Approximately one year ago, Emerging Revolutionary War began a historian happy hour virtual chat on Sunday evenings. The goal was to share our passion for history, connect with each other during the pandemic, and have an excuse to drink a beer. Pretty much what we would be doing if we could gather in person.
Fast forward one year and the “Rev War Revelry” that was created has now become a fixture of our Sunday evenings; well every other Sunday after 36-consecutive weeks from April 2020 to November 2020.
The brain trust at Emerging Revolutionary War convened to discuss what we should do for the one-year anniversary. One logical conclusion came up. A return to Massachusetts!
ERW welcomes guest historian Alex Cain, a Lexington historian and author, who will discuss what the Massachusetts town was like in 1775, the details of what happened on both April 18 and 19, 1775, and the misconceptions that sprung up from the beginning of the American Revolution. Of course, we welcome comments and questions through the hour.
Thank you for being part of the “Rev War Revelry” experience as we enter the second year of the historian happy hour. We look forward to seeing you on Sunday evening at 7pm EST on our Facebook page with your favorite beverage and question in hand.
The program can be accessed through Emerging Revolutionary War’s Facebook page. For those that cannot make the program when it is live, there will be a recording posted to our YouTube page within a few days following.
Over the next few months, we will be highlighting the speakers and topics for our 2021 Symposium, Hindsight is 2020: Revisiting Misconceptions of the Revolution, taking place on May 22nd. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the Symposium will be virtual. Today we highlight historian and author John U. Rees who will be covering a much overlooked and misunderstood part of the Revolution, the role of African American Continental soldiers during the war.
John Rees is an independent writer and researcher specializing in the common soldiers’ experience during the War for American Independence, and North American soldiers’ food, 1755 to the modern era. Since 1986 he has produced almost 200 monographs on these and associated subjects. His work has been published in a number of journals and books, including Military Collector & Historian, the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, and the Thomson Gale edition of Boatner’s Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. His first book, “They Were Good Soldiers”: African Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783 was published by Helion Books in 2019.
A list of his publications, plus a number of complete works, may be viewed online at https://tinyurl.com/JohnURees-articles . He will be presenting his talk “They Were Good Soldiers”: An Overview of African Americans in the Continental Army at the May symposium.
Do you believe the study of African American soldiers in the American Revolution has been overlooked and why?
To my mind the core cause for this lack of knowledge is American willingness to gloss over history, in this case American history. Add to that, many of our fellow citizens, past and present, through wilfulness, mis-education, or lack of caring, think of the American Revolution as a white man’s conflict, with little to no contribution by Americans of African descent. Artwork and films portraying the period have done little to disabuse us of that notion.
I think, in the 1960s and 70s, many Americans knew of Crispus Attucks’ participation and death in the 1770 Boston Massacre; I know I learned of him as a child in the early 60s. Others may have seen the U.S. Postal Service stamp in the mid-70s featuring Massachusetts African American soldier Salem Poor, but other than those instances most people didn’t (and don’t) really consider black participation on either side of the American Revolution. It also seems that when Americans do become aware of their role as soldiers, they learn about the “black” 1st Rhode Island Regiment (which only existed for two and half years of an eight-year war), when the greatest number of African Americans fighting for the cause of American independence were in integrated units. And then, there were the black women and children, among the hundreds of women and children who accompanied the troops and contributed to their welfare, who no one is aware of.
What first attracted you to the study of early American history?
My parents, especially my mother, were avid readers, and I followed suit very early on. I read many of the Landmark history and biography books, and those likely guided my interest in stories of individual people in extraordinary circumstances. I loved military history early on, and in my pre-teens focused on the Second World War; I then moved on to the Napoleonic era and the American Civil War, all the while reading a great deal of fiction. In 1984 I got involved with Revolutionary War living history, and the fact I had a hard time getting answers about the unit we portrayed led me to begin researching that regiment.
I had the good fortune to live very close to the David Library of the American Revolution, and in 1986 I produced my first (never published) manuscript. As I pored through books and microfilmed manuscript collections, I came across tidbits of interesting information I then had no need of; I copied it and put it aside for possible future use. It was not until 1990 that my first article was published; since that year until now I’ve published almost 200 articles, mostly on the Revolutionary War, but a substantial number on military food and other miscellaneous subjects. At some point in the 1990s I realized that the Revolutionary period was a relatively wide-open field for anyone who wished to study and write about it.
What keeps you involved in the study of this history?
There remain so many stories to tell, too many “small things forgotten,” I still want to write about, I feel the era is still wide open for anyone who wishes to focus on it.
What is the biggest myth about African American soldiers in the Continental Army, and how did it come about?
Likely that the segregated 1st Rhode Island Regiment is the best example of African American soldiers’ participation in the war, when, in fact, the largest proportion of African Americans served in integrated units, in the Continental Army and state militias. Add to that, there were two other segregated regiments during the war, one in the French Army that served for four to five years, and one Loyalist regiment, that existed for only a year.
Do you think there are common misconceptions of the era of the American Revolution among the American people? If so, what are they and have they ever affected your work?
My short list contains two things, one pertaining to Revolutionary ideals, the other to the military side. First is the contention by many people that it was a conservative Revolution, when in actuality the core concepts were quite radical, and significant portion of Revolutionaries retained that radical view, during and after the Revolutionary period.
Regarding the military aspects, I think the idea is still common that American militia forces won the War of the Revolution, which was not the case, and (okay a third item) that the American troops fought using innovative tactics (you know, fighting from behind walls and trees), and the Crown forces were militarily conservative. The facts are too long to go into, but on the last point I highly recommend Matthew Springs book With Zeal and With Bayonets Only.
Why do you think it is important for us to study the Revolutionary Era?
At this point in our country’s history, it seems we, as a society, need go back and look at our beginning, to see how both leaders and other participants comported themselves and sacrificed attempting to gain not only independence from Britain, but in support of the high ideals of the 1776 Declaration.
On a lesser, but to me still important, note, we need to study the lives of ordinary people of every side – civilian and military; men, women, and children of all creeds and colors – in order to gain a truer understanding of our founding era, and, perhaps, ourselves.
Join us for our SECOND annual Emerging Revolutionary War Symposium, co-hosted by Gadsby’s Tavern Museum, speakers and topics include:
Michael Harris on Misconceptions of Battle of Brandywine Vanessa Smiley on Myths of the Southern Campaigns Travis Shaw on American Loyalists John U Rees on African American Continental Soldiers Mark Maloy on myths of the Battle of Trenton
Our registration fee is now only $40 per person and $20 for students. This will allow us to broaden our audience with the virtual program. We hope that 2022 will allow us to come together again in Alexandria for our third annual symposium. To register, visit: https://shop.alexandriava.gov/Events.aspx
Stay tuned as we highlight our speakers and their topics in future blog posts.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Sean Chick
On October 7, 1780, Britain’s attempt to regain at least part of the rebellious North American colonies was dealt a major blow at King’s Mountain. The rebels rejoiced, since it was their first major victory since 1777 and it came after the twin disasters at Charleston and Camden. Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, considered it the decisive battle of the war. Years later, Theodore Roosevelt echoed that sentiment. In 1930, when the site was set to become a national park, Herbert Hoover gave a speech. For the embattled president, it was an attempt to shore up his falling support and vindicate his strategy to peel southern states away from the Democratic Party. Hoover said “This is a place of inspiring memories. Here less than a thousand men, inspired by the urge of freedom, defeated a superior force entrenched in this strategic position. This small band of Patriots turned back a dangerous invasion well designed to separate and dismember the united Colonies.”
Hoover, understandably, never mentioned the atrocities committed. Many were executed after the battle. Nor did he mention that King’s Mountain was not a contest between redcoats and rebels, but brother against brother. The only British man present was Major Patrick Ferguson. His command was made up entirely of Loyalists. His second in command, Captain Abraham de Peyster, was from New York City.
Joseph Galloway (courtesy of NYPL)
Few groups in American history are as forgotten as the Loyalists and few were as complex. They were a varied lot, often making up the highest in colonial society, including wealthy merchants and colonial officials. They often included the very lowest in the society, such as recent immigrants, slaves, indigenous, and subsistence farmers. Their ideology was in many ways not radically different from those who rebelled. They were generally not in favor of absolute monarchy or the supremacy of Parliament but simply favored union with Britain and slow reform. A few, such as Joseph Galloway, were part of early protests against British colonial policy, but were unwilling to jump into the chasm of revolution. Some, such as South Carolina merchant David Fanning, were merely aggrieved and sought to settle scores. Others were on the margins of society and saw the colonists, or at least the revolutionary colonial elite, as their real oppressors.
The Loyalists were at first spurned by the British high command. Major General William had over 30,000 men under his command in 1776 and Loyalists would have added to the logistical strain. He also thought a soft war policy that he hoped would induce the colonies to return, and therefore it was reasonable to avoid civil war. Yet, by 1777 the British were using some Loyalist regiments. They would fight in John Burgoyne’s ill-fated drive on Albany and served as rangers at Brandywine.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Gabe Neville.
In his first book, Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782, Eric Sterner has taken on a difficult subject. Racial violence is something many writers would shy away from while others might delight in the chance to condemn the perpetrators. Mr. Sterner, laudably, does neither. Instead, he seeks to understand what happened.
It is worth noting that the first known massacre of Indians by white men in what is now the United States occurred long before the events in the book. It happened near Jamestown, Virginia in 1610 when Virginia’s governor, Thomas West, 3rd Baron de la Warr, ordered an attack on the Paspahegh Band of Powhatans. Seventy men attacked the village, killing between 65 and 75 Paspaheghs and kidnapping the village leader’s wife and children. Rowing away, the colonists decided to kill the children, “w[hi]ch was effected by Throweinge them overboard and shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water.” Three centuries of violence ensued.[1]
Lord de la Warr’s name appears frequently in Mr. Sterner’s story. His name was given to the Delaware River, which in turn lent its name to the Lenape people who have long been known to English speakers as the Delaware Tribe. Mr. Sterner has provided the definitive account of the worst atrocity of the Revolutionary War. In 1782 more than eighty white settlers clubbed, killed, and scalped ninety-six peaceful, Christian Indians as they prayed and sang hymns. The attack on the Moravian mission town of Gnadenhutten (Ohio) was intended as both a punitive and preemptive strike, conducted by settlers whose families and farms had been targeted by other Indians acting as proxies of the British. It is a horrific story that has defied understanding until now.
Histories of conflict between Native and European Americans have often served us poorly, reducing one or both sides to caricatures. Earlier histories, written by white men, put a finger on the scale of historical interpretation such that Indian atrocities were called “massacres” while white atrocities were called “battles” or “raids.” In the last half of the 20th century, the finger moved to the other side of the scale. Territorial expansion, the introduction of Old World diseases, missionary activity, the presumption of Manifest Destiny, and acts of violence large and small were braided together into a narrative of premeditated genocide.
These approaches reveal the eras and ideologies of their writers. More problematic is both schools tendency to gloss over of the complexity of frontier culture. The Gnadenhutten Massacre is not a cowboys-and-Indians story of “white” and “red” men exchanging bullets and arrows. It is far more complicated than that, with many of its actors desiring little more than their own survival. Though never stated, Mr. Sterner’s approach seems inspired by the axiom: “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” The original expression, appropriately enough, referred to walking “a mile in his moccasins.”
The people in Mr. Sterner’s story can certainly be categorized as “whites” and “Indians,” and for narrative purposes two of the book’s chapters align with these groupings. Still, though racism is an important element of the story, there is plenty to suggest that skin color was not the only matter at issue. The two most prominent white characters –John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger—were Moravian missionaries who lived for decades among the Indians and were wholly dedicated to their welfare. Other whites, British agents, were Indian allies. The killers at Gnadenhutten were white, but acted independently and in defiance of government authority. On the Native American side, the Delaware, Shawnee, Wyandot, and Iroquois tribes were distinct political entities with different alliances, histories, and leaders. Even within these tribes, individual bands (what the author calls “phratries”) disagreed with each other, sometimes sharply, on military and political questions. Some were allied with the British and some with the Americans. The victims at Gnadenhutten were—though Indians—also pious, hymn-singing Christians. The white perpetrators behaved in a decidedly un-Christian manner despite their heritage. History, it turns out, was just as full of contradictions as the present is.
European-American settlers could indeed be brutal, as the events at Gnadenhutten show. Indians could also be ruthless. The first known massacre perpetrated by North American Indians was committed long before Europeans arrived on the continent. The tactic later employed by American armies of destroying villages and burning crops was first used by Indians against the colonists around Jamestown in 1622. Further complexity is found in the fact that even the line between “whites” and “Indians” was sometimes blurred. The Indian victims of the Gnadenhutten Massacre were Christians who dressed and lived much as Europeans did. Conversely, Indian armies—notably at the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant—sometimes had white warriors among them. These were typically men who had been kidnapped as children and adopted into Indian society.
Mr. Sterner takes a dispassionate, investigatory approach to his work. It is refreshingly free of grand economic or social theories. He seeks to comprehend the events as those involved comprehended them and shows little interest in passing judgment. Instead, he seeks to “walk” a mile in their shoes and moccasins. In doing so, he respectfully refers to Natives by the Indian names, uncynically takes the faith of the Moravians at face value, and justly illustrates the terrors experienced by settlers on the frontier. Each of these groups is examined in its own chapter. Then, in his fourth and final chapter, Mr. Sterner tells us what happened at Gnadenhutten. By then the reader is left struggling to reconcile his or her outrage with the realization that what happened was likely inevitable.
The chance to experience this tension between the world that was and the world that ought to have been is a gift to Mr. Sterner’s readers. Conceiving of a world as it ought to have been is easy. Understanding it as it actually was is much harder. Period accounts indicate that even the perpetrators of the massacre wrestled with this tension in real time. One of them, after executing a dozen Moravian Indians, “sat down and cried because he found in it no satisfaction for his murdered wife and children.” Another whose family had been killed by Indians sat down by the river bank and burst into tears, crying, “You know I couldn’t help it!”[2]
Anatomy of a Massacre could have had an epilogue. Shortly after the events at Gnadenhutten, Col. William Crawford was captured and cruelly tortured to death by Delaware tribesmen as payback for the massacre. Crawford had played no part in the earlier atrocity, but men under his command had. Mr. Sterner has written about Crawford’s death for Emerging Revolutionary War and no doubt made a considered decision to let the Gnadenhutten story stand on its own.
The last “massacre” of American Indians occurred in 1911 in Nevada, when state police killed eight members of Mike Daggett’s Band of Shoshones, whom they were pursuing for horse theft and murder. This “Battle of Kelly Creek” occurred three hundred and one years after the massacre of the Paspahegh Band of Powhatans near Jamestown and closed the book on three centuries of racial violence between Native and European Americans. It is a cringe-inducing history, to be sure.
Mr. Sterner’s book suggests two lessons. First is that we should not blame atrocities so much on the perpetrators’ culture and demographics but rather on the killers themselves and on human nature. Culture matters, but people in every culture will do terrible things in terrible circumstances. Second is that we cannot substitute a cartoonish caricature of history for the nuanced reality of what really happened. The consequence of dumbed-down history is not a partial understanding but rather a false understanding. The Moravian Indians and missionaries lived in villages that were both physically and figuratively between two cultures. Though neutral, family and social ties to the war’s combatants remained and neither side could accept or understand them as a unique group. That led the Wyandots and British-allied Delaware to forcibly relocate them, and it motivated the settlers led by David Williamson to kill them.
An analogous refusal to understand the past for what it really was does a different kind of “violence” to history. Mr. Sterner’s book provides hope that historians can in fact focus on real history, avoiding the polemics and theorizing that characterizes so much academic writing. Like Glenn Williams, author of Dunmore’s War, Mr. Sterner seeks to trace the course of events and to understand the subjects of his work as they understood themselves. It’s good history.
Sources:
[1] George Percy, “’A Trewe Relaycon:’ Virginia from 1609 to 1612,” Tyler’s Quarterly, 3 (1921-1922): 259-282, 272. “Weroance” was a title for a “sub-chief” or a village leader.
[2] Eric Sterner, Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782 (Yardley, Pa: Westholme, 2020), 148.
Merriam-Webster’s two two definitions of inspiration are “an aspiring agent or influence” and “the quality or state of being influenced.” Being a military historian that has spent a portion of his graduate school and adult life studying the American Revolution, there are a multiple examples of people, events, or circumstances that would fit that Merriam-Webster definition.
The 56-men who affixed a signature to the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776 and the gravity of what that meant.
Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis comes to mind during the bleak December 1776 days as George Washington’s army hurriedly moved through New Jersey.
George Washington’s personal heroics, at Princeton in January of 1777 and Monmouth Court House in June 1778, defying his own personal demise to rally the troops he led.
The tales of suffering, at Valley Forge, Morristown, and through the heat of a Carolinas campaign by the common soldier, many whose names are lost to history.
Recently, I have been looking for inspiration, I think most of us are, with how 2020 ended and the beginning of 2021, but this post is not about straying into current politics, viewpoints, or stances on the pandemic. This is more personal.
The pandemic has afforded me the opportunity to read more, as I am sure my fellow history enthusiasts and bookophiles can relate to. Those readings reawakened a question I tried to tackle as a graduate student a decade ago at George Mason University.
What inspired the men from Maryland to fight for American independence?
Or more accurately:
What did not inspire the men from Maryland to fight for American independence?
I ruled out pay, patriotism (at the start), and other tangible benefits. I gleaned from some of the primary sources that have survived, the chance to create a new life, for the soldiers themselves or their loved ones at home was a major motivator to serve. Family was the spark of inspiration.
On this date, that is something I can really relate to. My father, who will be celebrating his 71st trip around the sun, is battling dementia. He will know that this date, February 8, is his birthday, but will struggle to remember anything else. Yet, he was surprised to see his name in a book recently, one that I sent to him, one that I had helped in the editorial process. To see him reading it, cherishing it, and tearing up with happiness at the simple recognition of his name and mine, is an inspiration to myself.
So, he was and is an inspiration, half the duo of sparking my passion of American history (any guesses on the other half)?
What or who is your inspiration as we enter the second month of 2021?
Happy Birthday Dad, from the history enthusiast you helped create.
If curious, he is reading A Handsome Flogging: The Battle of Monmouth, June 28,1778 by William R. Griffith IV
If you are from a certain geographical area of the United States the title of this post is a saying you have heard numerous times. Heck, you may even use it yourself. I’ll admit that I have found usage of this American style vernacular a few instances in my lifetime.
Did you know that there is one version that connects the popular saying to a figure in American history and has its origin dating back into the 18th century?
While reading a history of Osceola, I came across the mention of Benjamin Hawkins and as many of you know, did some internet research, consulted other books on the Seminoles, Creeks, and other Native Americans and the research took off from there. This is just a brief overview of Hawkins and his possible, albeit tenuous, connection to this saying.
A possible first mention of the saying above is attributed to Hawkins, whose name probably does not ring a bell for a large segment of people, historians included. Hawkins, born in North Carolina on August 15, 1754 into a family of six, was a gifted individual who attended the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University with an aptitude for linguistics, which apparently including learning Native American dialects.
On January 29, 1756, Henry Lee III is born at Leesylvania Plantation in Prince William County, Virginia. Part of the prestigious Lee family of Virginia, his father was a cousin of Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee, two brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence.
Henry Lee would blossom into one of the better cavalry commanders in the American Revolution, earning the nickname, “Light Horse Harry” Lee because of his accomplishments. With January being his birth month, Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes historian and author Mike Cecere, who will discuss his book, “Wedded to my Sword, The Revolutionary War Service of Light Horse Harry Lee.”
Cecere, former high school and community college history teacher is the author of thirteen books on the American Revolution, most focused on aspects of the colony of Virginia and/or her native sons.
This Sunday we hope you spend some time joining us on the next installment of “Rev War Revelry’ as we discuss the Lee that was born in January and became a military hero of the American Revolution. This historian happy hour will be live on our Facebook page at 7 pm EST.
(Yes, we do know there is another Lee that is born in January and plays a prominent role in history).
Join Emerging Revolutionary War historians this Sunday, at 7 p.m. EST on our Facebook page for the next historian happy hour. This week we will be joined by John Adams…no that is not a mistype.
John Adams is the founder and owner of Liberty Cigars, which “was founded to reacquaint men and women with the simple pleasure of respite and leisure. Lasting bonds, whether among one or many, are more easily formed when wrought in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere.”
Liberty Cigars
That “convivial atmosphere” will be recreated during the next installment of “Rev War Revelry” as ERW historians will discuss tobacco, cigars, and the founding generation of the United States.
“In the time to come we will share the incredible stories of our great republics’ illustrious history with the hope that through you, it will long endure. Our premium cigars are named for a seminal person, event or entity in history so that we may honor them, as we should, across the ages” according to Adams.
Liberty Cigars is part of the American History Guild, founded over a decade ago to “rekindle and stoke the sacred fire of liberty.”
We hope you can set aside an hour of your weekend to join us in “the simple pleasure of respite and leisure” with John Adams. If weather permits, there may be another twist to the “Revelry” on Sunday evening.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historians Karl G. Elsea and William W. Welsch for thefinal installment of their three part series
1770 drawing of Hessian three-pounder gun and limber (courtesy of Kriegskarten from Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Germany at http://www.digam.net/?str=177)
The v. Lossberg Artillery detachment:
Bombardier Conrad Volprecht was about 44 years old with over 27 years of service. He led the v. Lossberg artillery detachment consisting of another bombardier, 13 gunners and 3 matrosses, with two three-pounder guns and associated horses, harness, and limber.[i]
Over two years after the battle and being a prisoner Bombardier Volprecht gave testimony that indicated the sequence of battle for his detachment was roughly as follows: First went to field, second fired north, third ordered south, and fourth got stuck in the mud till the end of the battle. There is a problem though, the sequence that better fits the data from the battle was as follows: first went to field, second ordered south, third fired west, and fourth got stuck in the mud.
John Adams wrote “Facts are stubborn things. They cannot be altered by our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions.” In studying firsthand accounts of the battles in the Revolutionary War they are sometimes not correct or even true. For example, there is an enjoyable firsthand account (written many years later) by a patriot Sergeant White (The Good Soldier White) that is often quoted in accounts of the battle. Parts of his story are no doubt true. The problem is that when Sgt. White states he was with “Lieut. Munroe, our late President of the U. States” and “I was the first that reach them [cannons],” and “They had all left it, except one man tending vent,” those specific parts of the story cannot be true. Hessian Lt. Englehardt would not have time to do all that he did and then cross the Assunpink bridge before the Jagers if artillery men from Sullivan’s column were that far up King Street. Facts from the battle mean that part of that story does not work.
The most important place in all the 13 states fighting for independence on December 26, 1776 from 8:00 am to 9:00 am was the long, narrow bridge over the Assunpink creek. It was held by Hessian Sergeant Muller and 18 men. Sgt. Muller was about 50 years old with about 32 years of service. The importance of this place was not fully realized by the Hessians, but the Patriots knew it had to be closed, and General Washington had two full brigades, Sargent’s and Glover’s, tasked with taking, as quickly as possible, and then holding the bridge.
At about 8:03 am Patriot General Sullivan was about one mile from Trenton center along the River road when he attacked the outlying Jager pickets. General Sullivan had the artillery fire several canister shots at the Jagers. This firing also served as a signal to General Washington so he would know his other wing was attacking. It was to be recalled that General Washington started his attack about 8:00 am on the Pennington road and he also was about a mile from Trenton center. This cannon firing was also a signal to General Ewing so he knew when to start his distraction. General Ewing heard the three cannon shots and he quickly followed with his guns and howitzers firing ten shots from across the Delaware River. General Ewing kept up his firing until he could make out that Patriots were approaching. The v. Knyphausen regiment was forming on Second Street and was the logical unit to resist any attack coming from the River Road.
Volprecht’s detachment with its two guns followed Lt. Fischer’s detachment east on Fourth Street from the Methodist church into the field north and east of the Quaker lane. Lt. Fischer’s detachment was falling back from its earlier engagement and picked up the v. Lossberg detachment as it passed by. It took longer for the v. Lossberg artillery detachment to prepare for the battle because the horses had to be collected, harnessed, hitched, and the guns limbered. Fischer testified that the “cannon were unhorsed, and the horses unharnessed and brought back again into the stable” from the cancelled early morning patrol.[ii] For the morning patrol the horses had been hitched and guns limbered at 4:00 am but the patrol was cancelled so the men/horses/limber/guns were brought back to the Methodist church and waited for sunrise to unhorse.
The infantry of the v. Lossberg and Rall regiments followed Volprecht’s detachment into the field. It was in this field that these two regiments would form a line for battle. While waiting for the v. Lossberg regiment to form Volprecht was ordered by Lt. Weiderhold, “Artillery men, come here with the cannon” meaning they were to join the v. Knyphausen regiment.[iii] The v. Knyphausen regiment was on Second Street heading to the open field just east of Trenton and away from the Assunpink bridge. Volprecht and his v. Lossberg artillery detachment moved south on Quaker lane, linked up with the v. Knyphausen regiment, and set up his gun position facing threats coming from Trenton. The following map presents Trenton as it was in 1776.[iv]
While this was happening on the Hessian side, the right wing of the Patriot forces was moving east on River Road. General Sullivan rushed two of his brigades toward the Assunpink bridge. Neil’s battery with Sargent’s brigade and Sargent’s battery with Glover’s brigade made it to the bridge and across. Glover’s brigade with Sargent’s battery continued along the Assunpink creek to cut off possible exits for the v. Knyphausen regiment. St Clair’s brigade was moving east on Second Street with Moulder’s (three four-pounders) and Hugg’s artillery (two three-pounders).
Hessian Bombardier Volprecht testified that he fired his gun five times and the other gun fired one time.[v] One of those six shots hit the fore horse of one of Hugg’s three-pounder guns as they advanced in support of Patriot St. Clair‘s brigade. John Greenwood, a fifer in the 15th Continental, recorded that one of Hugg’s guns had the fore horse shot by a Hessian three-pounder gun, ”the ball from which struck the fore horse that was dragging our only piece of artillery, a 3-pounder. The animal, which was near me … was struck in its belly and knocked over on its back. While it lay there kicking the cannon was stopped.”[vi] That was the only hit scored by the Hessian artillery that day. St. Clair’s brigade with Col. Stark’s infantry in the lead applied great pressure causing the v. Knyphausen regiment to pull back farther east. Volprecht’s artillery detachment pulled back with the regiment.
As the Hessian artillery detachment pulled back east disaster struck both guns. Volprecht had been ordered into a valley without the ground being checked. Both guns got stuck in the mud. The rest of the battle the men of the artillery, with some aid from nearby infantry, was spent trying to extract the guns from the mud. One gun was extracted just before the surrender, the other gun was extracted after the battle was over.
Mud ended the third artillery engagement. The battle at Trenton was over. The Patriots had a great victory. What is shocking was the limited number of shots from the Hessian artillery. The Rall artillery detachment fired twelve solid shot and one grape, the v. Knyphausen artillery detachment fired “seven or eight shots,” and the v. Lossberg artillery detachment fired six shots.[vii] These few shots lend support for how quickly the Patriots won the Battle of Trenton.
Sources:
[i] William S. Stryker, The Battles of Trenton and Princeton (The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898), 388
[ii]Hessian Documents of the American Revolution, Morristown National Historical Park, ML, The Affair at Trenton Dec. 26, 1776, English Translation, ML 337
[iii] Hessian Documents of the American Revolution, Morristown National Historical Park, ML, The Affair at Trenton Dec. 26, 1776, English Translation, ML 277
[v] Hessian Documents of the American Revolution, Morristown National Historical Park, ML, The Affair at Trenton Dec. 26, 1776, English Translation, ML 277
[vi] John Greenwood, Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775-1783, 40-41. “the first intimation I received of our going to fight was the firing of a 6- pound cannon at us, the ball from which struck the fore horse that was dragging our only piece of artillery a 3-pounder.” Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/revolutionaryser00gree/page/38/mode/2u
[vii] Hessian Documents of the American Revolution, Morristown National Historical Park, ML, The Affair at Trenton Dec. 26, 1776, English Translation, ML 341
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historians Karl G. Elsea and William W. Welsch
1778 sketch-map drawing of Battle of Trenton by Lt. Fischer (courtesy of William S. Stryker, The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1988, page128)
The v. Knyphausen artillery detachment:
Lieutenant Friedrich Fischer was about 37 years old and had about 20 years military experience. He was the senior artillery officer in Trenton. For administrative purposes he saw to the needs of the men, and horses, and equipment for the artillery in Trenton. However, for tactical considerations he was a detachment commander to two three-pounder field guns and crews and horses and equipment assigned to support the v. Knyphausen Regiment. He was to follow their orders unless overridden by the Brigade leader, Colonel Rall. Lt. Fischer never made it to his assigned regiment. The reason was the rapid advance by the Patriots on all fronts.
Each regiment of the Hessians as they came to Trenton in mid-December was assigned a significant building, usually a church, to form its “center of gravity.” The v. Knyphausen regiment was assigned the Presbyterian church, the Jagers were assigned the Old Stone Barracks, the v. Lossberg regiment the English church, the dragoons were assigned the Quaker meeting house, and the Rall regiment several taverns. The Artillery was assigned the Methodist church at the northeast corner of Queen Street and Fourth Street. Thus, the artillery horses, harness, and limbers were at the Methodist church for the three detachments. Three of the neighboring houses to the Methodist church each contained the men for an artillery detachment.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 