_My Lord Cornwallis_
And so the departure of my Lord Cornwallis was necessarily deferred.
The packet upon which he had engaged passage, and which had actually
received his baggage, sailed without him. It would be some days before
he would grace the court of St. James with his handsome person, and a
long time would elapse before he would once more rejoice in the sight
of his beloved hills; when he next returned it would not be with the
laurels of a conqueror either! He was to try conclusions once and
again with the gentleman he had so assiduously pursued through the
Jerseys; and this time, ay, and in the end too, the honors were to be
with his antagonist. The Star and Order of the Bath, which his
gracious and generous Britannic majesty had sent over to the new
Caesar, General Howe, with so much laudation and so many words of
congratulation, was to have a little of its lustre diminished, and was
destined to appear not quite so glorious as it had after Long Island;
in fact, it was soon to be seen that it was only a pyrotechnic star
after all, and not in the order of heaven! Both of these gentlemen
were to learn that an army--almost any kind of an army--is always
dangerous until it is wiped out; and it is not to be considered as
wiped out as long as it has any coherent existence at all, even if the
coherent existence only depends upon the iron will of one man,--which
is another way of saying the game is never won until it is ended.
There was mounting in hot haste in New York, and couriers and orders
streamed over the frozen roads, and Lord Cornwallis himself galloped at
full speed for Princeton. The calculations of a certain number of his
majesty's faithful troops were to be rudely disturbed, and the
comfortable quarters in which they had ensconced themselves were to be
vacated forthwith. Concentration, aggregation, synthesis, were the
words; and this time the reassembled army was not to disintegrate into
winter quarters until this pestilent Mr. Washington was attended to,
and attended to so effectually that they could enjoy the enforced
hospitality of the surly but substantial Jerseymen through the long
winter nights undisturbed. For his part, Mr. Washington, having tasted
success, the first real brilliant offensive success of the campaign,
was quite willing to be attended to. In fact, in a manner which in
another sex might be called coquettish, he seemed to court attention.
Having successfully attacked with his frost-bitten ragged regiments a
detachment, he was now to demonstrate to the world that not even the
presence of an army could stop him.
Things were not quiet on the Pennsylvania side of the river either;
there were such comings and goings in Newtown as that staid and
conservative village had never before seen. Our two friends, the
sad-hearted, were both busily employed. Talbot had galloped over the
familiar road, and had electrified the good people of Philadelphia with
his news, and then had hastened on to Baltimore to reassure the spirits
of the frightened Congress. Honest Robert Morris was trotting around
from door to door upon New Year's morning, hat in hand, begging for
dollars to assist his friend George Washington, and the cause of
liberty, and the suffering army; and Seymour, become as it were a
soldier, and with Philip for esquire, was waiting to take what he could
get, be the amount ever so little, back to General Washington. The
sailor had been granted a further leave of absence by the naval
committee, at the general's urgent request, and was glad to learn that
he should soon have command of the promised ship of war, which was even
then making ready in the Delaware. Honest Bentley--beloved of the
soldiery in spite of his genuinely expressed contempt for land
warriors--was lending what aid he could in keeping up the spirits of
the men, and in other material ways in the camp. Some of the clothing,
some of the guns from the Mellish, some of the material captured from
the Hessians had gone into the hands and over the backs and upon the
feet of the men. But the clothed and the naked were equally happy, for
had they not done something at last? Ay! they had given assurance that
they were men to be reckoned with.
Fired by the example set them by the Continentals, the Pennsylvania
militia, under Cadwalader and Ewing and Mifflin, had at last crossed
the Delaware and joined Griffin's men. Washington had followed them,
and the twenty-ninth of December found him established in new
headquarters at Trenton. A number of mounds in the fields, covered
with snow, some bitter recollections and sad stories of plunder,
robbery, rapine, and worse, told with gnashing teeth or breaking heart
by the firesides, were all that remained of their strange antagonists
in the town. But the little town and the little valley were to be once
more the scene of war. The great game was to be played again, and the
little creek of the Assunpink was to run red under its ice and between
its banks.
On the twenty-ninth, Washington's troops began to cross the river
again. Two parties of light dragoons were sent on in advance under
Colonel Reed, assisted by parties of Pennsylvania riflemen despatched
by Cadwalader. They clung tenaciously to the flanks of Von Donop.
That unfortunate commander had been led away from his camp at
Burlington in pursuit of Griffin's gallant six hundred. When he
returned, unsuccessful, the news from Trenton had so alarmed him that
he fled precipitately, abandoning his heavy baggage and some of his
artillery. It was a work of joy for the pursued to pursue, a reversal
of conditions which put the heavy German veterans at a strange
disadvantage compared with their alert and active pursuers. They had
marched through that country with a high hand, plundering and abusing
its inhabitants in a frightful way, and they were now being made to
experience the hatred they themselves had enkindled. The country
people rose against them, and cut them off without mercy.
It took two days to get the troops across, on account of the ice in the
river. And now came another difficulty. The time of the major part of
the Americans had expired on the last day of the year, but Washington
had them paraded and had ridden up and addressed them in a brilliant,
soldier-like fashion, and they had to a man volunteered to remain with
him for six weeks longer, or as much more time as was necessary to
enable him to complete his campaign before he went into winter
quarters. He was at last able to pay them their long deferred salary
out of the fifty thousand dollars sent him by Robert Morris, which
Seymour and Talbot that day had brought him; and for their future
reward he cheerfully pledged his own vast estate, an example of
self-sacrifice which Greene, Stark, Talbot, Seymour, and others of the
officers who possessed property, at once emulated. The men were put in
good spirits by a promise of ten dollars' bounty also, and they were
ready and eager for a fight.
Reed, attended by six young gentlemen of the Philadelphia Troop, had
been sent out to reconnoitre. Up toward Princeton they had surprised a
British outpost composed of a sergeant and twelve dragoons; the
sergeant escaped, but the twelve dragoons, panic-stricken, were
captured after a short resistance; and Reed and his gallant young
cavaliers returned in triumph to headquarters. Valuable information
was gained from this party. Cornwallis had joined Grant at Princeton,
and with seven or eight thousand men was assembling wagons and
transportation, preparing for a dash on Trenton. Confirmation of this
not unexpected news came by a student from the college, who had escaped
to Cadwalader and been sent up to General Washington. The situation of
Washington was now critical, but he took prompt measures to relieve it.
Cadwalader from the Crosswicks, and Mifflin from Bordentown, with
thirty-six hundred men, were ordered forward at once. They promptly
obeyed orders, and by another desperate night march reached Trenton on
the morning of the first day of the year.
There was heavy skirmishing all day on the second. Cornwallis,
advancing in hot haste from Princeton with eight thousand men, was
checked, and lost precious time, by a hot rifle fire from the wood on
the banks of the Shabbakong Creek, near the road he followed in his
advance. The skirmishers under Greene, seconded by Hand, after doing
gallant service and covering themselves with glory by delaying the
advance for several hours, giving Washington ample time to withdraw his
army across the Assunpink and post it in a strong defensive position,
had retired in good order beyond the American line. In the skirmish
Lieutenant Von Grothausen, he who had galloped away with the dragoons
at Trenton and had been under suspicion of cowardice ever since, had
somewhat redeemed his reputation in that he had boldly ridden down upon
the riflemen, and had been killed. It was late in the evening when the
advance parties crossed the bridge over the creek and sought safety
behind the lines. Indefatigable General Knox had concentrated thirty
pieces of cannon at the bridge--"A very pretty battery," he called it.
It was dusk when the eager Americans saw the head of the British army
coming through the streets. They remained silent while the enemy
formed, and advanced to attack the bridge and the fords in heavy
columns at the same time. The men came on in a solid mass for the
bridge head, cheering gallantly. They were met by Knox's artillery and
a steady fire from the riflemen. Three times they crashed on that
bridge like a mighty wave, and three times like a wave broken they fell
back before an awful storm of fire. General Washington himself,
sitting on his white horse, gave the orders at the bridge, and the
brave enemy were repulsed. The position was too strong to be taken by
direct assault without great loss; besides, it was not vital after
all--so reasoned Cornwallis. The British soldiery were weary, they had
marched all day at a hot pace and were exhausted. They had not lived
in a chronic state of exhaustion for so long that they never gave it a
thought; they were not used to it, as were the Continentals, and when
the British were tired they had to rest. They would be in better
spirit on the morrow. The creek was fordable in a dozen places, but
Cornwallis resisted the importunities of some of his officers, who
wished to ford it and attack at once; he sent urgent messengers off to
Princeton to bring up the two thousand men left there with Von Donop,
and to hurry up Leslie with the rear guard, six miles away; when they
arrived they could turn the right flank of the Americans, and it would
be all up with them then. He thought he had Washington at such a
disadvantage that he could not escape, though the small advantage of
position might enable him to make a desperate resistance, even with his
inferior forces.
"We will wait," he said to Erskine, "until Von Donop comes up, and
Leslie, and then we 'll bag the 'old fox' in the morning!"
So, after brisk firing on both sides until night closed down, the
camp-fires were lighted on both sides of the creek; and the British
officer went to sleep, calmly confident that he had held the winning
cards, and all that was necessary was that the hand should be played
out in the morning, to enable him to take the game again. He did
indeed hold the higher cards, but the "old fox" showed himself the
better player.
On the other side of the creek, in the house of good Mistress
Dagworthy, anxious hearts were debating. General Washington had
summoned a council of war, which expressed the usual diversity of
opinion on all subjects, except an unwillingness to fight, upon which,
like every other council of war, it was agreed. Indeed the odds were
fearful! Ten thousand seasoned, well-equipped, well-trained, veteran
troops, ably led, and smarting with the late defeat and the check of
the day against five thousand or six thousand wretchedly provided
soldiers, three-fifths of whom were raw militiamen, who had never heard
a shot fired in anger!
Not even a leader like Washington, and officers to second him like
Greene, Sullivan, Knox, St. Clair, Stephen, Stirling, Cadwalader,
Sargeant, Mercer, Mifflin, Reed, Stark, Hand, Glover, and the others,
could overcome such a disparity and inequality.
Cornwallis had only to outflank them, crumple them up, roll them back
on the impassable Delaware, and then--God help them all!
There was no disguising the critical nature of their situation, and the
army had never before been in so desperate a position. It needed no
great skill to see the danger now to be faced, but the mistake of
Cornwallis gave them a brief respite, of which they promptly availed
themselves. Washington was not a man before whom it was ever safe to
indulge in mistakes, and the more difficult his position, the more
dangerous he became. Trial, danger, hazard, seemed to bring out all of
the most remarkable qualities of the man in the highest degree.
Nothing alarmed him, nothing dismayed him, nothing daunted him; the
hotter the conflict, the more pressing the danger, the cooler he
became. No man on earth was ever more ready and quick to avail himself
of time and opportunity, once he had determined upon a course of
action. This campaign was the most signal illustration, among many
others, which his wonderful career affords. Action, prompt, bold,
decisive, was as the breath of life to him; but before coming to a
decision, contrary to the custom of great commanders generally, he
usually called a council of war, which, on account of his excessive
modesty, he sometimes allowed to overrule his own better judgment, to
the great detriment of the cause. Alone he was superb! Given equal
resources, the world has not seen a general with whom he could not
successfully be matched. In this particular juncture, fortunately for
the country, he insisted upon having his own way.
There were apparently but three alternatives before the council. The
first was a retreat with all speed down the river, leaving the heavy
baggage and artillery, and then crossing at Philadelphia if they could
get there in time. But this would be to abandon the whole colony of
New Jersey, to lose the results of the whole campaign, and leave the
enemy in fine position to begin again in the spring; and if this were
the end, they might better have stayed on the west side of the river.
Besides, successes were vital and must be had. Another retreat meant
disintegration and ruin, in spite of the lucky stroke at Trenton. The
second alternative was a battle where they stood, and that meant total
defeat,--a thing not to be considered a moment. The army must win or
die; and as dying could do no good, it had to win. A brilliant idea,
however, had occurred to the commander-in-chief, the man of brilliant
ideas. He communicated it to the council, where it instantly found
adherents, and objectors, too. It was the third alternative. A
circuitous road called the Quaker road, recently surveyed and just
made, led in a roundabout way from the rear of the camp toward the
Princeton road, which it entered two miles from that town.
Washington's plan was to steal silently away in the night by this road,
leaving bright fires burning to deceive the confident enemy, and press
with all speed toward Princeton, strike Cornwallis' rear-guard there at
daybreak with overwhelming force, crush it before that general could
retrace his steps, and then make a dash for the British supplies at New
Brunswick. If it were not practicable to reach that point, Washington
could take a position on the hills above Morristown, on the flank of
the British, and, by threatening their communications, force the
superior army to retreat and abandon the field, or else attack the
Americans in their intrenchments in the hills, with a probable result
even more disastrous to the attacking party than at Bunker Hill. It
was a conception as simple and beautiful as it was bold, brilliant, and
practicable.
But now the objectors began; it had been snowing, sleeting, and raining
for several days; the roads were impassable, they had no bottom.
Objections were made on all sides: the artillery could not possibly be
moved, no horses could pull the wagons through the mud, the troops
could not march in it. But Washington, with true instincts, held to
his carefully devised plan with an unusual resolution. Arguing,
explaining, suggesting, convincing, persuading, the hours slipped away,
until at ten o'clock at night there came a sudden change in the
weather, perceptible even to those in the house. Washington ran
eagerly to the door and opened it. Followed by the general officers,
he stepped out into the night. It was dark and cloudy, no moon or
stars even, and growing colder every moment under the rising northeast
wind.
"Gentlemen," he cried gayly, "Providence has decided for us. The wind
has shifted. The army will move in two hours."
At the time specified by the commander, the muddy roads were frozen
hard. The heavy baggage was sent down to Burlington, and a strong
party of active men was left to keep bright fires burning, and charged
to show themselves as much as possible and make a great commotion by
throwing up fortifications and loud talking, with instructions to slip
away and join the main body early next day as best they could. At one
o'clock in the morning the astonished army started out upon their
adventurous journey,--another long cold night march. The untravelled
roads were as smooth and hard as iron. With muffled wheels they
succeeded in stealing away undetected.