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Washington, once more in the depths of gloom, took a last look about at his gloomy army huddled in a grove of hickory and black oak, then gave the order:

"Shoulder firelocks!"

The muskets went up and slanted to the rear. Fortyeight hundred feet began to pound the snow on the mile march to the Bear Tavern at the crossroads. Three miles further on they reached the village of Birmingham.

Since he was so late and the men so fagged with their night's exposure and toil, Washington let them halt for a taste of breakfast from the three days' cooked rations they had brought along.

He himself, as Stryker says, "without dismounting. partook of the hospitality of Benjamin Moore." 3

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This one may assume to be a manner of saying that he had a mug of rum, a beaker of Madeira, or perhaps a tumbler of hot toddy. However preferable, it would be an anachronism to assume that he took a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, or even a dish of tea.

Word came back to Washington from General Sullivan up the line that the rain was ruining the muskets and soaking the powder. According to one of his staff, Washington sent back the answer:

"Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton." +

When the next command to march was given, many of the soldiers had to be wakened from heavy sleep into which they had fallen, half-dead from exhaustion.

The force had divided, hoping to meet again in Trenton, but with every assurance of a warm welcome.

The sun rose like a half-frozen farmer not yet able to warm himself and Washington, seeing it with dismay, called: "Press on, press on, boys!"

The storm of rain and sleet and hail and snow made

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shrapnel all the way. It was at the backs of the men, yet it was from the North and cooled the already chilly spines.

At six o'clock Lieutenant Piel went to Colonel Rall's door and knocked on it again and again. There was no answer. Either fear or tenderness convinced him that an extra hour of sleep would not harm the poor Colonel.

At seven o'clock he knocked again and accepted a defiant snore as an order to go away.

Unbeknownst to Washington, an American patrol had come still nearer than Lieutenant Piel to waking the Hessians to their danger. A small party of Virginians from General Stephen's brigade had been taken across the river the day before by Captain Richard Clough Anderson, to learn what it could. It did not get back, but, in the early morning of the 26th, approached Trenton and encountered a "Hessian sentinel, who was marching his post, bending his head down as he met the storm, which beat heavily in a driving snow."

He peered through the flakes, saw the Americans and made ready to challenge them, when they shot him down. They left him there when they fled and he died, bleeding and freezing, thinking perhaps that it was pretty hard to have been dragged from his home in Hesse and the Christmas trees there and the deep feather beds, only to perish here in the sleety rain at the hands of men he had hardly seen. He had no grudge against them save this death of his. Perhaps before his eyes glazed they caught a glimpse of a tall man lost in a cape blown forward, himself blown forward on a gale as strange and as fierce as this in the souls of his countrymen.

More probably, neither the Hessian boy nor the Virginian farmer knew of each other's existence.

As for the patrol that killed the Hessian sentinel, it fled toward McKonkey's ferry, where its members were dazed

to behold the American army advancing like ghosts formed out of snowflakes.

The patrol drew out into a field and was recognized as American before the advance guard fired into it. Captain Anderson's son described what followed:

"General Washington approached and asked who was in command and where he had been. I have frequently heard my father remark that he never saw Gen1 Washington exhibit so much anger as he did when he told him where he had been and what he had done. He turned to Gen1 S[tephen] and asked how he dared to send a patrol from camp without his authority, remarking:

""You, sir, may have ruined all my plans, by having put them on their guard.'

"He then addressed my father in a very calm and considerate manner and told him that as he and his men must be very much fatigued after such hard service, he should march in the van guard, where he would be less harrassed by the fatigue of the march." "

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Washington was afterwards glad that Anderson had unwittingly duped the Hessians into the belief that but a small American patrol was about, and he said so.

It was all of eight o'clock when Washington came to a house where a farmer chopping wood gaped at the sight of the troops. He was scared dumb when a huge officer galloped across to him to enquire:

"Can you tell me where the Hessian picket is? You need not be frightened, it is General Washington who asks the question."

His face brightened and he pointed to the distant house of a Mr. Howell, where the Hessians could be seen running out, shouting and firing. Their bullets passed over Washington's head. Two of the sentinels were captured. The others reached Captain Altenbockum's picket.

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