“We have come this far, Hamilton,” Washington answered, “if we go forward we may very well lose our lives. The element of surprise is gone. The chance of arriving before the sun rises is evaporating by the second. But if we march these men back to the river after all this, we will surely lose our army.
“Captain Hamilton—we have no choice: we go forward!”
Morning, December 26, 1776
Outskirts of Trenton
At 7:20 the sun had risen in the morning skies over Trenton.
George Washington was not there. He had failed yet again.
He stared toward the town in the distance, or at least where the town should have been. He could see nothing. Another storm had commenced, and it was historic. The sleet and snow that filled the air was completely blinding and deadened all sound.
And that was exactly the break Washington needed.
A horizontal avalanche of white may not have allowed the rebels to see the town, but at least they knew where it was. The Hessians inside that town, on the other hand, had no idea that American muskets and bayonets and cannon now advanced upon them.
George Washington’s prayers had not failed him; they’d just been answered in an unexpected way.
The storm also had another benefit: any enemy advance sentries had been forced inside. But while Washington might have guessed that, there was something he could not: the British had spies—and they were much better paid than the ones working for the rebels.
One of those spies had infiltrated Washington’s headquarters and scurried back to bring word of Washington’s plans to his masters. Washington had no way to know it, but the Hessians expected to be attacked this holy season. When those foolish Virginians had shot up their town and hightailed it back upon the Bear Tavern Road, Colonel Rall and his men had made the only reasonable conclusion that they could: the rebel attack, such that it was, had been easily turned away. What wretched soldiers these fools were! Rall thought. It was hardly an attack even worthy of his attention.
And so Rall and his lieutenant Wiederholdt let down their guard and got back to the important task of recovering from the holiday festivities of the previous night.
“Gentlemen, your watches, please,” Washington commanded General Greene and General John Sullivan, who would lead separate wings of the attack. “We will synchronize them all so that we will all strike at once.”
“This damnable snow,” Sullivan whined, “causes our gunpowder to grow wetter by the minute. We won’t be able to fire a shot upon the enemy!”
“Then use your bayonets!” Washington retorted.
By some small miracle, all segments of the army that had reached Trenton were advancing at once.
Inside Trenton’s barrel maker’s shop, Lieutenant Wiederholdt huddled with his seventeen men. No use keeping them outside on such a morning—especially not with the Americans on the run, their pathetic attack having been easily turned away. It was stuffy, though, with so many men cooped up within the small space. He stepped outside and thought he saw some men advancing toward him. Probably Captain Brubach’s detachment. But then there were more of them—and then still more.
“Der feind! Heraus!” Wiederholdt exclaimed—“The enemy! Turn out!”
The fight, Wiederholdt knew in that moment, was far from over. It was just beginning.
Colonel Rall, still in his nightclothes, stood dumbly at his window. All Hades was exploding round him. Washington’s units advancing. Knox’s batteries bombarding the town. Yet Rall, having spent a very late evening playing chess and drinking brandy, barely understood what was happening.
His adjutant, Lieutenant Jakob Piel, burst into the room.
“What is happening?” Rall demanded. The reality of his situation was now sinking all too painfully into his sleepy Hessian brain.
“Do you not hear the firing, Colonel?”
Rall threw on his uniform, dashed into the street, and mounted his horse, ready for battle.
Gunfire erupted from all sides. The Hessians should have remained inside their stations, picking off Greene’s and Sullivan’s columns as they advanced. Instead they rushed out to counterattack, making themselves easy targets for American fire—and turning their own gunpowder into sodden mush so that it might not fire. Their regimental band, Colonel Rall’s great pride and joy, took up its accustomed station, blaring out its traditional Teutonic martial music, but this time it made it even harder for his men to comprehend their own officers’ commands.
It was complete chaos.
But these Hessians would not be taken easily. They rolled out two cannon onto King Street, ready to cut the Americans to ribbons. Undeterred, the rebels rushed forward and captured the two cannon before they could be used.
Rall, however, rallied his men, spurring them into capturing the cannon back. As this seesaw battle continued, George Washington’s second cousin, Captain William Washington, along with Lieutenant James Monroe led a charge to once again seize the Hessian cannon. Musket fire hit Captain Washington in the wrist and Monroe in the chest, severing an artery. He crumpled, his blood spurting out onto the ground, melting the snow and forming a wide, dark red pool round his body. A surgeon struggled to clamp Monroe’s wound and save his life.
Colonel Rall saw his men fleeing the village. The sight enraged him. They would not be driven from Trenton by this Amerikanischen rabble! Atop his horse in a nearby orchard, he once again rallied his men, ordering them back into battle. They would once again recapture those cannon that Captain Washington and Lieutenant Monroe had seized. “My brave soldiers, advance!” he cried, waving his sword in the air.
History will never know if he might have triumphed because as he turned to look at a wounded fellow officer—
Blam!!
A musket ball ripped into his side.
Blam!!
And then another.
Rall tumbled from his mount. His men retrieved his body and gently carried it into a nearby church.
When pressed to choose between victory and death, the rebels had chosen the former. But while they had clearly won an important battle, they still had a very long way to go to win the war.
December 31, 1776
Trenton, New Jersey
General Washington pleaded with his troops. Today was the expiration of their enlistments and most of them had every right to leave. Not just the right, in fact, but the yearning. Worn down with fatigue, and bloodied in battle, most had their hearts fixed on the comforts of home.
Washington, mounted high on his horse, alluded to their recent victory at Trenton; he told them that their services were greatly needed, and that they could now do more for our country than they ever could at any future period. The drums beat for volunteers, but not a man turned out.
The general wheeled his horse about, rode in front of the regiment, and addressed the troops again. “My brave fellows,” he said, “you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigue and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay only one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably never can do under any other circumstances. The present is emphatically the crisis, which is to decide our destiny.”
The drums beat a second time. The soldiers felt the force of the appeal. One soldier said to another, “I will remain if you will.” Another remarked, “We cannot go home under such circumstances.” A few stepped forth, and their example was immediately followed by nearly all who were fit for duty in the regiment, amounting to about two hundred volunteers.
An officer inquired of General Washington if these men should be enrolled. “No!” he replied. “Men who will volunteer in such a case as this, need no enrollment to keep them to their duty.”
The Aftermath
At Mount Holly, Colonel von Donop was so panicked by the news from Trenton that he
abandoned his wounded men and fled—though he first managed to cart away a hundred and fifty wagons chocked full of booty.
In New York, General Howe, who had thought George Washington’s army beneath contempt, was stunned.
In London, the British politicians blamed the Hessians for their own downfall. Perhaps, they thought, these Germans were not worth the precious gold that Parliament and the Crown had expended to pay them.
But the inhabitants of the thirteen former colonies thought differently. Their hungry, cold, ragtag army had beaten the best soldiers that any money could buy. When all had seemed lost, their revolution had been saved.
At least, the rebel soldiers thought, he had saved it for now.
They did not, could not, know precisely what struggles might lie ahead—and that in itself was a miracle. For if they’d seen the future then they would’ve seen that the winter they were currently enduring by a river in New Jersey would be nothing compared to the one that lay ahead not far outside Philadelphia.
3
When None Expected Much, He Did the Unexpected
Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.
—JAMES LANE ALLEN
Let’s talk about soldiers and shoes.
It had been only a few months since the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, but the rebels were already facing serious challenges. George Washington’s army suffered stinging defeats on Long Island, at Kips Bay in Manhattan, at Fort Lee in New Jersey, and at Fort Washington in northern Manhattan. Retreating south through New Jersey with the British forces at his heels, Washington and his battered men ended their perilous trek in Pennsylvania.
His troops were hungry, sick, and cold—many lacked basic clothing. One of Washington’s officers described the march to Trenton this way: “It is fearfully cold and raw and a snowstorm setting in. The wind … beats in the faces of the men. It will be a terrible night for the soldiers who have no shoes.”
Seriously, no shoes? I’m the first to admit that I wouldn’t be able to make that march even if the world’s greatest outfitter of warm-weather clothing custom designed a wardrobe for me—but still, no shoes? Barefoot? In winter? How many of us can really even fathom that level of sacrifice?
Common Shoes
I know I’m harping quite a bit on this shoe thing, but it’s just so incredible. Think about how much time and effort we put into our footwear today: length, width, material, arch support—the list goes on and on. But back then, when our soldiers were lucky enough to actually have shoes they often had “common” shoes, meaning they weren’t specifically designed to fit your left or right foot. They “fit” either foot—which really meant they fit neither.
But shoes weren’t the only essential missing from the army: so was morale. It was abysmal, and understandably so. How many losses were these soldiers supposed to endure with no end in sight? It’s one thing to march through the bitter cold and freezing snow when you feel like you’re winning—it’s another thing to do it loss after loss after humiliating loss.
Even though it was still early in the revolution, many of the men had already had enough. Nearly all of those who fought (and lost) with Washington in New York had deserted or disappeared. Anyone else who was still hanging on was mainly doing so because their enlistments would be up in short order. They’d be home soon and, unless Washington was crazy, there wouldn’t be more fighting before then.
But low morale and the ever-growing number of British troops weren’t Washington’s only enemies. One of the main reasons he was forced to march farther south in the first place was the incredibly reckless actions of his second in command, General Charles Lee.
Washington had ordered Lee to march his men south and provide him with much needed reinforcements. Instead Lee brazenly ignored the order and stayed put in northern New Jersey. No one knows exactly why he did it—but this much is known: the British-born Lee thought Washington was beneath him and didn’t deserve to be calling the shots.
Washington wrote to Lee several times during his retreat, the situation becoming so dire that he practically begged for help. The only correspondence that Washington received back was the kind a boss gets from a lazy employee: excuses, delays, and still no progress. One particularly damning letter Lee wrote was never intended for Washington’s eyes, but rather the sympathetic ear of another high-ranking officer. He excoriated Washington for his “fatal indecision of mind,” which, he declared, is in war a “much greater disqualification than stupidity.”
The strangest part is that this hatred of all things Washington was quite a flip-flop for Lee. In July of that same year, he’d written that “no man loves, respects and reverences another more than I do General Washington. I esteem his virtues, private and public. I know him to be a man of sense, courage and firmness.”
What caused the waffling? Well, perhaps Lee was bitter that Washington had lost Fort Lee (named after him) in a hasty retreat. If that was really the reason, then—pardon my candor—he was a moron. The entire war could have been lost if it weren’t for Washington’s quick actions to move the doomed troops at Fort Lee before they were surrounded and forced to surrender—which is exactly what happened at Fort Washington, right across the Hudson River.
A Bridge to Nowhere?
Modern-day Fort Lee is located at the west end of … the GEORGE WASHINGTON Bridge. It’s actually kind of a fitting commentary on history: without Washington, Lee is pretty irrelevant.
Whatever the reason, things were not going well at all. The British had all the momentum, and their soldiers were already receiving a hero’s welcome in the streets of New York after their victory. Washington’s men, meanwhile, were demoralized, unorganized, disappearing, and dying. Enlistments for many of the remaining men were rapidly ending. The weather was getting brutal. The fate of an entire fledgling nation hung in the balance. And now, much like arsenic icing on a cake of rat poison, some of Washington’s top commanders were not only ignoring his orders, they were actually plotting against him.
These were the perilous circumstances confronting George Washington in the winter of 1776—circumstances so difficult that they inspired Thomas Paine to urgently write The Crisis and begin with the immortal line “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
The character beneath George Washington’s steely surface was not about to be formed—it was about to be revealed … and then put to the ultimate test.
CULTIVATING CHARACTER
No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
It goes without saying that George Washington was not a dumb man. He knew that the odds were stacked so high against him that it defied all logic to push forward and attack. Any general worth his salt would retreat all the way to Philadelphia and try to protect the capital. An attack on the notorious Hessian army in Trenton would be suicidal—especially in the unforgiving cold. This was an easy call. Or, at least it should’ve been.
Who Were the Hessians?
Most people know the Hessians were mercenaries. But they weren’t volunteer mercenaries. They weren’t like Christopher Walken in The Dogs of War hiring out on his own. These Hessian guys were basically draftees who were hired out by their ruler for cash on the barrelhead. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel got the bucks; these poor slobs got shot at.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the Hessians didn’t make a lot of friends in America. They played rough. They looted and murdered with the worst of them.
But here’s the takeaway: freedom is contagious—even to eighteenth-century storm-trooper dudes.
While they were here, killing us, they saw what freedom was like for the very first time. They saw how decently Washington treated them when they were captured. They got the message. Some of them—a lot of them—bought into the American Dream.
At war’s end, 17,313 Hessians returned to Germany. No s
urprise there. But 4,972, more than one in five, remained to settle here among their old enemies.
They chose America. They chose freedom.
Washington’s decision-making process during this extremely tumultuous time gives us an inside look at his character. Ever since his childhood days he had respectfully listened to the opinions of others. “Let your conversation be without malice or envy,” he had copied out to his notebook as a teenager. “Always submit your judgment to others with modesty.” In 1776, that meant listening to other military brass—even if he disagreed with every single one of them. He probably never imagined that practicing such seemingly obvious and mundane virtues as a boy would play such a large role in arguably the most important war in all human history (we’ll see this same virtue play itself out in the critical battle at Yorktown).
But what if instead of being modest, Washington had been an arrogant mess like Charles Lee? What if he had been unable to win the trust of the men he’d led into battle? How would things have been different? Would those men have followed him through hell on earth?
Probably not. It’s far more likely that if Washington had not been modest and humble then we’d all have English accents, bad teeth, and one of those annoying royal families to contend with.
Washington spent his childhood—and the rest of this life—focused (arguably obsessed) on etiquette, values, ethics, and morals. For a boy so young such determination to work on his character and reputation was highly unusual. A lot of times a kid like that grows up to be a nerd, or, if not a nerd, a goody-two-shoes or a stick-in-the-mud whom most people can barely stand to be around; a guy who’s so hung up on looking right that he forgets to do right; an empty three-cornered hat.