Christmas in 1776

Let us not forget those who came before us.......

Christmas Day, 1776: 'Victory or Death'
by George F. Smith

On Christmas Day, 1776, a few Americans gave us the first installment of a gift we have all but lost.

After the makeshift American army under George Washington's command ousted the redcoats from Boston in early 1776, the British moved to New York City, where they launched an invasion in August. Washington met them head-on and suffered devastating defeats, and survived only by fleeing from the enemy.

During the sleepless nights and hungry days of their retreat across New Jersey, Washington had hoped to pick up support from the locals. But the opposite turned out to be true: In Newark, for instance, only 30 turned out to join the Americans, while on the same day 300 New Jerseyans fell in for the British.

By the time he escaped across the Delaware River into Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Washington had only 3,000 of his original 20,000 troops. Seeing American forces arriving in retreat only twelve miles from where they sat in Philadelphia, Congress exposed their backbone: They panicked, made excuses and fled. They gave Washington dictatorial powers and went into hiding in Baltimore, 110 miles to the south.

"The game is pretty near up," Washington wrote in a letter to his cousin in Virginia. Even the Bucks County militia let him down. Desperate for troops, he had ordered them called out, but they turned Loyalist, and he had to dismiss them.

As winter set in, Washington made headquarters in William McKonkey's three-story stone house on the west side of the Delaware. British commander William Howe had written to his superior in England, Lord Germaine, telling of the severity of the December weather. For that reason he would go into winter quarters until spring, leaving his men spread over numerous New Jersey outposts, ready to march at a moment's notice. He admitted, though, that the chain of outposts was too extensive.

Lord Charles Cornwallis, Howe's field commander, decided to garrison the outposts with Hessian mercenaries and send the British troops back to New York. He himself was anxious to return to his wife in England, while Howe continued his affair in New York with the wife of one of his officers. Cornwallis left command of New Jersey in the hands of the cocky and thoroughly mediocre General James Grant.

In the 100-house village of Trenton, the outpost closest to Washington, the 1,600 Hessians were under command of Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall, a hard-drinking gambler whose troops had a reputation for plunder and rape. Once encamped. they proceeded to demonstrate their reputation. Hessian brutality swung many New Jersey neutrals to the American cause. Instead of tacking red ribbons to their doors indicating their loyalty to the Crown, they formed militia bands to ambush Hessian patrols. In his diary, one Hessian officer complained "we have not slept one night in peace since we came to this place." [1] He wrote this passage in Trenton, on Christmas Eve.

History tells us of the desperate condition of Washington's men - their ragged clothes, their lack of shoes, their chronic hunger. While this was true, it was also carefully exaggerated. Making excellent use of spies, Washington led the British to believe his condition was completely hopeless. Thus, when Rall complained to General Grant that his position was too much exposed, Grant dismissed it as ludicrous, since Washington was all but decimated. Besides, after December 31 Washington would not even have an army, since the term of service would expire for most of his men.

Perhaps at the suggestion of Benedict Arnold, Washington decided to attack Trenton while the Hessians slept off the effects of their Christmas celebration. It was do or die time; if he didn't take Trenton, the American cause was dead.

Benjamin Rush, one of the few members of Congress who remained in Philadelphia, paid Washington a visit on the morning of December 24, 1776. Seeing the general depressed, Rush tried to boost his spirits with talk about Congress being behind him, even as they ran like cowards. As they talked, Rush noticed Washington scribbling on scraps of paper, one of which fell to the floor. Rush picked it up and read, "Victory or Death." It was the watchword for the attack on Trenton.

The following afternoon, Christmas Day, Washington gave his officers their marching orders. They included a special oratory they would read to their men, in an attempt to boost their morale. Earlier that month, Tom Paine had written a new essay on a drumhead in General Nathanael Greene's tent as the American army retreated across New Jersey. Called The American Crisis, Paine had it printed in Philadelphia on December 19. As the troops prepared to climb aboard the boats and cross the Delaware, with a winter storm kicking up, they heard Paine's opening words: "These are the times that try men's souls." They would not forget them.

Under the direction of Marblehead ship captain John Glover, the first boats pushed off from McKonkey's Ferry at two in the afternoon. It took fourteen hours to transport men, horses, and artillery across the river. Ice floes crunched against the sides of the 60-foot Durham iron-ore barges as the boatmen, sleet slashing their eyes, poled the crafts over and back.

Meanwhile, in Trenton, Rall had eaten a hearty meal and retired for a game of cards with a few of his aides and his host, a man named Abraham Hunt. Shortly after midnight a shivering Loyalist from Bucks County showed up at the door with a written message, handing it to a servant. Rall refused to be disturbed and tucked the note into his waistcoat pocket without reading it.

At 4:00 a.m. the American troops began their ten-mile march to Trenton along River Road. Washington, from his tall chestnut horse, urged his men to keep moving and stay with their officers. Two men stopped to rest - and froze to death. At Birmingham, the force split into two divisions. One, led by Nathanael Greene, swung off to the east to skirt the town, while the other, under John Sullivan's command, headed straight for the main Hessian barracks on King Street.

At 8:00 a.m. Sullivan's advance guard rushed the ten Hessian pickets outside the barracks. Three minutes later Washington ordered the rest of the men to storm the town. As they fell upon the enemy, many of them shouted, "This is the time to try men's souls!" [2] With their gunpowder soaked and useless, Sullivan's men relied on the bayonet to roust the Hessians out of the houses. Earlier in New York, Rall's men had mercilessly slaughtered Americans as they tried to surrender. It was a gratifying sight to see the Hessians turning and running.

Sodden from the previous night's celebrations, some Hessian units threw on their coats and tried to form ranks in the streets. As they did, they were cut down by Henry Knox's six-pounders firing from the ends of Trenton's two main streets.

Rall finally broke from the Hunt house, jumped on his horse and galloped toward his regiment, who were marching down King Street to the sounds of fifes, bugles, and drums while being showered with grapeshot. "Lord, Lord, what is it, what is it?" he kept shouting in German. As he tried unsuccessfully to organize a bayonet charge, he was hit twice and assisted into the Queen Street Methodist Church. While he lay dying, someone noticed the unread note in his pocket: the American army was marching on Trenton.

Minutes later the remaining Hessian officers put their hats on their swords, the corporals lowered their flags, and the infantry men grounded their arms. The Battle of Trenton was over. The Americans had suffered four casualties to the two hundred Hessians killed and wounded. Some of the Hessians had escaped and would alert the Hessian unit at Princeton. After a brief council with his officers, Washington decided his men were in no shape to take on more Hessians that day, so they headed back to McKonkey's Ferry with captured weapons, supplies, and 948 prisoners.

It took them twelve hours to recross the Delaware. The weather had gotten so cold Americans and Hessians had to stamp their feet in time in the boats to break up the new ice that was slowing their passage. When the Continental troops finally collapsed into their tents, they had gone forty-eight hours without food, almost as long without sleep, and had marched 25 miles in freezing weather.

They also won a critical victory for independence and liberty. While no war is good, defensive wars are sometimes necessary. Our forefathers knew this. That's why some of them went marching, 226 years ago.


References

1. Randall, William Sterne, George Washington: A Life, Owl Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1998, p. 321.

2. Rothbard, Murray N., Conceived in Liberty, Vol. IV, Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, 1999, pp. 198-199.