Washington's Crossing
David Hackett Fischer
Oxford University Press, 2004
I highly recommend reading Paul Revere's Ride as a prelude to this book, though it's not necessary, as it picks up almost where Paul Revere's Ride leaves off.
True to form, Mr. Fischer begins his work with an artist's eye, performing an excellent breakdown of the cover art. It must be read in its entirety. An excerpt (page 1-2):
The painting is familiar to us in a general way, but when we look again its details take us by surprise. Washington's small boat is crowded with thirteen men. Their dress tells us that they are soldiers from many parts of America, and each of them has a story this is revealed by a few strokes of the artist's brush. One man wears the short tarpaulin jacket of a New England seaman; we look again and discover that he is of African descent. Another is a recent Scottish immigrant, still wearing his Balmoral bonnet. A third is an androgynous figure in a loose red shirt, maybe a woman in man's clothing, pulling at an oar.
At the bow and stern of the boat are hard-faced western riflemen in hunting shirts and deerskin leggings. Huddled between the thwarts are farmers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in blanket coats and broad-brimmed hats. One carries a countryman's double-barreled shotgun. The other looks very ill, and his head is swatherd in a bandage. A soldier beside them is in full uniform, a rarity in this army; he wears the blue coat and red facings of Haslet's Delaware Regiment. Another figure wears a boat cloak and an oiled hat that a prosperous Baltimore merchant might have used on a West Indian voyage; his sleeve reveals the facings of Smallwood's silk stocking Maryland Regiment. Hidden behind them is a mysterious thirteenth man. Only his weapon is visible; one wonders who he might have been.
To fully appreciate the bold maneuver of crossing the Delaware River, Mr. Fischer presents the events leading to that pivotal moment: a brief history of the relief of Boston, the make-up of the forces involved, and the attempted defense of New York and the Hudson River.
I found the make-up of forces to be incredibly interesting, and Mr. Fischer does an excellent job, making each force - and there are many forces at work even within each nationality - personal on the individual level. It is impossible to adequately quote without re-typing this section in entirety (page 18-19):
Another close companion was Washington's slave William Lee. Washington bought him in 1767 and made him his manservant, but he was more than that. Washington called him "my fellow." He was a comrade, a friend, and a brilliant rider in a class with Washington himself. Before the war they hunted together across the Northern Neck [ed. of Virginia]. William Lee was said to be as fearless as Washington himself, and the two men "would rush, at full speed, through brake or tangled wood, in a style at which modern huntsmen would stand aghast." William Lee rode with Washington through the war, and early paintings showed the two men together in battle. Washington later emancipated him "as a testimony for his attachment to me and for his faithful service during the revolutionary war."
Throughout the war, Washington's "military family" surrounded him with the culture in which he was raised. Male and female, slave and free, they reinforced his values and beliefs, which were very different from those of others in the American army.
There are so many mentioned and revealing incidents to list, from Washington wading into a melee to singlehandedly regaining control of his army's various cultures and concepts of freedom, to the makeup and dissimilarities of British and Scottish units, what the Hessian army was about, the balance between freedom and order of all units involved, and a good background of the brothers General Howe and Admiral Howe.
Within the introduction of the chapter The Hessians (page 51) there are a couple of paragraphs which caught my attention (page 51-52):
Even before the Revolution began, British ministers in London had tried to hire them for service in the colonies. It is startling to discover from French and German sources that as early as the winter of 1774-75, British envoys held secret negotiations at the Hessian palace of Hofgeismar for the employment of large numbers of German troops to control the American colonies, many months before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. The talks failed because Hessian price was high and the parties could not agree on terms.
When the American fighting began in 1775, the British government tried to hire twenty thousand Russian troops, thinking that they would be cheaper than Germans. A British officer in America concluded that Russians were "the most eligible" in another way, as "not understanding the language, they are less likely to be seduced by the artifice and intrigue of these holy hypocrites." But Empress Catherine the Great wanted no part of it and wisely refused. British ministers approached the Netherlands and asked to rent their Scottish Brigade, with no success. Prussia's Frederick the Great also refused to rent his army and wrote to Voltaire that selling one's subjects to the English was like selling "cattle to have their throats cut." Lacking other sources, members of Parliament suggested that perhaps an army of Moors might be hired from the fez of Morocco.
Read that well.
Even before open hostilities, and while Regulars were imposing martial law on Boston and confiscating weapons under penalty of law, the British government in full was actively trying to recruit non-British soldiers to impose martial law on its own citizens. As well, the British navy was impressing colonial sailors into service upon British warships.
The remaining story is well referenced, with a number of appropriate pictures and diagrams, and written in a style where a reader can feel the snot freezing in the nose, each paragraph a painful uncertainty of what was yet to come. A rare flashback statement nicely summarizes and reminds us that the balance was decidedly against the success of this desperate maneuver. From the chapter Quaker Bridge (page 322-323):
To a modern reader snug in an armchair, the pace may seem painfully slow. But it is was no small achievement on a night march in bitter cold and extreme darkness, by an exhausted army with a train of artillery, and on hard-frozen roads full of ruts and stumps. At the time, the march astounded professional soldiers of many nations by its audacity and its celerity. It was a triumph of mind and will over material conditions by George Washington himself, his lieutenants, and most of all the sleep-deprived private soldiers who found the stamina to put one frozen foot in front of another.
Mr. Fischer is fair to all sides involved, which makes this event even more unbelievable and honorable to all involved in what is a rare moment in history, a moment where a leader emerges to cobble together an alliance of very different personalities to defeat what, on paper, is a superior force. From the section The Battle of Princton: The British March (page 341):
The British heard the firing in Trenton, and Cornwallis ordered them to rush toward Princeton. In the lead were Leslie's troops, who were at Maidenhead when Washington attacked Princeton. Sergeant Thomas Sullivan wrote, "Brigadier General Leslie sent an immediate express to Lord Cornwallis, who was [in Trenton] with the advance troops; and our brigade and the guards got on the march." Cornwallis drove his men up the Princeton Road in a forced march. Two hours after the British surrender at Nassau Hall, Cornwallis's vanguard were near the bridge at Worth's Mill.
Among them were the Hessian Jagers. Captain Johann Ewald wrote, "at daybreak on the morning of the 3d we suddenly learned that Washington had abandoned his position. At the same time we heard a heavy cannonade in our rear, which surprised everyone. Instantly we marched back at quick step to Princeton, where we found the entire field of action from Maidenhead on to Princeton and vicinity covered with corpses."
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