The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [77]
On the way to Princeton, where Cornwallis had left his other army under Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood, a captain rode up to Sgt. White, who was walking with the artillery corps, and told him that he was to command one of the field pieces when the army reached its destination. The young soldier, just turned eighteen, asked why he had been put in charge and was told that General Knox had been impressed by his bravery at Trenton ten days before and wanted him to do so. “I am not capable. The responsibility is too great for me,” he told the captain. The officer said he understood, but that Knox had faith in him because he had been so brave when he led the charge against the Hessians after Monroe had been cut down. “I began to feel my pride rising,” White wrote later.
The Americans again had surprise on their side when they approached the Princeton area. Lt. Col. Mawhood, accompanied as always by his two dogs, was leading two regiments of several hundred English foot soldiers out of Princeton toward Trenton. He and another officer sat on their horses watching the Continental Army move up the road toward them for a minute or more, thinking it was Cornwallis’s army, fresh from annihilating Washington to the south, as everyone expected. Mawhood must have thought the war had ended. The Continental Army was very close when Mawhood finally realized that he was facing the Americans. He had to act quickly to alert his English troops, who scrambled to fall into position.
As the Americans raced across the fields and orchards of the Clark farm southwest of Princeton, Joseph White took charge of his artillery team and its large six-pound cannon. Shouting out orders over the noise of the battle, the eighteen-year-old yelled, “Fire!” and the cannon roared, along with others, cutting into the long line of British grenadiers and Highlanders that had formed in front of them. Their fire was answered by a burst of cannon fire from the British. White, shouting at his men, managed to get off one more shot as the Americans, led by General Hugh Mercer, ran within striking distance of the British.
Lt. James McMichael was one of those soldiers. “We boldly marched within twenty-five yards of them and then commenced the attack which was very hot,” he said. The Americans opened up with a loud volley of musket fire that was met with a British volley. “We kept up an incessant fire,” McMichael continued. It was an eerie scene and Major James Wilkinson wrote later that “the smoke from the discharge of the two lines mingled as it rose and went up in one beautiful cloud.”7
McMichael, constantly reloading and firing his musket, was frightened. Just to his right four men fell dead in one volley and two more died to his left in the next roar of the English muskets. He could not believe that he had not been hit as he stood right in the middle of a murderous series of volleys and “thanked the kindness of Providence” for it.
There were three volleys and then the British, in larger numbers, came across the field, their bayonets gleaming in the early morning sun, and overwhelmed the Americans. Mercer was caught by several Redcoats who, instead of capturing him, stabbed him several times and left him for dead (he would die a few hours later).
Mercer’s men had retreated amid the loud sounds of musketry and cannon. As they swarmed away from the enemy they met George Washington, on his horse, who rallied them. He commanded them to turn and fight and as they did Washington moved ahead of them on his horse, leading them toward the regrouped British line. Leaning forward on his horse and waving his hand at the men, he shouted, “Fire!” and the soldiers, who felt defeated just seconds ago, fired directly into the enemy, killing dozens. A second later, a raucous British volley followed. Washington had not moved from his horse and told the men to prepare