Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

Author:David Hackett Fischer [Fischer, David Hackett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), Military, General, Biography & Autobiography, Americas (North; Central; South; West Indies)
ISBN: 9780199756674
Google: Oreq1YztDcQC
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

The Death of General Hugh Mercer, a sketch by John Trumbull (1786). The defiant American leader refused British orders to surrender and was bayoneted on the battlefield. Here again Trumbull’s sketches were more dynamic and more true to the event than his finished paintings. Princeton University Library.

Mawhood watched for the right moment, then ordered his regiment to charge bayonets. The British infantry came forward into the orchard, emerging from clouds of white powder-smoke with their blood-red coats and long bayonets, full of rage and fury. Mercer’s riflemen had no bayonets. They had stood bravely against musketry and artillery, but in the face of a British bayonet charge they recoiled in confusion. Mercer’s gray horse was hit, then Mercer himself. As he went down, he cried, “Retreat!” Many of his men fell back, but Mercer was caught by British troops. One knocked him down with a musket-butt, inflicting a mortal blow. Mercer was handsomely uniformed, even to a cravat, and the British infantry thought they had taken Washington. They gathered round him, and one shouted, “Call for Quarters, you damned rebel.” Mercer replied defiantly, “I am no rebel.” He refused to surrender and lunged at the British troops with his sword. They bayoneted him many times, and one cried, “Damn him he is dead. Let us leave him.”23

Delaware’s Colonel Haslet stepped forward to replace Mercer and tried to rally the brigade. He was shot dead with a bullet through his brain. Captain Fleming of Virginia was killed, and Captain Neil of the New Jersey artillery died working his gun. The American infantry lost their leaders and were shattered by the bayonet charge. They broke and ran, with the British infantry after them. British Captain William Hale remembered, “at length we drove them through the railings, barns and orchards.”24

More Americans were now coming on the field. Cadwalader’s Pennsylvania Associators hurried forward and began to deploy from a marching column to a fighting line. As they did so, the retreating survivors of Mercer’s brigade ran headlong into them, and Cadwalader’s line came apart. Some of the Associators began to fall back; others broke and ran. The British Captain Hale saw that Cadwalader’s entire command “fell into confusion.” He wrote, “I am convinced that had the other [British] brigade been with us we might have defeated the whole American army.”25

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