The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [71]
Wiederhold ran back into the house, yelled for his seventeen men to awake and grab their arms. They stumbled outside and were greeted with three successive volleys from the Americans. The Hessian said that he ordered his men to fire but in the process was “passed by several battalions” of Americans. He knew right away that they were the victims of a sneak attack and, with his men, fled into the town with the Americans firing after them.
Rall, still sleeping as the Americans moved into position, never feared an attack. He had been told by his men that the Americans they saw rowing in the river over the last few weeks, or walking on the other side, looked hungry, wore tattered clothes, and seemed unable to engage in any kind of battle. His immediate superior, General James Grant, now in New Brunswick, had agreed with him, sneering that the Americans had no stockings or shoes and “were dying and cold, without blankets and very ill-supplied with provisions.”11 Besides, how could an entire army cross a major river and launch an attack without being seen? Rall had been so confident that his position was impregnable that he even ignored the advice of Cornwallis to build defensive earthworks around Trenton— just in case.
Just after the volleys fired at Wiederhold, the American muskets and cannon opened up on the western side of town. It was a few minutes after 8 a.m. As soon as the roar of the gunfire was heard, Washington ordered his men on the eastern side to fire into the village. Rall, after being summoned three times by an underling, hastily put on his clothes and ran outside into the snowfall. Throughout the town, the Hessians, grabbing what muskets they could, stumbled out into the still-raging storm, uncertain where the enemy was positioned. Rall was not able to rally his men and chaos ensued for the stunned Hessians.
Some Hessians raced into the snow-covered fields that surrounded the town’s two streets, some pulling cannon into a nearby apple orchard. Others regrouped in a churchyard but could not see the enemy clearly in the wind and snow and the smoke from the heavy and continuous musket fire. An unintended consequence of the early morning assault was that the civilian residents of the town were just as surprised at the attack as the Hessians had been. The men and women and children of Trenton ran out of their homes into the streets, yelling. Their screams drowned out the futile commands of Hessian officers, who tried desperately to organize their men into formations. They also had to shout orders above the martial music being played by the small band that Rall always brought with the regiment and had ordered to play during any battle. Rall, when he was finally dressed, managed to get on his horse and rode into the field, toward several hundred of his men, to take command. A moment later, he was shot and fell from his horse into the snow, mortally wounded.
Some Hessians reached two of their cannon, turned them northward, and fired a single shot at the American artillery but hit nothing. Knox ordered some men to fire away with their muskets at the Hessians near the cannon, but the snow and rain had rendered many of their guns useless. Knox then ordered as many men that could do so to charge the caissons and kill the Hessians manning them in any manner possible. A dozen or more infantrymen led by Lieutenant James Monroe, who would go on to become the nation’s fifth president, rushed the Germans near the cannon, waving their swords and running as fast as they could. One of the men with Monroe, Sgt. Joe White, said that “I [yelled] as loud as I could scream for the men to run for their lives right up to the pieces.”
Halfway there, the Germans manning the cannon raised their muskets and fired a volley of shots at the charging