Битва при Ассунпинк-Крик: Второе сражение за Трентон

1777 battle of the American Revolutionary War

The Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, was a battle between American and British troops that took place in and around Trenton, New Jersey, on January 2, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, and resulted in an American victory. Following the victory at the Battle of Trenton early in the morning of December 26, 1776, General George Washington of the Continental Army and his council of war expected a strong British counterattack. Washington and the council decided to meet this attack in Trenton and established a defensive position south of the Assunpink Creek. Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis led the British forces southward in the aftermath of the December 26 battle. Leaving 1,400 men under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood in Princeton, Cornwallis advanced on Trenton with about 5,000 men on January 2. His advance was significantly slowed by defensive skirmishing by American riflemen under the command of Edward Hand, and the advance guard did not reach Trenton until twilight. After assaulting the American positions three times and being repulsed each time, Cornwallis decided to wait and finish the battle the next day. Washington moved his army around Cornwallis's camp that night and attacked Mawhood at Princeton the next day. That defeat prompted the British to withdraw from most of New Jersey for the winter.

On the night of December 25–26, 1776, George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, crossed the Delaware River with his army, and attacked the Hessian garrison at the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26. The Hessian garrison was surrounded and quickly defeated. Washington crossed the river again and returned to his camp in Pennsylvania that afternoon. On December 30, Washington moved his army back to Trenton and stationed his men on the south side of the Assunpink Creek.

At Trenton, Washington faced a dilemma. All but a handful of his men's enlistments were expiring on December 31, and he knew that the army would collapse unless he convinced them to stay. So, on December 30, Washington appealed to his men to stay one month longer for a bounty of ten dollars. He asked any men who wanted to volunteer to poise their firelocks, but no man turned out. Washington then wheeled his horse around and rode in front of the troops, saying, "My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay only one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably never can do under any other circumstances."

On January 1, 1777, money from the Continental Congress arrived in Trenton, and the men were paid. Washington also received a series of resolves from Congress, including one that gave Washington powers similar to those of a military dictator. Washington decided that he would stand and fight at Trenton and ordered General John Cadwalader, who was at Crosswicks with 1,800 militia, to join him in Trenton. On December 31, Washington learned that an army of 8,000 men under the command of General Cornwallis was moving to attack him at Trenton. Washington ordered his men to build earthworks that were parallel to the south bank of the Assunpink Creek southeast of Trenton proper (near the modern location of the Trenton Transit Center). He rode to Princeton to catch up with General James Grant, who had moved with 1,000 troops to reinforce Princeton. Cornwallis arrived and was convinced by Grant and Carl von Donop to attack Trenton with their combined forces. On January 2, Cornwallis left part of his force there under the command of Charles Mawhood, and with 5,500 men, set off down the road to Trenton, 11 mile (18 km) away. Cornwallis's army had 28 cannon and marched in three columns. Two days before, Washington had troops under the command of Matthias Alexis Roche de Fermoy place an outer defensive line halfway between Trenton and Princeton to delay the British advance. As the British approached, Fermoy returned to Trenton, drunk. The American riflemen took cover in the woods, ravines, and even in bends in the road, and each time the British would line up in a battle line, the riflemen would fall back and fire from cover. After Hand was forced to abandon the American position along Five Mile Run, he took up a new position, a heavily wooded area on the south bank of Shabakunk Creek. As Hand's troops came to the creek, the Hessians charged at them with bayonets fixed, causing chaos among the Americans. Washington, seeing the chaos, rode out through the crowd of men crossing the bridge and shouted that Hand's rear guard pull back and regroup under the cover of the American artillery.

As the British prepared to attack the American defenses, cannon, and musket fire were exchanged between the opposing sides. Cornwallis' quartermaster general, William Erskine, urged Cornwallis to strike right away, saying, "If Washington is the General I take him to be, his army will not be found there in the morning." By 2 am on January 3, the army was on its way to Princeton. Washington left behind 500 men and two cannons to keep the fires burning and to make noise with picks and shovels to make the British think they were digging in.

Casualty estimates are widely divergent. Howard Peckham records the fighting on January 2 as two separate engagements, which he categorizes as "skirmishes". In the first, at Five Mile Run, he gives no American losses. In the second, at Stockton Hollow, he gives the American casualties as 6 killed, 10 wounded and 1 deserted. David Hackett Fischer gives the British casualties as 365 killed, wounded or captured. After a brief battle, the British there were decisively defeated, and a substantial number of the garrison under the command of Mawhood was captured. With their third defeat in ten days, Cornwallis' superior, General William Howe, ordered the army to withdraw from southern New Jersey and nearly back to New York. This they did, leaving forward positions at New Brunswick. Washington moved his army to Morristown for winter quarters.

The battle was commemorated on April 21, 1789, with a triumphal arch erected on the bridge over the Assunpink Creek during George Washington's reception at Trenton on his way to his first inauguration. In 1792, American artist, John Trumbull, painted the full length portrait of Washington, General George Washington at Trenton, showing him after the day's battle standing south of the bridge over the Assunpink Creek.