The Guns at the Crossroads

I was twenty-one years old and commanding two six-pound cannons at the junction of King and Queen Streets in Trenton, New Jersey. It was the morning of December 26, 1776, and my guns were the hinge on which the battle turned.

We had crossed the Delaware the night before in conditions that tested every man in the army. My artillery company — the New York Provincial Company of Artillery — had been with the army since the retreat from New York, and we had learned through hard experience how to move guns in bad conditions. But the crossing challenged even veteran artillerists. The Durham boats sat low in the water under the weight of the cannons, and the ice threatened to crush the hulls. Colonel Knox supervised the operation with his usual energy, his voice carrying over the wind and the grinding of the ice.

After the crossing, we marched nine miles through the storm. The guns had to be dragged on their carriages over icy roads, the wheels slipping and the horses struggling for purchase. The men of my company walked alongside the guns, steadying them on the downhill stretches and pushing on the uphills. By the time we reached the outskirts of Trenton, we were wet through, frozen, and exhausted. But the guns were ready.

General Washington's plan placed the artillery at the heads of Trenton's two main streets. Knox's guns dominated King Street from the north, while my company and others were positioned at the intersection of King and Queen Streets. The idea was simple: if we could command the streets with artillery, the Hessians would be unable to form their regiments into fighting formations. European infantry depended on precise drill and massed formations. Take away their ability to form up, and you take away their strength.

When the attack began, my men loaded canister and grapeshot — tin cans filled with musket balls that turned the cannons into enormous shotguns. We fired down the length of the streets, each discharge scattering a cloud of lead balls into any group of soldiers attempting to assemble. The effect was devastating. The Hessians could not form lines, could not bring their own artillery into action, could not mount the organized counterattack that their training demanded.

I stood behind my guns and directed the fire, adjusting the elevation and timing to maximize the effect. The street filled with smoke, and the concussion of each discharge shook the buildings on either side. Between rounds, I could see Hessian soldiers running from house to house, officers on horseback trying to rally their men, and American infantry closing in from the side streets. The combination of artillery fire from the street heads and infantry pressure from the flanks was more than the garrison could withstand.

The battle lasted less than an hour. My guns fired continuously throughout, and by the end the barrels were hot enough to singe wet gloves. When the Hessians surrendered, I felt a mixture of elation and exhaustion that I had never experienced before. We had done something extraordinary. A ragged army of hungry, freezing men had crossed a frozen river in a storm and defeated a garrison of professional soldiers.

I did not know then that the morning at Trenton would bring me to General Washington's attention, that within months I would be serving as his aide-de-camp, that the war would lead me to a life in government and finance. On December 26, 1776, I was a young captain standing behind his guns in the snow, watching the smoke clear over the streets of a small New Jersey town where the Revolution had just been saved.