SAVING THE REVOLUTION
After leaving Boston, Washington proceeded through Rhode Island and
Connecticut, pushing troops forward as he advanced, and reached New
York on April 13. There he found himself plunged at once into the same
sea of difficulties with which he had been struggling at Boston, the
only difference being that these were fresh and entirely untouched.
The army was inadequate, and the town, which was the central point
of the colonies, as well as the great river at its side, was wholly
unprotected. The troops were in large measure raw and undrilled, the
committee of safety was hesitating, the Tories were virulent and
active, corresponding constantly with Tryon, who was lurking in a
British man-of-war, while from the north came tidings of retreat
and disaster. All these harassing difficulties crowded upon the
commander-in-chief as soon as he arrived. To appreciate him it is
necessary to understand these conditions and realize their weight and
consequence, albeit the details seem petty. When we comprehend the
difficulties, then we can see plainly the greatness of the man who
quietly and silently took them up and disposed of them. Some he
scotched and some he killed, but he dealt with them all after a
fashion sufficient to enable him to move steadily forward. In his
presence the provincial committee suddenly stiffened and grew strong.
All correspondence with Tryon was cut off, the Tories were repressed,
and on Long Island steps were taken to root out "these abominable
pests of society," as the commander-in-chief called them in his
plain-spoken way. Then forts were built, soldiers energetically
recruited and drilled, arrangements made for prisoners, and despite
all the present cares anxious thought was given to the Canada
campaign, and ideas and expeditions, orders, suggestions, and
encouragement were freely furnished to the dispirited generals and
broken forces of the north.
One matter, however, overshadowed all others. Nearly a year before,
Washington had seen that there was no prospect or possibility of
accommodation with Great Britain. It was plain to his mind that the
struggle was final in its character and would be decisive. Separation
from the mother country, therefore, ought to come at once, so that
public opinion might be concentrated, and above all, permanency ought
to be given to the army. These ideas he had been striving to impress
upon Congress, for the most part less clearsighted than he was as to
facts, and as the months slipped by his letters had grown constantly
more earnest and more vehement. Still Congress hesitated, and at last
Washington went himself to Philadelphia and held conferences with
the principal men. What he said is lost, but the tone of Congress
certainly rose after his visit. The aggressive leaders found their
hands so much strengthened that little more than a month later they
carried through a declaration of independence, which was solemnly and
gratefully proclaimed to the army by the general, much relieved to
have got through the necessary boat-burning, and to have brought
affairs, military and political, on to the hard ground of actual fact.
Soon after his return from Philadelphia, he received convincing
proof that his views in regard to the Tories were extremely sound.
A conspiracy devised by Tryon, which aimed apparently at the
assassination of the commander-in-chief, and which had corrupted his
life-guards for that purpose, was discovered and scattered before it
had fairly hardened into definite form. The mayor of the city and
various other persons were seized and thrown into prison, and one of
the life-guards, Thomas Hickey by name, who was the principal tool in
the plot, was hanged in the presence of a large concourse of people.
Washington wrote a brief and business-like account of the affair to
Congress, from which one would hardly suppose that his own life had
been aimed at. It is a curious instance of his cool indifference to
personal danger. The conspiracy had failed, that was sufficient for
him, and he had other things besides himself to consider. "We expect
a bloody summer in New York and Canada," he wrote to his brother, and
even while the Canadian expedition was coming to a disastrous close,
and was bringing hostile invasion instead of the hoped-for conquest,
British men-of-war were arriving daily in the harbor, and a large army
was collecting on Staten Island. The rejoicings over the Declaration
of Independence had hardly died away, when the vessels of the enemy
made their way up the Hudson without check from the embryo forts, or
the obstacles placed in the stream.
July 12 Lord Howe arrived with more troops, and also with ample
powers to pardon and negotiate. Almost immediately he tried to open
a correspondence with Washington, but Colonel Reed, in behalf of the
General, refused to receive the letter addressed to "Mr. Washington."
Then Lord Howe sent an officer to the American camp with a second
letter, addressed to "George Washington, Esq., etc., etc." The bearer
was courteously received, but the letter was declined. "The etc., etc.
implies everything," said the Englishman. It may also mean "anything,"
Washington replied, and added that touching the pardoning power of
Lord Howe there could be no pardon where there was no guilt, and where
no forgiveness was asked. As a result of these interviews, Lord Howe
wrote to England that it would be well to give Mr. Washington his
proper title. A small question, apparently, this of the form of
address, especially to a lover of facts, and yet it was in reality
of genuine importance. To the world Washington represented the young
republic, and he was determined to extort from England the first
acknowledgment of independence by compelling her to recognize the
Americans as belligerents and not rebels. Washington cared as little
for vain shows as any man who ever lived, but he had the highest sense
of personal dignity, and of the dignity of his cause and country.
Neither should be allowed to suffer in his hands. He appreciated the
effect on mankind of forms and titles, and with unerring judgment
he insisted on what he knew to be of real value. It is one of the
earliest examples of the dignity and good taste which were of such
inestimable value to his country.
He had abundant occasion also for the employment of these same
qualities, coupled with unwearied patience and tact, in dealing with
his own men. The present army was drawn from a wider range than that
which had taken Boston, and sectional jealousies and disputes, growing
every day more hateful to the commander-in-chief, sprang up rankly.
The men of Maryland thought those of Connecticut ploughboys; the
latter held the former to be fops and dandies. These and a hundred
other disputes buzzed and whirled about Washington, stirring his
strong temper, and exercising his sternest self-control in the
untiring effort to suppress them and put them to death. "It
requires," John Adams truly said, "more serenity of temper, a deeper
understanding, and more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough,
to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these qualities were all
there, and with them an honesty of purpose and an unbending directness
of character to which Anne's great general was a stranger.
Meantime, while the internal difficulties were slowly diminished, the
forces of the enemy rapidly increased. First it became evident that
attacks were not feasible. Then the question changed to a mere choice
of defenses. Even as to this there was great and harassing doubt, for
the enemy, having command of the water, could concentrate and attack
at any point they pleased. Moreover, the British had thirty thousand
of the best disciplined and best equipped troops that Europe could
furnish, while Washington had some twenty thousand men, one fourth of
whom were unfit for duty, and with the remaining three fourths, raw
recruits for the most part, he was obliged to defend an extended line
of posts, without cavalry, and with no means for rapid concentration.
Had he been governed solely by military considerations he would have
removed the inhabitants, burned New York, and drawing his forces
together would have taken up a secure post of observation. To have
destroyed the town, however, not only would have frightened the timid
and the doubters, and driven them over to the Tories, but would have
dispirited the patriots not yet alive to the exigencies of war, and
deeply injured the American cause. That Washington well understood the
need of such action is clear, both from the current rumors that the
town was to be burned, and from his expressed desire to remove the
women and children from New York. But political considerations
overruled the military necessity, and he spared the town. It was bad
enough to be thus hampered, but he was even more fettered in other
ways, for he could not even concentrate his forces and withdraw to the
Highlands without a battle, as he was obliged to fight in order to
sustain public feeling, and thus he was driven on to almost sure
defeat. With Brooklyn Heights in the hands of the enemy New York was
untenable, and yet it was obvious that to hold Brooklyn when the enemy
controlled the sea was inviting defeat. Yet Washington under the
existing conditions had no choice except to fight on Long Island and
to say that he hoped to make a good defense.
Everything, too, as the day of battle drew near, seemed to make
against him. On August 22 the enemy began to land on Long Island,
where Greene had drawn a strong line of redoubts behind the village of
Brooklyn, to defend the heights which commanded New York, and had made
every arrangement to protect the three roads through the wooded hills,
about a mile from the intrenchments. Most unfortunately, and just at
the critical moment, Greene was taken down with a raging fever, so
that when Washington came over on the 24th he found much confusion in
the camps, which he repressed as best he could, and then prepared for
the attack. Greene's illness, however, had caused some oversights
which were unknown to the commander-in-chief, and which, as it turned
out, proved fatal.
After indecisive skirmishing for two or three days, the British
started early on the morning of the 26th. They had nine thousand men
and were well informed as to the country. Advancing through woodpaths
and lanes, they came round to the left flank of the Americans. One
of the roads through the hills was unguarded, the others feebly
protected. The result is soon told. The Americans, out-generaled and
out-flanked, were taken by surprise and surrounded, Sullivan and
his division were cut off, and then Lord Stirling. There was some
desperate fighting, and the Americans showed plenty of courage, but
only a few forced their way out. Most of them were killed or taken
prisoners, the total loss out of some five thousand men reaching as
high as two thousand.
From the redoubts, whither he had come at the sound of the firing,
Washington watched the slaughter and disaster in grim silence. He saw
the British troops, flushed with victory, press on to the very edge
of his works and then withdraw in obedience to command. The British
generals had their prey so surely, as they believed, that they
mercifully decided not to waste life unnecessarily by storming the
works in the first glow of success. So they waited during that
night and the two following days, while Washington strengthened his
intrenchments, brought over reinforcements, and prepared for the
worst. On the 29th it became apparent that there was a movement in the
fleet, and that arrangements were being made to take the Americans in
the rear and wholly cut them off. It was an obvious and sensible plan,
but the British overlooked the fact that while they were lingering,
summing up their victory, and counting the future as assured, there
was a silent watchful man on the other side of the redoubts who for
forty-eight hours never left the lines, and who with a great capacity
for stubborn fighting could move, when the stress came, with the
celerity and stealth of a panther.
Washington swiftly determined to retreat. It was a desperate
undertaking, and a lesser man would have hesitated and been lost. He
had to transport nine thousand men across a strait of strong tides and
currents, and three quarters of a mile in width. It was necessary to
collect the boats from a distance, and do it all within sight and
hearing of the enemy. The boats were obtained, a thick mist settled
down on sea and land, the water was calm, and as the night wore away,
the entire army with all its arms and baggage was carried over,
Washington leaving in the last boat. At daybreak the British awoke,
but it was too late. They had fought a successful battle, they had had
the American army in their grasp, and now all was over. The victory
had melted away, and, as a grand result, they had a few hundred
prisoners, a stray boat with three camp-followers, and the deserted
works in which they stood. To grasp so surely the happy chance of wind
and weather and make such a retreat as this was a feat of arms as
great as most victories, and in it we see, perhaps as plainly as
anywhere, the nerve and quickness of the man who conducted it. It is
true, it was the only chance of salvation, but the great man is he who
is entirely master of his opportunity, even if he have but one.
The outlook, nevertheless, was, as Washington wrote, "truly
distressing." The troops were dispirited, and the militia began to
disappear, as they always did after a defeat. Congress would not
permit the destruction of the city, different interests pulled in
different directions, conflicting opinions distracted the councils
of war, and, with utter inability to predict the enemy's movements,
everything led to halfway measures and to intense anxiety, while Lord
Howe tried to negotiate with Congress, and the Americans waited for
events. Washington, looking beyond the confusion of the moment, saw
that he had gained much by delay, and had his own plan well defined.
He wrote: "We have not only delayed the operations of the campaign
till it is too late to effect any capital incursion into the country,
but have drawn the enemy's forces to one point.... It would be
presumption to draw out our young troops into open ground against
their superiors both in number and discipline, and I have never spared
the spade and pickaxe." Every one else, however, saw only past defeat
and present peril.
The British ships gradually made their way up the river, until it
became apparent that they intended to surround and cut off the
American army. Washington made preparations to withdraw, but
uncertainty of information came near rendering his precautions futile.
September 15 the men-of-war opened fire, and troops were landed near
Kip's Bay. The militia in the breastworks at that point had been
at Brooklyn and gave way at once, communicating their panic to two
Connecticut regiments. Washington, galloping down to the scene of
battle, came upon the disordered and flying troops. He dashed in among
them, conjuring them to stop, but even while he was trying to rally
them they broke again on the appearance of some sixty or seventy of
the enemy, and ran in all directions. In a tempest of anger Washington
drew his pistols, struck the fugitives with his sword, and was only
forced from the field by one of his officers seizing the bridle of his
horse and dragging him away from the British, now within a hundred
yards of the spot.
Through all his trials and anxieties Washington always showed the
broadest and most generous sympathy. When the militia had begun to
leave him a few days before, although he despised their action and
protested bitterly to Congress against their employment, yet in his
letters he displayed a keen appreciation of their feelings, and saw
plainly every palliation and excuse. But there was one thing which
he could never appreciate nor realize. It was from first to last
impossible for him to understand how any man could refuse to fight, or
could think of running away. When he beheld rout and cowardly panic
before his very eyes, his temper broke loose and ran uncontrolled. His
one thought then was to fight to the last, and he would have thrown
himself single-handed on the enemy, with all his wisdom and prudence
flung to the winds. The day when the commander held his place merely
by virtue of personal prowess lay far back in the centuries, and no
one knew it better than Washington. But the old fighting spirit awoke
within him when the clash of arms sounded in his ears, and though we
may know the general in the tent and in the council, we can only know
the man when he breaks out from all rules and customs, and shows the
rage of battle, and the indomitable eagerness for the fray, which lie
at the bottom of the tenacity and courage that carried the war for
independence to a triumphant close.
The rout and panic over, Washington quickly turned to deal with the
pressing danger. With coolness and quickness he issued his orders, and
succeeded in getting his army off, Putnam's division escaping most
narrowly. He then took post at King's Bridge, and began to strengthen
and fortify his lines. While thus engaged, the enemy advanced, and
on the 16th Washington suddenly took the offensive and attacked the
British light troops. The result was a sharp skirmish, in which the
British were driven back with serious loss, and great bravery was
shown by the Connecticut and Virginia troops, the two commanding
officers being killed. This affair, which was the first gleam of
success, encouraged the troops, and was turned to the best account by
the general. Still a successful skirmish did not touch the essential
difficulties of the situation, which then as always came from
within, rather than without. To face and check twenty-five thousand
well-equipped and highly disciplined soldiers Washington had now some
twelve thousand men, lacking in everything which goes to make an army,
except mere individual courage and a high average of intelligence.
Even this meagre force was an inconstant and diminishing quantity,
shifting, uncertain, and always threatening dissolution.
The task of facing and fighting the enemy was enough for the ablest
of men; but Washington was obliged also to combat and overcome the
inertness and dullness born of ignorance, and to teach Congress how to
govern a nation at war. In the hours "allotted to sleep," he sat in
his headquarters, writing a letter, with "blots and scratches," which
told Congress with the utmost precision and vigor just what was
needed. It was but one of a long series of similar letters, written
with unconquerable patience and with unwearied iteration, lighted here
and there by flashes of deep and angry feeling, which would finally
strike home under the pressure of defeat, and bring the patriots of
the legislature to sudden action, always incomplete, but still action
of some sort. It must have been inexpressibly dreary work, but quite
as much was due to those letters as to the battles. Thinking for other
people, and teaching them what to do, is at best an ungrateful duty,
but when it is done while an enemy is at your throat, it shows a grim
tenacity of purpose which is well worth consideration.
In this instance the letter of September 24, read in the light of the
battles of Long Island and Kip's Bay, had a considerable effect. The
first steps were taken to make the army national and permanent, to
raise the pay of officers, and to lengthen enlistments. Like most of
the war measures of Congress, they were too late for the immediate
necessity, but they helped the future. Congress, moreover, then felt
that all had been done that could be demanded, and relapsed once more
into confidence. "The British force," said John Adams, chairman of the
board of war, "is so divided, they will do no great matter this
fall." But Washington, facing hard facts, wrote to Congress with his
unsparing truth on October 4: "Give me leave to say, sir, (I say it
with due deference and respect, and my knowledge of the facts, added
to the importance of the cause and the stake I hold in it, must
justify the freedom,) that your affairs are in a more unpromising way
than you seem to apprehend. Your army, as I mentioned in my last, is
on the eve of its political dissolution. True it is, you have voted
a larger one in lieu of it; but the season is late; and there is a
material difference between voting battalions and raising men."
The campaign as seen from the board of war and from the Plains of
Harlem differed widely. It is needless to say now which was correct;
every one knows that the General was right and Congress wrong, but
being in the right did not help Washington, nor did he take petty
pleasure in being able to say, "I told you how it would be." The
hard facts remained unchanged. There was the wholly patriotic but
slumberous, and for fighting purposes quite inefficient Congress still
to be waked up and kept awake, and to be instructed. With painful
and plain-spoken repetition this work was grappled with and done
methodically, and like all else as effectively as was possible.
Meanwhile the days slipped along, and Washington waited on the Harlem
Plains, planning descents on Long Island, and determining to make a
desperate stand where he was, unless the situation decidedly changed.
Then the situation did change, as neither he nor any one else
apparently had anticipated. The British warships came up the Hudson
past the forts, brushing aside our boasted obstructions, destroying
our little fleet, and getting command of the river. Then General Howe
landed at Frog's Point, where he was checked for the moment by the
good disposition of Heath, under Washington's direction. These two
events made it evident that the situation of the American army was
full of peril, and that retreat was again necessary. Such certainly
was the conclusion of the council of war, on the 16th, acting this
time in agreement with their chief. Six days Howe lingered on Frog's
Point, bringing up stores or artillery or something; it matters little
now why he tarried. Suffice it that he waited, and gave six days to
his opponent. They were of little value to Howe, but they were
of inestimable worth to Washington, who employed them in getting
everything in readiness, in holding his council of war, and then on
the 17th in moving deliberately off to very strong ground at White
Plains. On his way he fought two or three slight, sharp, and
successful skirmishes with the British. Sir William followed closely,
but with much caution, having now a dull glimmer in his mind that at
the head of the raw troops in front of him was a man with whom it was
not safe to be entirely careless.
On the 28th, Howe came up to Washington's position, and found the
Americans quite equal in numbers, strongly intrenched, and awaiting
his attack with confidence. He hesitated, doubted, and finally feeling
that he must do something, sent four thousand men to storm Chatterton
Hill, an outlying post, where some fourteen hundred Americans were
stationed. There was a short, sharp action, and then the Americans
retreated in good order to the main army, having lost less than half
as many men as their opponents. With caution now much enlarged, Howe
sent for reinforcements, and waited two days. The third day it rained,
and on the fourth Howe found that Washington had withdrawn to a higher
and quite impregnable line of hills, where he held all the passes in
the rear and awaited a second attack. Howe contemplated the situation
for two or three days longer, and then broke camp and withdrew to
Dobbs Ferry to secure Fort Washington, which treachery offered him as
an easy and inviting prize. Such were the great results of the victory
of Long Island, two wasted months, and the American army still
untouched.
Howe was resolved that his campaign should not be utterly fruitless,
and therefore directed his attention to the defenses of the Hudson,
and here he met with better success. Congress, in its military wisdom,
had insisted that these forts must and could be held. So thought the
generals, and so most especially, and most unluckily, did Greene.
Washington, with his usual accurate and keen perception, saw, from the
time the men-of-war came up the Hudson, and, now that the British
army was free, more clearly than ever, that both forts ought to be
abandoned. Sure of his ground, he overruled Congress, but was so far
influenced by Greene that he gave to that officer discretionary orders
as to withdrawal. This was an act of weakness, as he afterwards
admitted, for which he bitterly reproached himself, never confusing or
glossing over his own errors, but loyal there, as elsewhere, to facts.
An attempt was made to hold both forts, and both were lost, as he
had foreseen. From Fort Lee the garrison withdrew in safety. Fort
Washington, with its plans all in Howe's hands through the treachery
of William Demont, the adjutant of Colonel Magaw, was carried by
storm, after a severe struggle. Twenty-six hundred men and all the
munitions of war fell into the hands of the enemy. It was a serious
and most depressing loss, and was felt throughout the continent.
Meantime Washington had crossed info the Jerseys, and, after the loss
of Fort Lee, began to retreat before the British, who, flushed with
victory, now advanced rapidly under Lord Cornwallis. The crisis of his
fate and of the Revolution was upon him. His army was melting away.
The militia had almost all disappeared, and regiments whose term of
enlistment had expired were departing daily. Lee, who had a division
under his command, was ordered to come up, but paid no attention,
although the orders were repeated almost every day for a month. He
lingered, and loitered, and excused himself, and at last was taken
prisoner. This disposed of him for a time very satisfactorily, but
meanwhile he had succeeded in keeping his troops from Washington,
which was a most serious misfortune.
On December 2 Washington was at Princeton with three thousand ragged
men, and the British close upon his heels. They had him now surely
in their grip. There could be no mistake this time, and there was
therefore no need of a forced march. But they had not yet learned that
to Washington even hours meant much, and when, after duly resting,
they reached the Delaware, they found the Americans on the other side,
and all the boats destroyed for a distance of seventy miles.
It was winter now, the short gray days had come, and with them
piercing cold and storms of sleet and ice. It seemed as if the
elements alone would finally disperse the feeble body of men still
gathered about the commander-in-chief. Congress had sent him blank
commissions and orders to recruit, which were well meant, but were not
practically of much value. As Glendower could call spirits from the
vasty deep, so they, with like success, sought to call soldiers from
the earth in the midst of defeat, and in the teeth of a North American
winter. Washington, baffling pursuit and flying from town to town,
left nothing undone. North and south went letters and appeals for men,
money, and supplies. Vain, very vain, it all was, for the most part,
but still it was done in a tenacious spirit. Lee would not come, the
Jersey militia would not turn out, thousands began to accept Howe's
amnesty, and signs of wavering were apparent in some of the Middle
States. Philadelphia was threatened, Newport was in the hands of the
enemy, and for ninety miles Washington had retreated, evading ruin
again and again only by the width of a river. Congress voted not
to leave Philadelphia,--a fact which their General declined to
publish,--and then fled.
No one remained to face the grim realities of the time but Washington,
and he met them unmoved. Not a moment passed that he did not seek in
some way to effect something. Not an hour went by that he did not turn
calmly from fresh and ever renewed disappointment to work and action.
By the middle of December Howe felt satisfied that the American army
would soon dissolve, and leaving strong detachments in various posts
he withdrew to New York. His premises were sound, and his conclusions
logical, but he made his usual mistake of overlooking and
underestimating the American general. No sooner was it known that
he was on his way to New York than Washington, at the head of his
dissolving army, resolved to take the offensive and strike an outlying
post. In a letter of December 14, the day after Howe began to move, we
catch the first glimpse of Trenton. It was a bold spirit which, in the
dead of winter, with a broken army, no prospect of reinforcements, and
in the midst of a terror-stricken people, could thus resolve with
some four thousand men to attack an army thoroughly appointed, and
numbering in all its divisions twenty-five thousand soldiers.
It is well to pause a moment and look at that situation, and at the
overwhelming difficulties which hemmed it in, and then try to realize
what manner of man he was who rose superior to it, and conquered it.
Be it remembered, too, that he never deceived himself, and never for
one instant disguised the truth. Two years later he wrote that at this
supreme moment, in what were called "the dark days of America," he was
never despondent; and this was true enough, for despair was not in his
nature. But no delusions lent him courage. On the 18th he wrote to his
brother "that if every nerve was not strained to recruit this new army
the game was pretty nearly up;" and 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.
However, under a full persuasion of the justice of our cause, I cannot
entertain an idea that it will finally sink, though it may remain
for some time under a cloud." There is no complaint, no boasting, no
despair in this letter. We can detect a bitterness in the references
to Congress and to Lee, but the tone of the letter is as calm as a May
morning, and it concludes with sending love and good wishes to the
writer's sister and her family.
Thus in the dreary winter Washington was planning and devising and
sending hither and thither for men, and never ceased through it all
to write urgent and ever sharper letters and keep a wary eye upon the
future. He not only wrote strongly, but he pledged his own estate and
exceeded his powers in desperate efforts to raise money and men. On
the 20th he wrote to Congress: "It may be thought that I am going a
good deal out of the line of my duty to adopt these measures, or to
advise thus freely. A character to lose, an estate to forfeit, the
inestimable blessings of liberty at stake, and a life devoted, must be
my excuse." Even now across the century these words come with a grave
solemnity to our ears, and we can feel as he felt when he alone saw
that he stood on the brink of a great crisis. It is an awful thing to
know that the life of a nation is at stake, and this thought throbs in
his words, measured and quiet as usual, but deeply fraught with much
meaning to him and to the world.
By Christmas all was ready, and when the Christian world was rejoicing
and feasting, and the British officers in New York and in the New
Jersey towns were reveling and laughing, Washington prepared to
strike. His whole force, broken into various detachments, was less
than six thousand men. To each division was assigned, with provident
forethought, its exact part. Nothing was overlooked, nothing omitted;
and then every division commander failed, for good reason or bad, to
do his duty. Gates was to march from Bristol with two thousand
men, Ewing was to cross at Trenton, Putnam was to come up from
Philadelphia, Griffin was to make a diversion against Donop. When
the moment came, Gates, disapproving the scheme, was on his way
to Congress, and Wilkinson, with his message, found his way to
headquarters by following the bloody tracks of the barefooted
soldiers. Griffin abandoned New Jersey and fled before Donop. Putnam
would not even attempt to leave Philadelphia, and Ewing made no effort
to cross at Trenton. Cadwalader, indeed, came down from Bristol,
but after looking at the river and the floating ice, gave it up as
desperate.
But there was one man who did not hesitate nor give up, nor halt on
account of floating ice. With twenty-four hundred hardy veterans,
Washington crossed the Delaware. The night was bitter cold and the
passage difficult. When they landed, and began their march of nine
miles to Trenton, a fierce storm of sleet drove in their faces.
Sullivan; marching by the river, sent word that the arms of his men
were wet. "Then tell your general," said Washington, "to use the
bayonet, for the town must be taken." In broad daylight they came to
the town. Washington, at the front and on the right of the line, swept
down the Pennington road, and as he drove in the pickets he heard the
shouts of Sullivan's men, as, with Stark leading the van, they charged
in from the river. A company of yägers and the light dragoons slipped
away, there was a little confused fighting in the streets, Colonel
Rahl fell, mortally wounded, his Hessians threw down their arms, and
all was over. The battle had been fought and won, and the Revolution
was saved.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE]
Taking his thousand prisoners with him, Washington recrossed the
Delaware to his old position. Had all done their duty, as he had
planned, the British hold on New Jersey would have been shattered. As
it was, it was only loosened. Congress, aroused at last, had invested
Washington with almost dictatorial powers; but the time for action was
short. The army was again melting away, and only by urgent appeals
were some veterans retained, and enough new men gathered to make a
force of five thousand men. With this army Washington prepared to
finish what he had begun.
Trenton struck alarm and dismay into the British, and Cornwallis, with
seven thousand of the best troops, started from New York to redeem
what had been lost. Leaving three regiments at Princeton, he pushed
hotly after Washington, who fell back behind the Assunpink River,
skirmishing heavily and successfully. When Cornwallis reached the
river he found the American army drawn up on the other side awaiting
him. An attack on the bridge was repulsed, and the prospect looked
uninviting. Some officers urged an immediate assault; but night was
falling, and Cornwallis, sure of the game, decided to wait till
the morrow. He, too, forgot that he was facing an enemy who never
overlooked a mistake, and never waited an hour. With quick decision
Washington left his camp-fires burning on the river bank, and taking
roundabout roads, which he had already reconnoitred, marched on to
Princeton. By sunrise he was in the outskirts of the town. Mercer,
detached with some three hundred men, fell in with Mawhood's regiment,
and a sharp action ensued. Mercer was mortally wounded, and his men
gave way just as the main army came upon the field. The British
charged, and as the raw Pennsylvanian troops in the van wavered,
Washington rode to the front, and reining his horse within thirty
yards of the British, ordered his men to advance. The volleys of
musketry left him unscathed, the men stood firm, the other divisions
came rapidly into action, and the enemy gave way in all directions.
The two other British regiments were driven through the town and
routed. Had there been cavalry they would have been entirely cut off.
As it was, they were completely broken, and in this short but bloody
action they lost five hundred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners.
It was too late to strike the magazines at Brunswick, as Washington
had intended, and so he withdrew once more with his army to the high
lands to rest and recruit.
His work was done, however. The country, which had been supine, and
even hostile, rose now, and the British were attacked, surprised, and
cut off in all directions, until at last they were shut up in the
immediate vicinity of New York. The tide had been turned, and
Washington had won the precious breathing-time which was all he
required.
Frederick the Great is reported to have said that this was the most
brilliant campaign of the century. It certainly showed all the
characteristics of the highest strategy and most consummate
generalship. With a force numerically insignificant as compared with
that opposed to him, Washington won two decisive victories, striking
the enemy suddenly with superior numbers at each point of attack.
The Trenton campaign has all the quality of some of the last battles
fought by Napoleon in France before his retirement to Elba. Moreover,
these battles show not only generalship of the first order, but great
statesmanship. They display that prescient knowledge which recognizes
the supreme moment when all must be risked to save the state. By
Trenton and Princeton Washington inflicted deadly blows upon the
enemy, but he did far more by reviving the patriotic spirit of the
country fainting under the bitter experience of defeat, and by sending
fresh life and hope and courage throughout the whole people.
It was the decisive moment of the war. Sooner or later the American
colonies were sure to part from the mother-country, either peaceably
or violently. But there was nothing inevitable in the Revolution of
1776, nor was its end at all certain. It was in the last extremities
when the British overran New Jersey, and if it had not been for
Washington that particular revolution would have most surely failed.
Its fate lay in the hands of the general and his army; and to the
strong brain growing ever keener and quicker as the pressure became
more intense, to the iron will gathering a more relentless force
as defeat thickened, to the high, unbending character, and to the
passionate and fighting temper of Washington, we owe the brilliant
campaign which in the darkest hour turned the tide and saved the cause
of the Revolution.