soon as the American army had reached the Pennsylvania side of the river, they were arranged along the shore from McKON KEY's ferry, now Taylorsville, to DUNK's ferry, a short distance below Bristol, with detachments at Newtown and various other places in Bucks county. General WASHINGTON then sent out officers to urge upon the people of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware to forward troops immediately to him. His desire was strong to preserve the city of Philadelphia, and he placed Major-General PUTNAM in command of the city, which was full of alarm, and to some extent disaffected.
On the 11th of December the Continental Congress, a body in which the people were losing confidence, passed a resolution de- nouncing as false the rumor that they intended to leave Philadelphia, and requested General WASHINGTON to publish it in orders to the army. This he declined to do, and wisely ; for on December 13 they made the gossip true by hurrying off to Baltimore.
All this time the King's troops made no effort to cross the river, seize the capital city of the young republic, and stifle liberty in its birthplace. At that time the city was a prize well worth the exer- tion. There were still no boats at hand, because WASHINGTON had
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them all in his control. But Trenton was a village of wooden houses, and JOHN RICKEY's hardware store and the blacksmith shops of JOSHUA NEWBOLD and AARON HOWELL would have given them the nails and iron necessary to have built at least rafts for such an enterprise.
General HowE then ordered a line of winter cantonments to be immediately formed at Brunswick, Princeton, Trenton and Borden- town. The posts at Trenton and Bordentown, the most important positions nearest the American army, he garrisoned with German troops. The services of these men had been bought of FREDERICK II., Landgrave of Hesse Cassel ; of CHARLES I., Duke of Bruns- wick ; of FREDERICK, Prince of Waldeck, and other of the petty rulers of Germany for £7 4s. each, British money. The officers of the Hessian contingent were men of large experience, many of them men of rank in Germany, and, as it afterward proved, soldiers of good personal character. The scandalous man-traffic, which furnished these troops to Britain, enabled the princes to support the luxuries of their little courts ; but it filled the land with the tears of those who had been robbed of their husbands and their sons.
In Trenton, three regiments of Hessian infantry, a small detach- ment of artillery, fifty Hessian yagers and twenty dragoons of the Sixteenth British Regiment were quartered-in all about fourteen hundred men. The infantry regiments were those called the grena- dier regiment RALL ; the fusilier regiments VON KNYPHAUSEN and VON LOSSBERG ; and Colonel JOHANN GOTTLIEB RALL was the senior officer commanding the brigade. He opened his head- quarters, December 14, in a two-story building which many of us remember-the residence then of STACY POTTS, on the ground now occupied by the rectory of Bishop O'FARRELL.
Major-General JAMES GRANT was placed in charge of all the British troops in New Jersey, with headquarters at Brunswick, and the post at Princeton was commanded by Brigadier-General ALEX- ANDER LESLIE ; the post at Bordentown by Colonel CARL EMIL
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KURT VON DONOP, with three battalions of Hessian grenadiers and a regiment of the British line. Colonel VON DONOP outranked RALL, who received all his orders from VON DONOP.
General HowE, who was in command of all the troops of Great Britain in America, left Trenton for New York City December 13, and Lord CORNWALLIS accompanied him, intending to embark, with leave of absence, for a trip to England. General HOWE was an indolent man, fond of pleasure, a great gambler, at times intem- perate, and always loath to quit a life of ease in a city for the toils of a march and the risks of the battle-field. He was but a poor commander of an army sent to crush out rebellion in the Colonies. Lord CORNWALLIS was, on the contrary, one of the best, ablest and most reliable soldiers in the British army. He was bold, aggressive, courageous and sincere in his desire to do his entire duty as a soldier of the crown.
To return to the American army. Two bodies of reinforcements had been ordered to join General WASHINGTON on the west bank of the Delaware. Major-General CHARLES LEE, with his force, made frequent and long halts, and seemed reluctant to merge his command with the main army. On the 13th day of December he was surprised by a scouting party of thirty British dragoons, at WHITE's tavern, near Basking Ridge, three miles from his division, and they carried off their odd-looking prisoner in dressing gown and slippers, and without a hat, to the British camp. General LEE was considered by many of the army an ideal soldier. He was well educated, of brilliant talents, great experience and skill, and his loss was, for a time, felt as a great misfortune and made matters look still more gloomy for the cause. Immediately after LEE's abduction Major-General JOHN SULLIVAN assumed command, and on the 20th of December he reported with two thousand men "much out of sorts and much in want of everything." Major- General GATES had also marched with troops from the northern army, then commanded by Major-General SCHUYLER, and after
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encountering a terrible storm in the Walpack valley the force reached the American camp on December 20, under the direct com- mand of General BENEDICT ARNOLD.
It is evident from letters which General WASHINGTON wrote to General GATES, to Governor TRUMBULL and to General HEATH, December 14, that he had at that time planned an attack on the British posts in New Jersey, "to clip their wings," as he said, "while they are so spread." In the diary of CHRISTOPHER MAR- SHALL, the patriot Quaker, of Philadelphia, we find this entry, December 18: "News that our army intended to cross at Trenton into the Jerseys." Something had to be attempted, or, as WASHING- TON wrote to his brother, " if every nerve is not strained I think the game is pretty nearly up." He added : "You can form no idea of the perplexity of my situation ; no man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them." Yet he had faith in the justice of the cause, and con- fidence that the final outcome of the contest would bring peace and liberty and prosperity to his native land.
Some bold stroke had to be attempted in this the crisis of the fate of the new nation. The feeling of the people was one of deep despondency, and the little army must do something immediately to dispel the gloom. The soldiers still had faith in their chief; they looked to him to bring them out into the sunlight of victory. He was full of cheer to the men as he encouraged them in their suffering, and with firm countenance bade them look with confi- dence to a brighter day.
During the third week in December Colonel SAMUEL GRIFFIN, with about six hundred militia collected in and about Philadelphia, made a demonstration against the outposts of Colonel VON DONOP, near Moorestown, in Burlington county. The effect of this little affair was to draw VON DONOP and his men further away from Trenton, and to fix their attention on the little party in front and
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away from RALL and his command, which they should have sup- ported if they had remained at Bordentown.
General WASHINGTON had divided his army into three separate corps. One stationed at Bristol, under Colonel JOHN CADWALADER, included Colonel HITCHCOCK's brigade of the Continental line and three battalions of the Philadelphia Associators. The second corps had headquarters at COLVIN's ferry, now Morrisville, and consisted of the Pennsylvania militia of the Flying Camp and the New Jersey militia under General PHILEMON DICKINSON. This force reached from BOND's ferry, nearly opposite Bordentown, to YARDLEY's ferry, now Yardleyville, and was under the command of Brigadier-General JAMES EWING, of Pennsylvania. The third and largest corps ex- tended from YARDLEY's ferry northward seven miles on the Dela- ware river and the contiguous region, and back some six miles from the river.
An accurate calculation, based upon the figures as given in the. inspection return of December 22, 1776, shows that WASHINGTON had at that time enrolled in these three several corps about eight thousand men, or about six thousand effective troops, the number as stated by General Lord STIRLING the day after the battle. These troops were ill-clad ; they greatly needed stockings and shoes ; few of them had blankets, and many regiments were without camp equipage.
Captain EPHRAIM ANDERSON, of the Second Battalion of Jersey Continentals, did much to furnish General WASHINGTON with infor- mation about this time, and many of the patriot farmers of old Hunterdon and Burlington counties crossed over the river to WASH- INGTON's quarters and gave him facts which were important to him. But I am inclined to think from all the data which I can obtain, from a search of some interesting records, and from family tradition, that JOHN HONEYMAN, of Griggstown, Somerset county, who furnished the British army with cattle and whom common rumor called the notorious Tory and spy, but the safety of whose wife and
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children was covered by a written protection given by WASHINGTON himself, was the man whom General WASHINGTON relied on chiefly for most accurate information. It seems to be certain that while engaged in his trade he was captured by American scouts, carried over the river to the quarters of General WASHINGTON and held a private half-hour conversation with him. His court-martial was ordered for the morrow, and he was confined during the night, but he made an unaccountable escape before morning. It is asserted that he returned to RALL, gave him a doleful account of the Ameri- can army and then left for Brunswick, so that he might not be present at the surprise of Trenton, be upbraided by the Hessians and lose his power for usefulness to the patriot cause.
WASHINGTON now prepared for a simultaneous attack upon the commands of VON DONOP and of RALL. It was ordered at the council of war held on the evening of December 24, at the head- quarters of General GREENE, that Colonel CADWALADER should cross the river from DUNK's ferry to Burlington on Christmas night and beat up the posts of Mount Holly, Black Horse, now Columbus, and Bordentown ; that General EWING should cross at Trenton landing and take position south of Assunpink creek, so that RALL's men could not escape to VON DONOP, and that General WASHING- TON, the same night, with a detachment of the main army two thousand four hundred strong, with eighteen pieces of artillery, should make a direct attack on the garrison town of Trenton.
By two o'clock on the morning of Christmas some regiments of the main army were moving toward McKONKEY's ferry, and by three in the afternoon all those detailed for this service were on the march, tingeing, it is said, the light snow which had fallen with blood from their feet. Each soldier had three days' cooked rations and each carried forty rounds of ammunition. The men were placed in Durham boats, in row galleys and in every kind of craft which could be collected in the upper waters of the Delaware. For several days these boats had been hidden behind the thick
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woods on Malta island and at the mouth of KNOWLES' creek. The river on Monday and Tuesday had been clear, but by noon of Wednesday, the 25th, was filled with moving cakes of ice and the current became swift and dangerous. As soon as it was quite dark the troops came down to the river to begin the crossing.
At this point let me say a few words about Trenton in 1776. During the Revolutionary war there were about seventy houses above the Assunpink creek and not quite thirty south of the creek. Most of these buildings were of wood, including two churches, the English and the Methodist, but the barracks and the Presbyterian church were built of stone, and HUNT's general store, the jail, now the Trenton bank, and the Friends' meeting-house were of brick. The town above the creek may be said to have been bounded by what is now Willow street, what is now Perry street and what is now Montgomery street. All outside of this area was then considered to be the suburbs of the village. Warren street was then called King street, but extended only to Front street and had no bridge over the creek. Greene street was then called Queen street, and extended over a stone bridge at the creek to the road to Borden- town. State street, then Second street, extended from what is now Willow street to what is now Montgomery street. The River road passed nearer than it does now to the homestead of the ATTERBURY estate; and at the place where Prospect street now commences it turned slightly on ground now the bed of the feeder, through West Hanover street, thence into what is now Willow street and ended at the corner of Front and Willow streets. Pennington road and Brunswick road entered the village as they do to-day. A lane led up to the BEAKES farm, and this is now Princeton avenue. What is now Hanover street, west of Greene, was called Pinker- ton's alley ; east of Greene street it was called Third street. Academy street was Fourth street; but both Third and Fourth streets were but a square in length. Church alley extended from Warren to Greene street, just north of the English church. Perry
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street was not then opened. The present Fourth ward of the city was the Bloomsbury farm of Dr. WILLIAM BRYANT, afterward of Colonel JOHN Cox; and the house now the residence of Mr. EDWARD H. STOKES is always spoken of in German records as the " Doctor House."
The regiment VON LOSSBERG, with a portion of the detachment of artillery, occupied the English church, now ST. MICHAEL's, and the houses of Sheriff MICAJAH How, Colonel ISAAC SMITH, THOMAS BARNES and others on King street as far down as Pinkerton's alley. Colonel RALL's own grenadier regiment had their quarters in the jail, now a part of the Trenton bank, and in the houses of WILLIAM PIDGEON, ABRAHAM G. CLAYPOOLE, at FRANCIS WITTS' Blazing Star tavern and in HENRY DRAKE'S Bull Head tavern, the post- office and other houses on Second street between King and Queen streets. The regiment VON KNYPHAUSEN occupied the Presbyterian church, the village school adjoining, on what is now State street, the houses of WILLIAM and ELLET TUCKER, JOSEPH MILNER and others, on what is now Greene street, for a square above and a square below our City Hall. The barracks, a portion of which is now the Widows' and Single Women's Home, was occupied by the yagers and a considerable number of Tory refugees from Bur- lington and Monmouth counties. The Quaker meeting-house of Third street, now Hanover street, which is still standing, was the quarters of the British dragoons. Another part of the artillery detachment was in the Methodist church on Queen street. The parsonage of the Presbyterian church, on Third street, was used as a hospital.
Only the day before Christmas General GRANT had assured Col- onel RALL that he was safe ; that he would undertake to keep the peace in New Jersey with a corporal's guard. Major VON DECHOW, who commanded the VON KNYPHAUSEN regiment, wanted RALL to put up some intrenchments on the River road and on the high ground at the junction of the Pennington and Brunswick roads,
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and offered to build them, but RALL said : "Let them come; we want no trenches ; we will at them with a bayonet !"
Major MATTHAUS, of RALL's own regiment, urged him to keep a patrol toward Pennington and as far up as JOHNSON's ferry. This he refused to do; fortunately for the American cause. However, at five o'clock on the morning of the 23d, the 24th and again on the 25th, the picket guard was ordered down to Dr. WILLIAM BRY- ANT's house, near Trenton landing, with two cannon, and remained there until nine o'clock, prepared to dispute any crossing at that point. But it failed to make this early parade on the morning of December 26. The outposts at Trenton were then at the house of RICHARD and ARTHUR HOWELL, coopers, on the Pennington road, one Corporal and fifteen men ; at the residence of General DICKIN- SON, now part of the house still standing and owned by the ATTER- BURY estate, on the River road, one officer and fifty yagers ; at the Fox Chase tavern, kept by Mrs. JOSEPH BOND, on the Brunswick road, nearly opposite the head of the present Montgomery street, a Captain and seventy-five men ; at the tavern formerly kept by RENSSELAER WILLIAMS, on the Ferry road, near Trenton landing, one officer and thirty men ; at the drawbridge over Crosswicks creek, three commissioned officers and one hundred men ; and at the Assunpink bridge a Sergeant and eighteen men constituted the guard. The headquarters' guard was in the frame house still stand- ing just north of ST. MICHAEL's church.
As was expected by General WASHINGTON, the Hessians, secure in their own prowess, entered heartily into the revelry of Christmas day. On the early morning of the 25th, RALL heard that a small detachment of Americans was wandering near Trenton and might make an attack on him. He rode around to all his guards and then returned to play a little game of checkers with his host, STACY POTTS. Just before dark an attack was made at the picket post on the Pennington road by Captain RICHARD C. ANDERSON, of the Fifth Virginia Continental Regiment. Colonel RALL sent out a
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party to reinforce the post and they quickly drove off the Americans. This little unauthorized act, which annoyed WASHINGTON when he heard of it, removed all further apprehension from RALL's mind. Colonel RALL did not return to POTTS' house after this attack, but stopped at the residence of the rich merchant, ABRAHAM HUNT, and began to drink his good wine in his parlor. It was the room lately occupied as a flour and feed store by Mr. JOSEPH HOWELL, on ground now covered by the Masonic Temple. Mr. HUNT has been charged with being a Loyalist. I do not think he was. He was the postmaster of the village before and after the war ; his property was never confiscated, and after the war he married the most patriotic lady in the village. His liquors were certainly under the control of Colonel RALL. May it not have been that Mr. HUNT, who was Lieutenant-Colonel of Colonel ISAAC SMITH's First Regi- ment of Hunterdon county militia, was not adverse to making his Hessian foe helpless? He certainly was, whether wittingly or not, a powerful agent of WASHINGTON.
While RALL was at his cards and wine a Tory farmer from Bucks county left a note for him at HUNT's house, in which he told him that the Americans were crossing the river to Jersey, but RALL put the note in his pocket and went on with his social pleasure.
To return to General WASHINGTON, who, with his troops, was about to cross the river. The jagged ice, floating swiftly by, struck the boats severely and they had to be handled with the greatest care. The night was, as Captain THOMAS RODNEY said, "As severe as I ever saw it." It was dark and cold and dismal, with mingled snow and hail after eleven o'clock ; but Colonel GLOVER's Marble- head regiment of fishermen at last ferried the whole force over the river with all their horses and cannon. Colonel KNox, with a stentorian voice that was heard above the crackling of the ice, repeated WASHINGTON's orders on the Pennsylvania side. It was after three o'clock when the Americans reached the New Jersey shore, and the order for the expected attack was five o'clock in the
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morning. This could not now be carried out. During the last hour WASHINGTON had been seated upon what had been a beehive, eagerly watching the passage of his troops. Here DAVID LANNING, the Birmingham miller, who had left Trenton late on Christmas night, came up to WASHINGTON and gave him the latest information as to the condition of the Hessian foe. Then Captain JOHN MOTT, the grandfather of the late Major-General MOTT, started out with a fusee on his shoulder to guide the troops past his own dwelling- house, now a part of the property of the lunatic asylum, to the surprise of Trenton.
The farmers of old Hunterdon county had done good service to WASHINGTON by assisting in ferrying over his soldiers, and were now ready to accompany his columns as guides. Their names, in addition to those just mentioned, were : Major JOSEPH PHILLIPS, of the First Hunterdon Regiment of militia, and his Adjutant, ELIAS PHILLIPS; JOHN MUIRHEAD, JOHN GUILD, HENRY SIMONS, WILLIAM GREEN, AMOS SCUDDER, EPHRAIM WOLSEY, STEPHEN BURROUGHS, EDEN BURROUGHS, JOSEPH INSLEE and URIAH SLACK. The descendants of many of these active patriots are here with us to-night.
The password of the day was " Victory or Death." The wind that day was east northeast, and the storm, at least for a part of the march, beat rather more on the left shoulders than in the faces of the patriotic army. The ground was very slippery from the sleet and snow, and their miserable want of clothing made their con- dition truly pitiable.
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