USA > New Jersey > The history of New Jersey : from its earliest settlement to the present time : including a brief historical account of the first discoveries and settlement of the country, Vol. I > Part 38
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They remained here until Washington had conceived that the auspicious moment had arrived to strike a blow in Trenton, and either perish or accomplish this desired object. And at a mo- ment of the greatest seeming prostration, the columns of Wash- ington were set in motion for the surprise of Trenton, which was eminently successful, and at once aroused the nation into hope and confidence. In this enterprise the affair was decided in a few minutes, by the defeat and surrender of more than a thous-
* Spencer, Vol. I, p. 458.
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and Hessians, who were considered among the best troops of the British army.
At dusk on the night of the 25th of December, 1776, the con- tinental troops, commanded by General Washington in person, amounting to two thousand four hundred men, with twenty pieces of artillery, began to cross at McConkey's ferry. The troops at Yardleyville and the stations above, had that day as- sembled at this ferry. Among the prominent and active men who were employed ferrying over the troops, were Uriah Slack, William Green and David Lanning.
It was between three and four o'clock in the morning before all the artillery and troops were over and ready to march.
Many of the men were very destitute, as regarded clothing. The ground was covered with sleet and snow, which was falling at the time, although the day before there was no snow, or only a little sprinkling of it, on the ground
General Washington, (who had sat in silence on a beehive, wrapped in his cloak, while his troops were crossing,) as they were about to march, enjoined upon them all profound silence during their march to Trenton, and said to them : " I hope you will all fight like men."
The sun had just risen as the tents of the enemy appeared in sight. Washington, rising in his stirrups, waved his sword and exclaimed : " There, my brave friends, are the enemies of your country ; and now, all I have to ask is, to remember what you are about to fight for. March !"'
The army marched at a quick step, in a body, from the river up the cross-road to the Bear Tavern, about a mile from the river. The whole army then marched down this road to the village of Birmingham, about three and a half miles distant.
There they halted, examined their priming, and found it all wet. Captain Mott, notwithstanding he had taken the precau- tion to wrap his handkerchief around the lock of his gun, found the priming wet. " Well," said General Sullivan, " we must fight them with the bayonet."
From Birmingham to Trenton, the distance by the river road and the Scotch road is nearly equal, being about four and a half miles.
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The troops were formed in two divisions. One of them, com- manded by General Sullivan, marched down the river road ; the other, commanded by General Washington, accompanied by Generals Lord Stirling, Greene, Mercer, and Stevens, filed off to the left, crossed over to the Scotch road, and marched along until they entered the Pennington road about one mile above Trenton.
Scarcely a word was spoken from the time the troops left the ferry (except what passed between the officers and guides,) till they reached Trenton; and with such stillness did the army move, that they were not discovered until they came upon the outguards of the enemy, who were posted in the outskirts of the town, at or near the house of Colonel David Brearley,* when I one of the sentinels called to Laning,f (who was a little in ad- vance of the troops,) and asked, "Who is there?" Laning replied, "A friend !" "A friend to whom?" "A friend to General Washington." At this the guard fired and retreated. t.
The American troops returned their fire and rushed upon them, driving them into the town. At the head of King street, (now Warren,) Captain T. Forrest opened a six gun battery, under the immediate orders of General Washington, which com- manded the street. Captain William Washington and Lieuten-
* This was just after daybreak, according to the testimony of several persons who lived in the town or neighborhood at the time.
t This Laning had a few days before been taken prisoner by a scouting party, in the Scudder neighborhood, near the Delaware river, carried to Tren- ton and confined in a house on Tucker's corner (Greene and State).
Watching an opportunity, when there was a little commotion among the guard, he slipped out of the back door, sprang over a high board fence, and escaped to the house of Stacy Potts, who took him in, and concealed him that night. The next morning, Laning dressed in an old ragged coat, and flapped hat, put an axe under his arm, and went with his head down, limping along, and so passed the enemy's sentries in safety, in the character of a wood-chop- per, but when he got where the Pennington and Scotch roads meet, he looked in every direction, and seeing no person, threw down his axe, and took to Dickinson's swamp, and so escaped.
# At the commencement of the engagement, when Washington with his sword raised, was giving his orders, it is said a musket ball passed between his fingers, slightly grazing them. He only said, " that has passed by."
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ant James Monroe, (afterwards president of the United States,) perceiving that the enemy were endeavoring. to plant a battery in King street, rushed forward with the advance guard, drove the artillerists from their guns and took from them two pieces, which they were in the act of firing./ These guns are now in the State Arsenal. Captain Washington and Lieutenant Monroe were both wounded in this successful enterprise. /
A part of this division marched down Queen street (now Greene) and extended to the left, in order to cut off the retreat of the enemy towards Princeton.
The division of the army which came down the river road, under the command of General Sullivan, fell upon the British advance guard at Rutherford's place, in the northwestern part of the town, at about the same time that Washington entered it on the north.
Both divisions pushed forward, keeping up a running fire with small arms,* and meeting with but little opposition until the enemy were driven eastward in Second street, (now State,) near the Presbyterian church, where there was some fighting, the enemy having made a momentary stand ; but finding themselves hemmed in and overpowered, they laid down their arms in the cornfield back of the Presbyterian church.
Colonel Rahl, the Hessian commander, whose headquarters was at the corner of Warren and Bank streets, was mortally wounded during the early part of the engagement, being shot from his horse while endeavoring to form his dismayed and dis- ordered troops.
When, supported by a file of sergeants, he presented his sword to General Washington, (whose countenance beamed with com- placency at the success of the day,) he was pale and bleeding, and, in broken accents, seemed to implore those attentions which the victor was well disposed to bestow upon him. He
* When the firing commenced on the morning of the battle, a daughter of Mr. Stacy Potts was at Miss Cox's, opposite the Episcopal church, and as she was running to her father's house a musket ball struck the comb from her head, slightly injuring her.
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was taken to his headquarters, where he died on the third day after the battle.
The number of prisoners taken at that time was twenty-three officers and eight hundred and eighty-six privates. Four stand of colors, twelve drums, six brass field pieces, and a thousand stand of arms and accoutrements.
. The British light-horse and four or five hundred Hessians escaped at the beginning of the battle over the bridge across the Assanpink, at Trent's mills, and fled to Bordentown.
If General Ewing, whose division of the army was opposite Trenton, had been able to cross the Delaware, as contemplated, and take possession of the bridge across the Assanpink, at Greene street, all the enemy's troops which were in Trenton would undoubtedly have been captured. But there was so much ice on the shores of the river that it was impossible to get the artillery over .*
Immediately after this victory-which greatly revived the drooping spirits of the army-General Washington commenced marching his prisoners up to the Eight Mile Ferry (McConkey's), and before night all were safely landed on the western shore of the Delaware. But Washington would not let a man pass more than was necessary, until all the prisoners were over.
Among the Americans but two men were killed, while the Hessians lost seven officers and about thirty men. Twenty-four of the latter were buried in one pit, in the Presbyterian burying ground, by the American troops. t
It has been reported that after taking the Hessians, while the American army were marching their prisoners to the ferry, that two of our men were frozen to death. But the cause of their death can be accounted for in this way. The night after the capture, December 27th, several of the American soldiers, who were worn down with fatigue, being poorly clad, took refuge at
* New Jersey.Hist. Coll., by Barber and Howe, p. 296.
t Some years after this battle, several skeletons and coffins were found where the Assanpink empties into the Delaware river, which many supposed were Hessians killed in this battle, but it has since been ascertained that they were English, quartered at White Hall barracks, during the French war, about the year 1760.
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the house of a Mrs. Scudder. Several of them became very sick in the night and two or three died, and it is not, therefore, unlikely that these were the persons mentioned as having frozen to death. Although the American army suffered great privations and underwent very many hardships, still it is extremely doubt- ful that the two men above mentioned did actually freeze to death.
Washington, in his report to Congress, under date of Decem- ber 27th, 1776, from his headquarters at Newtown, Pennsylva- nia, the next day after the battle, gives the following account of it :
" I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the success of an enterprise which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning. The evening of the 25th I ordered the troops in- tended for this service, to parade back of McConkey's ferry (now Taylorsville), that they might begin to pass as soon as it grew dark-imagining that we should be able to throw them all over with the necessary artillery by twelve o'clock, and that we might easily arrive at Trenton by five o'clock in the morning, the distance being about nine miles.
" But the quantity of ice made that night, impeded the pas- sage of the boats so much, that it was three o'clock before the artillery could all be got over, and near four before the troops took up their line of march.
" I formed my detachment in two divisions-one to march up the lower or river road, the other by the upper or Pennington road.
" As the divisions had nearly the same distance to march, I ordered each of them, immediately upon forcing the outguards to push directly into the town, that they might charge the enemy before they had time to form.
" The upper division arrived at the enemy's advanced post exactly at eight o'clock, and in three minutes after, I found from the fire on the lower road, that that division had also got up. The outguards made but a small opposition ; though, for their numbers, they behaved very well-keeping up a constant retreat- ing fire from behind houses. We presently saw their main body
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formed, but from their motions, they seemed undetermined how to act.
"Being hard pressed by our troops, who had already got possession of their artillery, they attempted to file off by a road on their right, leading to Princeton ; but, perceiving their in- tention, I threw a body of troops in their way, which immediately checked them.
"Finding from our disposition, that they were surrounded, and they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further resistance, they agreed to lay down their arms.
" The number that submitted in this manner was twenty-three officers and eight hundred and eighty-six men.
" Colonel Rahl, the commanding officer, and seven others, were found wounded in the town.
" I do not know exactly, how many they had killed; but I fancy not above twenty or thirty-as they never made any regular stand.
"Our loss is very trifling indeed-only two officers * and one or two privates wounded.
"I find the detachment of the enemy consisted of three Hessian regiments of Landspatch, Kniphausen and Rahl, amount- ing to about one thousand five hundred men, and a troop of British light-horse ; but immediately upon the beginning of the attack, all those who were not killed or taken, pushed directly down the road towards Bordentown.
" These, likewise, would have fallen into our hands could my plan have been carried into execution.
" General Ewing was to have crossed before day at Trenton ferry, t and taken possession of the bridge leading to the town, but the quantity of ice was so great, that though he did every- thing in his power to effect it, he could not cross.
" This difficulty also hindered General Cadwalader from cross. ing with the Pennsylvania militia from Bristol. He got part of
* These were Captains Washington and Monroe.
t Just below where the old Trenton bridge now stands.
The bridge across the Assanpink' in Greene street, which post he was to have taken to prevent the escape of the enemy to Bordentown.
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his foot over, but finding it impossible to embark his artillery he was obliged to desist.
" I am fully confident, that, could the troops under Generals Ewing and Cadwalader have passed the river, I should have been enabled, with their assistance, to have driven the enemy from all their posts below Trenton. But the numbers I had with me being inferior to theirs below, and a strong battalion of light- infantry being at Princeton above me, I thought it most prudent to return the same evening, with the prisoners and artillery we had taken. We found no stores of any consequence in the town.
"In justice to the officers and men, I must add that their behaviour.on this occasion reflects the highest honor upon them. The difficulty of passing the river on a very severe night, and their march through a violent storm of hail and snow, did not in the least abate their ardor-but, when they came to the charge, each seemed to vie with the other in pressing forward ; and were I to give a preference to any particular corps I should do injustice to the other. Colonel Baylor, my first aid-de-camp, will have the honor of delivering this to you, and from him you may be made acquainted with many other particulars. His spirited behaviour upon every occasion requires me to recommend him to your particular notice."
Spencer says *- " It is said, that on the morning of the sur- prise, Rahl, who had been carousing all night, after an enter- tainment, was still engaged at cards, until aroused, at length, by the roll of the American drums, and the sound of musketry, he started to his feet, hurried to his quarters, mounted his horse, and in a few moments was at the head of his troops, vainly attempting to atone for his fatal neglect. In a few moments he fell to the ground mortally wounded, and was carried away to his quarters. All order was now at an end; the Hessians, panic-struck, gave way, and endeavored to escape by the road to Princeton ; but were intercepted by a party judiciously placed there for the purpose, and compelled to surrender at discretion,
* Spencer's History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 459.
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to the number of about a thousand men. Six cannon, a thousand stand of arms, and four colors, adorned the triumph of Washing- ton. In this moment of brilliant success, purchased at the ex- pense of others, he was not unmindful of the duties of humanity ; but, accompanied by Greene, paid a visit to the dying Hessian leader, and soothed his passage to the grave, by the expression of that grateful and generous sympathy, which one brave man owes to another, even when engaged in opposite causes." .
END OF VOL. I.
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