Kings Pinnacle (26 page)

Once again, no one stepped
forward at first, but suddenly Robert, who was standing in the
first row of the men in the Second Mass, glanced at Hugh, raised
his rifle into both hands in front of him, cocked his flintlock,
and stepped forward, with Hugh stepping forward almost at the same
time. For a few seconds no one else stepped forward, then the
Longhunter stepped forward, followed by Big Mike Finn and most of
the men in the army. General Washington was greatly relieved and
very thankful for the volunteers and the show of
support.

“The victory at Trenton a
few days ago has given our entire country heart, and to our
fighting spirit; it has provided a rallying cry to all the rebels
in the colonies. Before that victory, it looked like we were about
to collapse. Let not the cause of liberty go unheeded. Now we
proceed to defeat the British again,” concluded General Washington
with his sword held aloft.

“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”
shouted the men of the Continental Army.

* * * *

Samuel

“
I want you to get your
cloak on and go to Princeton. Find the commander of the British
forces there and give him this message from the Prophet. General
Washington plans on defending Trenton just south of Assunpink
Creek,” said Samuel to the young woman.

“Oh, sir, it’s a long way to
Princeton. I have never been there before, and it’s much too cold
outside,” said Molly.

“It’s only eleven miles from
Trenton to Princeton, and Trenton is just across the river about
two miles from here. You can cross the river on the Trenton Ferry
and then walk north on the Old Princeton Road out of Trenton. After
you pass Maidenhead, you will find Princeton just five miles
further north on the road. The cold shouldn’t bother a young
healthy girl like you with your cloak on; however, your sister
could freeze to death out in the cold if she didn’t have the proper
clothing on,” replied Samuel as he sneered at Molly.

Molly ducked her head and
looked at the ground. She knew that she was defeated. Samuel
continued holding her sister Maggie as a hostage. He was using
Molly’s love for her sister as leverage, and Molly couldn’t do
anything about it.

“Who is the commander of the
British forces that I should deliver the message to?” asked Molly,
who feared that Samuel would follow up on the veiled threat to her
sister.

“The British commander in
Princeton was General James Grant, but I don’t know if he is still
the commander there now. You’ll just have to get there and find
out,” said Samuel.

Molly put her cloak on and
walked out of her tent to leave the camp, while Samuel walked back
to his tent to plot his next move.

As Molly crossed the
outskirts of the camp, Alex was coming out of the tent that he,
Robert, and Hugh now occupied. Alex saw her walking out of the camp
and recognized her immediately as the young woman he had questioned
at the Assunpink Bridge prior to the battle at Trenton. So he
followed her as far as the Trenton Ferry.

Molly thought she was being
followed as soon as she left the camp. She glanced behind her
several times during her walk to the Trenton Ferry, but she was not
able to see anyone behind her.

Alex couldn’t ride the ferry
with her because he was sure she would recognize him and clam up
when he questioned her or perhaps abort her mission. He decided to
follow her instead and see what she was about. He was forced to
wait until the ferry returned after depositing the passengers on
the other side of the river. After he crossed the Delaware River on
the ferry, he searched all of Trenton and could not find her
anywhere in or around the town. By the time Alex had finished
searching the town, Molly was already walking north past Maidenhead
on her way to Princeton.

Alex finally gave up the
search and returned to the camp. Now that he had seen her in
daylight, he had a better description of her. He described her to
Robert, Hugh, Big Mike and the Longhunter and told them to be on
the lookout for her and to let him know if she showed up in the
camp again.

* * * *

Alex

“
I think General
Washington has a plan for the upcoming battle that he hasn’t told
anyone about,” said Alex.

“
What would that plan be?”
asked Hugh.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t
told me either.”

“Then how do ye know he has
a plan?”

“I’m not sure. I sense it
more than anything else. General Washington has ordered the troops
to build a fortification parallel to the south bank of Assunpink
Creek, but that leaves the flanks, especially the right flank
unprotected. It’s not like General Washington to forget about any
details of a pending battle. So that’s why I think he must have
another plan,” replied Alex with a worried look.

“Weel lad, all I know is
that I am ten pounds richer than I was yesterday and that General
Washington is a man of his word,” said Hugh smiling at
Alex.

Alex and his men, including
Robert, Hugh, Big Mike, and the Longhunter, mounted their horses to
ride across on the Trenton Ferry and then north from Trenton along
the Old Princeton Road. Their job was to delay the British Army’s
advance all along the stretch of road from Maidenhead to Trenton,
as much as they possibly could with such a small force of men. At
Five Mile Run, just south of Maidenhead, Alex set up the first
ambush. He placed some of his riflemen in the trees and others at
concealed locations along the creek, where the British could not
see them from the road.

General Cornwallis had
arrived at Princeton with almost eight thousand British regulars
and Hessian troops. He left part of his forces in Princeton with
General Charles Mawhood and, taking the balance of his army, set
off for Trenton. His marching orders included a small detachment of
Hessian jagers and British light cavalry that were leading the way.
While General Cornwallis had been in Princeton preparing for
departure, a young woman was shown into his office by one of his
lieutenants.

“How may I be of assistance
to you, madam?” the general had asked once the young woman was
seated.

“Sir, are you the commander
of the British forces in Princeton?” asked Molly.

“Yes I am, madam. How may I
help you?” asked the affable general.

“I’m here to give you a
message from the Prophet.”

“Ah yes, the Prophet that I
have heard so much about.”

“The Prophet said to tell
you that General Washington plans to defend Trenton just south of
Assunpink Creek.”

“Thank you very much. I
suspected it to be the case. Is there anything else?”

“No that was the entire
message.”

The general stood,
indicating that the meeting was over, and pointed toward the door
with an open hand, indicating that Molly should show herself out of
the office. Molly left the general’s headquarters in Princeton,
satisfied that she had delivered the message. But she still had the
uneasy feeling that she was being followed. She had felt it very
strongly earlier in her journey before she left the camp and
boarded the Trenton Ferry but she didn’t feel it as strongly now
and that concerned her. So to elude any potential tail, Molly
decided to take a different route back to the camp. She walked west
out of Princeton on a trail toward the Delaware River. Following
that trail all the way to the River Road, she had turned south and
walked along the River Road all the way back to Trenton. It was a
bit out of the way, but Molly thought it was worth the extra time
and distance to throw off any follower. Molly took the Trenton
Ferry back across the river and returned to her tent. She did not
see anyone following her the entire time, so she had chalked up her
unease to nerves.

For the British commanders,
the information from their spy in the midst of the rebels, who
called himself the Prophet, had not shed much light on the military
situation. General Cornwallis didn’t modify his plan based on the
information. When General Cornwallis reached Maidenhead, he
detached Colonel Alexander Leslie with fifteen hundred men as a
reserve force and ordered them to remain there until the following
morning. Cornwallis, with the remaining fifty-five hundred men, set
out from Maidenhead for the final six miles to Trenton.

As soon as the Hessian
jagers and British light cavalry leading General Cornwallis’s army
came within range of the first ambush, Alex and his men opened
fire. The ambush caught the Hessians and British off guard,
throwing them into a state of confusion. British regular troops
were called up from the main unit to form a battle line, but by the
time they arrived, Alex and his troops had vanished. Alex and his
men had retreated after the first volley to take up a concealed
position in a heavily wooded area on the south bank of the
Shabakunk Creek. The British and Hessians finally realized that the
snipers had retreated. Their leaders got the army moving south
along the road again. They had wasted too much time getting
reorganized after the ambush, and as a result they were behind
schedule in their advance on Trenton.

When the leading elements of
the British troops crossed the bridge over the Shabakunk Creek,
Alex and his riflemen opened fire again at very short range. There
was no possibility they could miss, so several of the enemy
soldiers were killed outright. The British searched the woods for
an hour and could find no one. They finally gave up and once again
resumed their perilous march toward Trenton.

At each ambush point, Alex
and his men had evaporated into the woods like ghosts after the
initial volleys were fired. By the middle of the afternoon the
British had advanced to a ravine called Stockton Hollow, just a
half mile north of Trenton, where Alex and his men had set up yet
another ambush. By this time, the British had caught on to the
delaying tactic and attacked Alex’s men in force as soon as the
first volleys rang out. Alex and his men kept up the fight rather
than retreating and fell back slowly as they fought.

“Fall back into Trenton,
men. Use the houses for cover. We will fight them all the way
through Trenton back to the Assunpink Bridge!” yelled Alex as he
and his men slowly retreated.

The British kept coming at a
slower pace as Alex and his men continued to fall back to the
Assunpink Creek Bridge. At the end of the running battle, Alex got
all his troops across the bridge without losing a man or suffering
any serious wounds. By this time it was late afternoon, and the
British troops were weary from the march and from fighting Alex’s
men.

The British force attacked
the American position on the south bank of Assunpink Creek three
times before nightfall, but were repulsed each time. The bridge
over the Assunpink Creek was red with blood and the red cloaks of
the fallen British troops. When General Cornwallis finally arrived
in Trenton, it was fully dark. When he learned that the initial
attacks by the leading edges of the British forces had failed to
dislodge the Americans, he called a council of war, including all
his commanders, to decide a course of action.

Based on the recommendations
of his officers and his own opinion, General Cornwallis decided to
pull his troops back for the night to a position on a hill just
north of Trenton in order to rest his troops and feed them. He
decided he would attack General Washington and the Americans at
first light the next day and finish them off.

“We’ve got the old fox
cornered now. We’ll go over the bridge and bag him in the morning,”
said General Cornwallis to his officers as he dismissed the council
of war meeting.

Early the next morning,
General Cornwallis’s toilet routine was interrupted by one of his
lieutenants who entered his tent in a rush and out of
breath.

“
Sir, we have a disaster
on our hands,” cried the disheveled aide.

“What seems to be the
problem, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, when we attacked the
American positions across the Assunpink Creek Bridge this morning,
we found that the rebels have vanished!”

“The old fox has slipped out
of the bag,” muttered General Cornwallis to himself as he turned
aside from his aide to consider the situation.

The Continental Army and
General Washington had not exactly vanished. While General
Cornwallis’s aide was explaining the situation to him in his tent,
General Washington and the Americans were already attacking the
British positions in Princeton. At two o’clock that morning,
General Washington had assembled his staff officers and commanders
just south of the Assunpink Creek.

“Gentlemen, we are going to
evacuate our position here on the south bank of the Assunpink Creek
immediately. We will follow the creek bank eastward and then
northeast, circling around General Cornwallis’s army. We will ford
the creek about two miles from here where it is shallow, and march
north to Princeton to attack the British garrison there. Let us
march in absolute silence. Have your men wrap rags around their
guns to minimize noise, and absolutely no talking will be permitted
while we march,” said General Washington.

“
Lieutenant Mackenzie and
Captain McCoy, I would have a word with you,” said General
Washington.