We'll get to our regularly scheduled program later on, but I wanted to start with a bit of an educational tale to get us going. And it's relevant to December 26, too!
It's on this date in 1776 that the Continental Army, having spent the night crossing the Delaware River in a horrible storm, attacked the town of Trenton and defeated a Hessian regiment. It's arguably the most important battle of the entire War, as it's the one that not only turned a constant tide of defeat to victory, but it also helped convince the men of the Army to extend their enlistments for a few months, which gave Washington time to recruit more men. Without Trenton, he would have been unable to fight the battle of Princeton. We'll know a bit more about that in the near future. Hint hint.
The basics of the Battle of Trenton are pretty well known to Americans, so I'll deal instead with a couple of the biggest myths to come out of the battle. Most of what you're about to read is adapted from the wonderful book "Washington's Crossing" by David Hackett Fischer. If you have the chance, read it. It truly is worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded.
So let's go start with the first thing people think of when they hear about the Battle or the crossing of the Delaware. The famous painting of Washington crossing. He's upright in a boat, looking majestically ahead while the weary and ragged men (and woman?) row across the ice-filled river. Really? Standing upright in a boat while crossing a river in a storm? Sounds like a load of crap, right? But as Fischer points out, the boats used for the crossing were cargo boats. And among the loads hauled across were men, horses, and cannon. It was raining, sleeting, snowing and blowing. You try sitting in a boat under those circumstances. Not comfortable. And even less comfortable if you think about the fact that the boats weren't intended for passengers. So there weren't really any seats in them anyway. And the little seating available would be needed for the men rowing. And they would also be low, and probably wet from both the weather and waves.
Standing upright for the crossing doesn't sound so far-fetched anymore, does it?
The next myth is that the Hessians were all asleep, drunk in their beds. Recall the old adage about "history is written by the winners"? There's a corollary, written (so far as I know) by yours truly: History is written by the survivors. In this case, it's written by the British and Hessian generals who weren't there. It was not written by the Hessian commander Colonel Johannes Rall, who was dead, killed in the battle. As we've discussed in the past, if you're looking for a scapegoat, it's hard to find a better one than the dead commander, since he bears ultimate responsibility and is also unable to embarrass you by arguing against your conclusions. And if he's an upstart peasant who should never be in command of a regiment since only a gentleman of birth, upbringing, and bearing is capable of such a responsibility; then it's so much easier to "prove" misconduct.
Rall was never happy about his assignment to Trenton. It was right on the River, and there wasn't really any support for his position. The nearest garrison was a few hours away, and thus he was left isolated and vulnerable to a sudden American crossing of the Delaware. Which is of course what happened. With the corollary that the enemy crossing came in such crappy weather that it was well-hidden and completely unexpected .
At any rate, despite his protests, there Rall and his regiment remained. What I had never been aware of until I read Fischer's book is the pressure that was on the Hessians. There were small bodies of Americans sniping and bushwhacking the whole area. Any small party heading out of town was in trouble, and eventually, by the last few days before the attack, even larger parties were having trouble. And even the "regular" American troops were taking part, without permission from Washington. During the brutal march from the River to the attack positions, Washington was infuriated to come across a detachment of his own men who had crossed a day or two before with the aim of harassing the Hessians. It could have put the Hessians on the alert, and if they were ready for Washington's attack, then disaster would have been a real possibility. The fact that the offending officer was a not so friendly acquaintance of Washington from Virginia didn't do much for his temper.
But none of that had the Hessians on specific alert that night. Why not? Because they were pretty much on alert 24/7. Constant fire on their outposts and alarms at all hours of the day and night had left the men in a state of utter exhaustion. And the little sleep that they got was uncomfortable, since they were literally sleeping "on their arms", which meant fully dressed and equipped. Try sleeping in your boots with all your clothes on. Now add in your cartridge box, canteen, and all your other gear. And now do it in a cold bed, knowing there's a decent chance you're going to be shouted out of bed to go meet yet another attack that probably isn't really an attack... But always could be. After a few days of this, you'd be a zombie, unable to sleep more than a couple hours at a time, even on the nights when you aren't on guard duty someplace. So yeah, the men were exhausted when the attack came, but the outposts were awake and responded in a timely fashion. The attack was a surprise alright, but the defenders responded in a timely and efficient manner, as witnesses from both sides maintained. Unless they had been already in their ranks, preparing for battle, it's hard to claim that the Hessians could have done any better.
As for Rall himself? Again, his troops denied that he was asleep, drunk, etc. As the overall commander, he was under a lot of stress- as mentioned, he knew he was exposed, his men were exhausted, and he had to always be ready to react to a major attack, while not over-reacting to a raid and driving his men and himself further into a stupor. He did take a couple moments to get dressed when he was aroused, but who would want to go out into a winter storm without their clothes on? Try it sometime and see how it feels. And once he did get involved, his men were doing pretty well for themselves, until they were hit again by another attack, and were unable to take up a better position. And then Rall was down, mortally wounded.
Still not convinced? Well Fischer also cites an account written by an American veteran of the Battle. Years later, he was asked about the claim that the Hessians were drunk. Since he was assigned to guard the prisoners during the retreat back across the River, he was in an excellent position to render judgment on the condition of the Hessians. He was quite adamant that he did not see a single drunken soldier among them.
So how did this myth, so unfair to both sides in the Battle get started? Well as I said, history is written by the survivors. Rall was looked down upon by most of the generals on the British side. The British didn't care for him (most especially the commander of all the outposts, who was a complete incompetent) because he was both a peasant and a German. And his German superior didn't like him because he was a peasant and because they had clashed in the past over how much credit Rall's men should get for their role in an earlier battle. Since they arguably played the key role, Rall felt they should be given a fair amount of credit. The general felt that, because he was a general, his men should get all the credit. To his humiliation, the balance of opinion fell on Rall's side. So he had personal and professional grounds to demean a dead man.
It all came down to this: An officer who was unpopular with his commanders despite his competence (Rall was kind of a rough and insensitive sort) was put into a highly dangerous position with an inadequate force. He was not given any of the support which he was supposed to be given, and which he needed. His force was harassed until their combat efficiency was dangerously low, at which point they were surprised and attacked by a larger, yet untrained and marginally led force, which was driven by unimaginable desperation. The attack succeeded brilliantly, throwing the entire defensive position of the British into not only chaos, but additional danger. Since the Hessians were better trained, better armed, better equipped and (theoretically) better led, and yet were crushed in a short, mostly one-sided battle, then surely somebody must have been to blame. Hmm. If you need to find a scapegoat, it's hard to do better than someone who can't confuse the issue with any facts, right? And if he's dead, then nobody (well, nobody who matters) will care enough about him to defend him- he paid the price for his sins, right? It's practically a gift from the gods!
If I may interject a more modern incident into this, here's a story from my days as a young army officer. In the US Army, when a piece of equipment is lost of damaged, there is an entire process called "report of survey" conducted to find out what happened, and if there is personal responsibility for that- because if equipment can be lost, damaged or stolen with impunity, and it then needs to be replaced, that can get expensive. Which is all well and good. In this particular story, a soldier's sleeping bag went missing while out in the field. He had taken care of it just the way he was supposed to, until his platoon was given orders to move. All the equipment, which had been secure to that point, was tossed into a truck and hauled to the new position. When it arrived there, his sleeping bag was gone. During the move, since he had been performing other duties (as required), he had not, in that wonderful term "maintained accountability" of the gear. The survey was assigned to a friend of mine, to determine who, if anyone, was responsible; or if the gear was unavoidably lost despite all the proper precautions being taken. His finding, bless his heart and his integrity, was that the soldier was not to blame- his gear was secure until some other people took it away without his knowledge and did something with it which rendered him unable to control it.
Yeah. That went over. The higher-ups couldn't really say anything- my friend had no connection with the soldier (these surveys were always assigned to an officer from another unit), and thus was impartial. However, the survey had to be signed off on by the commander of the soldiers unit, who had initiated the survey. He wanted the item replaced without the money coming from his budget. So he refused to accept the finding. Which is his prerogative. He disagreed, and the survey was kicked back down. I happened to be in a meeting where it was discussed, and recall a comment being made that "someone has to pay for this equipment". So when it was handed to me with instructions to redo it and come up with the (hint hint) correct result, the meaning was clear.
I looked over the work of my friend, and found it impeccable. I talked to him, and he assured me that the only issue was that the bosses still wanted this (innocent) soldier to pay for the gear. I spoke to the soldier and confirmed everything. And made it pretty clear to him where the matter stood. And then (and in retrospect I wish I had merely confirmed the findings of my friend, and thus forced the big shots to turn it over to somebody else, but I guess I lacked the moral courage) turned in my friend's report, with a different finding, that the soldier was responsible. Which meant he had to pay about a hundred bucks out of his next paycheck for an item which was stolen from him through no fault of his own. And lo! the commander accepted that report. So it's important with the military (and most large organizations) to make sure that an "impartial examination" comes up with the desired/correct result.
I could also explain how at about the same time, I learned that any officer who doesn't "fit the mold" of what is expected and wanted by the Establishment is demonized and hung out to dry; but that would be an even longer, more tedious story with slightly less relevance than the last one.
So suffice it to say that, from the standpoint of the generals, the best thing to come out of the defeat at Trenton was the death of Rall, so he could be blamed and they could sigh and shake their powdered heads about what happens when dirty peasants are promoted beyond their abilities.
In the end, Trenton marked a major turn in the fortunes of the War. Over the next few months, the solid British hold on New Jersey evaporated, and they ultimately found that there were bushwhackers running wild around the entire state. Single men running messages had to be replaced by platoons. Platoons out on patrol had to be replaced by companies. Companies had to be replaced by regiments. All of which wore out the men and their gear, showed the locals that the British were no longer in control, and numbers of troops dwindled as men were killed in nameless struggles. By the time Spring 1777 rolled around, things were no longer anywhere near as bleak for the Americans as they had been on that icy night when Washington and his ragged men crossed the Delaware, and changed the world forever.
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