The Crossing (23 page)

Certainly King Louis of France was far more of a tyrant than the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and certainly French soldiers had as little interest in the American cause as the Hessian soldiers had in the British cause. The fact is that in 1776, except for the Americans, every army in the Western world was made up of mercenaries. Small nations like Switzerland or Hesse, unable to engage in blood baths of their own devising, hired out their soldiers to larger nations who could better afford the brigandage of war. But it is unrealistic to believe that the British regular—who would fire his musket in any direction ordered—gave one small damn as to whether the Continental soldiers were free or a part of the Empire.

The Hessians were well paid and outfitted and usually well fed. If married and without child, they were allowed to bring their wives on campaign with them, and this was the case with hundreds of Hessian soldiers in America. Man for man, they were superior both in the quality of their soldiering and in their pride in their service to the British soldier of the line.

Though the Hessian officers were exchanged for American officers and went back into the ranks of the British army or home to their own land, no such good fortune awaited the Hessian soldiers, that is, the Hessian rank and file who were taken prisoners at Trenton. Hundreds of them were sold into servitude as chattel slaves, to do forced labor in the iron works at Durham, the same iron works that had created the Durham boats that Washington used to cross the Delaware. They were bought by the forge owners for thirty Spanish dollars per man, and others were sold to the Pennsylvania charcoal burners to clear forests and create fuel for the furnaces. Still other Hessian soldiers were indentured to American farmers at the price of eighty Spanish dollars per Hessian couple, man and wife. This indenture was for a period of three years, and during those years the Hessians were virtual slaves, their lot in no way superior to the fate of any black slave in America at that time.

They were, however, given an alternative. They were told that as prisoners of war they were free to enter the American army, where their military knowledge would be valued and respected. Hessian officers were offered one hundred acres of land if they would enlist in the American ranks.

Many Hessians availed themselves of this opportunity. Others, who were sold into indentured servitude, escaped. There is in German a very considerable literature of the adventures of these Hessians in the American forests as they sought their way back to their own regiments and of the hardships they endured. Many, including some with their wives, made their way through the wilderness and survived to rejoin their regiments and eventually returned to Hesse-Cassel.

The records show that a total of 16,992 Hessians were brought to America. Of this number, 10,492 returned to Europe in 1783. No exact figures are available. However, we can take it as very close to the historical fact that 6,500 Hessians who came to America remained. Some of them were killed or wounded, and perhaps some of them died of their injuries, but most of them became American citizens and made their lives here.

Bibliography

Adams, James Truslow.
Revolutionary New England.
Atlantic-Little Brown; Boston, 1923

Andrews, Charles M.
The Colonial Period of American History.
4 vols. Yale U. Press; New Haven, 1934, 1938

Beard, Charles and Mary.
The Rise of American Civilization.
Macmillan; N.Y., 1930

Bedini, Silvio A.
Ridgefield in Review.
The Ridgefield 250th Anniversary Comm., Ridgefield, Conn., 1958

Billias, George Athan.
General John Glover.
Holt, Rinehart & Winston; N.Y., 1960

—.
George Washington's Opponents.
William Morrow; N.Y., 1969

Burnett, Edmund C.
The Continental Congress.
Macmillan; N.Y., 1941

Commager, Henry Steele and Morris, Richard B.
The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six. 2
vols. Bobbs Merrill; Indianapolis and N.Y., 1958

Curtis, Edward E.
The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution.
Yale U. Press; New Haven, 1926

Fast, Howard.
The Selected Work of Tom Paine.
Duell, Sloan & Pearce; N.Y., 1945

Fisher, Sydney George.
The True History of the American Revolution.
J. B. Lippincott Co.; Phila., 1903

—.
The Struggle for American Independence.
J. B. Lippincott Co.; Phila., 1908

Fisk, John.
The American Revolution.
2 vols. Houghton Mifflin; Boston, 1891

Hammond, Otis G., ed.
The Sullivan Papers.
New Hampshire Historical Society Publications; Concord, 1930–1939

Harlow, Ralph V. “Some Aspects of Revolutionary Finances.”
American Historical Review,
Vol. 35. N.Y., 1934

Harwood, Paul Leland.
George Washington, Country Gentleman.
Bobbs-Merrill; Indianapolis and N.Y., 1925

Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army.
Heitman, 1917

Hughes, Rupert.
George Washington; the Human Being and the Hero.
William Morrow; N.Y., 1926

Irving, Washington.
The Life of George Washington.
Putnam; N.Y., 1868

Lefferts, Charles M.
Uniforms of the American, British, French and German Armies in the War of the American Revolution.
The New York Historical Society, 1926

Miller, John C.
Sam Adams.
Atlantic-Little Brown and Co.; Boston, 1936

—.
Origins of the American Revolution.
Atlantic-Little Brown and Co.; Boston, 1943

—.
Triumph of Freedom.
Atlantic-Little Brown and Co.; Boston, 1948

Moore, George H.
The Treason of Charles Lee.
Charles Scribner; N.Y., 1860

Morris, Richard B.
The Era of the American Revolution.
Columbia U. Press; N.Y., 1939

Morrison, S. E. and Commager, H. S.
The Growth of the American Republic.
Oxford U. Press; N.Y., 1937

Pennypacker, Morton.
General Washington's Spies.
Long Island Historical Society; Bklyn, N.Y., 1939

Rosengarten, J. G.
The German Allied Troops 1776–1783.
J. Munsell; Albany, 1893

Spaulding, Oliver L.
The United States Army in War and Peace.
Putnam; N.Y., 1937

Stryker, William S.
The Battles of Trenton and Princeton.
Houghton Mifflin; Boston, 1898

Thane, Elswyth.
Potomac Squire.
Duell, Sloan & Pearce; N.Y., 1963

Van Doren, Carl.
Benjamin Franklin.
Viking Press; N.Y., 1938

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Secret History of the American Revolution.
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Wilkinson, James.
Memoirs of My Own Times.
Abraham Small; Phila., 1816

REFERENCES:

Archives of Pennsylvania.

Archives of the State of New Jersey.

Dictionary of American Biography.
20 vols. Charles Scribner; N.Y., 1928

Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History.
10 vols. Harper Bros.; N.Y., 1907

In addition to the above, I have made good use of the library at the Memorial Building at Washington Crossing State Park, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The people there have been kind and helpful in their knowledge of the local geography and of the immediate riverside in relation to the crossing. There, one has full freedom to examine every detail of the Durham boat, reconstructed as a part of the park.

I must also acknowledge the kindness of the people in the Thompson-Neely house and their willingness to answer questions. Pamphlets, maps and reproductions of old material, for sale and given away at each of the above places, have also been useful.

And, of course, I must acknowledge the help of my wife, who patiently and uncomplainingly traveled these old paths, joined my attempts to find old ghosts, so long gone, prowled with me around Baskingridge and a dozen other Jersey towns, painstakingly examined miles of the Delaware River, and served as secretary and researcher.

Most of this research, however, served as background material. A great deal of directly pertinent material had been detailed by James Wilkinson, William S. Stryker and Washington Irving. It is true that Wilkinson saw all events in his own reflection, and that neither Irving nor Stryker was critical or even wholly realistic about the men who played the major roles in this story. Neither of them even alluded, for example, to Lord Stirling's drinking—or “drunkenness” as so many of his contemporaries put it–or to Stephen's black temper and frequent bouts of drunkenness, or to Ewing and Cadwalader's only too apparent cowardice; for these were men whose loyalty was accepted as covering all weaknesses. Also, it is most difficult to make any truthful judgments of men in so contentious a situation, where even saints would produce enemies.

But in terms of the major currents of my story, Irving and Stryker did magnificent if old-fashioned work of reconstruction, and of course I leaned upon them heavily.

Where original facts emerged, they were not very important to my story. For instance, lunching one day at the old inn at New Hope, the charming owner told my wife and me a story of a letter recently uncovered by a local inhabitant that indicated that Washington had a meeting in the same place on the fifteenth or sixteenth of December in 1776. But although this was a wholly new piece of material, the letter could offer little that was new to the tale. The writings of Thomas Paine were of great value, and Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris had selected for their very fine book,
The Spirit of 'Seventy-Sir,
most of the pertinent and colorful documentary material of that incident, making access to this material so much the easier for any researcher.

A meticulous examination of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey archives revealed six or seven items that Stryker had not used—all of them pleas for food, medicine and clothes.

Originally, my hope had been to uncover enough material excitingly pertinent to the
crossing
to make a more detailed study than this, but the paucity of information in the Philadelphia newspapers was incredible. I was able to extract a few items from the newspapers, but there was nothing available comparable to the New England newspapers of the time, which offer enough intriguing information to make a history of the war in New England with no other sources.

The reason for this is that before the crossing took place, the depression and despair were so great as to discourage writing what amounted to an obituary, and Philadelphia, naturally, was wholly concerned with its own salvation. The few dismal, awful weeks on the Delaware were speedily forgotten and subordinated to the military events that followed.

NOTES FOR
The First Crossing

(East
to
West)

N
OTES:
Chapter
1

Both the British retreat from Concord and the subsequent Battle at Breed's Hill (commonly remembered as Bunker Hill) in Boston convinced the Yankee Continental that the British were not only mortal but stupid. At the same time, the more sensitive in the American ranks realized that Bunker Hill was a psychological error that might never be repeated; while the fierce infighting of the British, when pressed, might be repeated all too often. There, too, the British use of the bayonet as a terrible and deadly weapon was felt for the first time, as remarked upon in a letter written by Sir William Howe to his adjutant general and quoted by Fortescue, who is quoted by Sidney George Fisher:

“Pigott was relieved from his enemies in that quarter, and in the 2nd onset he carried the redoubt in the handsomest manner, tho it was most obstinately defended to the last. Thirty of the Rebels not having time to get away were killed with bayonets in it.”

N
OTES:
Chapter
2

A whole body of mythology has grown up around the long rifles that were introduced from the Austrian Tyrol in 1730 and manufactured by talented gunsmiths in Pennsylvania in Colonial times, particularly at Lancaster and Philadelphia and somewhat later in Kentucky. In Pennsylvania, many of these rifles were made by German gunsmiths, and each was a work of art. They were accurate at a longer range than any musket, and in the hands of a fine marksman, they were an excellent hunting weapon.

But they were not called “squirrel guns” without reason. Their small bullet was frequently ineffective against larger game, and once fired, they were reloaded only with the greatest of difficulty, the bullet having to be pounded into the small rifle bore. Because of this, almost no body of militia was armed with these guns, and the corollary was that those divisions of riflemen enlisted in the Continental army were undrilled, makeshift and undisciplined. The very fact that so many of them were footloose hunters mitigated against the quality of steadiness desired.

The story of Colonel (later General) John Glover remained obscure until George Athan Billias wrote his excellent biography,
General John Glover and His Marblehead Mariners.
Since Glover plays so large a role in my own work, the use of the above background material is general. Also, for Glover, see the Marblehead town records, American Archives, fourth and fifth series.

N
OTES:
Chapter
5

Lafayette, in his memoirs, Volume I, p. 19, London, 1887, provides the following interesting description of a section of the Continental army:

“About eleven thousand men ill armed, and still worse clothed, presented a strange spectacle. Their clothes were parti-colored and many of them were almost naked. The best clad wore hunting shirts, large grey linen coats which were much used in Carolina. As to their military tactics, it will be sufficient to say that, for a regiment ranged in battle order to move forward on the right of its line it was necessary for the left to make a continued counter-march. They were always arranged in two lines, the smallest men in the first line.”

While we specify a colonel in command of a regiment or battalion, he would have a lieutenant colonel and a major as his staff officers in command. The rest of his staff would include a surgeon with one or two or three surgeon's mates, a quartermaster and an adjutant. Often enough, the local Congregational or Presbyterian minister would come along as chaplain, and since the surgeon was an educated man—a gentleman in the class terms of the time—he would frequently double as commander.