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together, and no rebel would have the courage to attack him. Indeed a man wonderfully well fitted for the command of a corps and a brave one to defend a town! One who lies so near to the enemy who has one hundred advantages over him!-He did everything without any thought or deliberation. As a proof may serve this incident: Once the Colonel sent a letter, which had perhaps nothing of importance in it, to Gen. Leslie in Princeton by two dragoons who were shot at in the woods by a stray party of the enemy or perhaps only by some farmers, and one of them was killed while the other returned to report the occurrence. (This happened about three miles from Trenton on the road to Maidenhead.) The Colonel on hearing of this at once ordered out a Captain, three officers and 100 men with a gun and the necessary artillerymen (I was with the latter) only to carry this letter to Princeton. It was exceedingly bad weather, too. We delivered our letter, slept that night on the bare ground, and returned the next morning without having seen or heard anything. The English laughed at us, and truly it was laughable; a simple non-commissioned officer with 15 men would have been sufficient to do this errand, as the entire distance between the two garrisons was only 16 miles.

"When we were on the night march from Kingston to Maidenhead, Major von Dechow reported to the Colonel that many men were straggling behind, begging him to order that a halt be made, thus to give them time to join us again. Then the Colonel answered, they would come up soon enough, that he wanted to go ahead even if he could only get half of the men along with him. Thus it happened that still during all the following day men of his regiment arrived. Wherever the enemy created a false alarm there he would surely post plenty of forces; but those points where a real attack might be expected and where indeed it took place in the end, were left entirely out of consideration. A non-commissioned officer with 20 men was posted on the road where the attack was made. This post was reconnoitred the evening before by a hostile party

under command of a Captain who had strict orders from Gen. Washington not to engage in any fighting in case they should be discovered, but instead to retreat in the greatest possible silence. This Captain, however, may have imagined he was showing great courage by attacking, which he did, wounding 4 or 5 men of this non-commissioned officer's post. Thus the entire garrison became aroused and ordered under arms and a division of Rall's regiment was sent out to see what was going on. But that was all he did, outside of sending me with 9 more men and one non-commissioned officer as a reinforcement of this post. That division had already returned before I reached the post, consequently it had not been very far out. A vigilant commanding officer would have sent out reconnoitering parties to search all the roads as far as the river as well as the ferries, in order to find them either all quiet and peaceful or to discover the enemy and not to come home before that would have been accomplished. This would have revealed the entire affair and would have given an entirely different turn to it. As soon as I came to my post, I detailed seven pickets as well as I could manage it during the night; I had patrols after patrols walk about, thus to protect myself from any surprises.

"The night passed quietly and when it may have been an hour after daybreak and my day's patrol had already returned and reported that all was quiet, and the Jägers, who stood below me had already withdrawn their night-posts, I was suddenly attacked from the side of the woods on the road to John's Ferry and if I had not just stepped out of my little guard-house and seen the enemy, they might have been upon me before I had time to reach for my rifle, as my sentinels did not keep a very sharp lookout any more as it was broad daylight, and the advance-guard did not expect the enemy from that direction but rather in the line of Capt. Brubach's picket, which had not returned yet. I was thus quickly under arms and awaited the approach of the enemy with fortitude, thinking that it was merely a skirmishing party. They charged with three rounds of rifle fire me and my 17 men, who stood still under their arms.

After the third discharge I gave the order to fire and fought with them until I was almost surrounded by several battalions. I accordingly retreated under constant firing until I reached the Altenbockum company, which had rallied during my engagement and had taken up a position straight across the street in front of the Captain's quarters. I posted myself at their right wing and together we charged the enemy, but we were again forced to retreat in the same manner as before, so as not to be cut off from the garrison. Nobody came to see what was going on, no one came to our assistance with reinforcements, and yet Rall's regiment had that night its turn to be on the watch. I took up my position in front of one of the first houses of the town and fired at the enemy who was just forming in battle order on the upper side of the town. Only at this juncture the Brigadier made his appearance and he seemed to be quite dazed. I considered it my duty to report what had happened outside of the town, as he was ignorant of everything; so I told him all I knew and what I had seen; I said that the enemy were strong in numbers, that they were not alone above the town, but also on both sides of it, so that he might take the matter seriously and not consider it a bagatelle. He asked how strong the enemy were. I answered that I could not possibly tell that with accuracy as I had had to look after my men, however I had seen about 4 or 5 battalions advancing from the woods and from three of these I had withstood the firing before I had abandoned my post. He now shouted to his regiment: 'Forward, March, Advance! Advance!' and he tottered back and forth without knowing what he was doing. Thus we lost the few favourable moments we might still have had in our hands to break through the enemy in one place or another with honour and without losses; but as it was we were surrounded before we had time to get outside of Trenton.

"The Colonel moved with his regiment to the right of the town under the apple-trees, intending only to charge the enemy on the Princeton road. But when he was re

minded, I do not know by whom, of the loss of the baggage left behind in the town, he changed his mind and with his own regiment and that of Lossberg he attacked the city which he had just left. What madness this was! An open town which was useless to us and which he had only ten or fifteen minutes ago left of his own free will and which was now filled with three or four thousand of the enemy and then to attempt to take it back again with from six to seven hundred men, bayonet in hand from behind the houses, the fences and walls. A man of a little common sense and of very small experience in the business can here see his weakness. For the following mistakes he cannot be forgiven:

"That he was ignorant of the enemy's approach, who had had to cross in great force so large a river, covered with large cakes of ice, which crossing had been accomplished with great hardships and had lasted 16 hours, as he surely had been warned by several persons and must have had wind of it, so to speak.

"That after the attack on the picket during the previous night, which ought to have been warning enough, he did not instantly send strong pickets to reconnoitre the ferries and the woods, to discover the enemy, and that during that time he had not given orders to have all the baggage packed and ready to start on the road thus to relieve himself of all unnecessary baggage and delay.

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF DR. JAMES
CLITHERALL, 1776.

[In April of 1776 Dr. James Clitherall left Charleston, South Carolina, as escort to Mrs. Arthur Middleton and Mrs. Edward Rutledge, who were to join their husbands in Philadelphia, where they were attending Congress. We have selected those portions of the diary which relate to the doctor's sojourn in Philadelphia and New York, and omit the incidents of travel en route.-ED. PENNA MAG.]

"May 13.-We reached the Schuylkill early in the afternoon, from whence we had an agreeable prospect of several country seats pleasantly situated on its banks and a view of Philadelphia. About dusk we ended our journey and took lodgings at Mrs. Yard's on Second street. I immediately waited on Mr. Duché and West, two of my best friends in Philadelphia, but was informed that the appearance of the King's Ships so far up the river made them hurry their families out of town.

"In this metropolis I had an opportunity of seeing the grand Continental Congress, a body of men to my knowledge not equaled in history; men who like Cincinnatus of old, have left their private occupations and taken temporary leave of their family affairs, and disregarded the tender emotions of matrimonial, paternal and filial piety, and bade adieu to the soft Couch of Luxury to serve three millions of free people, whose confidence they so much possess, that their advice alone has more weight than the laws of the most splended tyrant, decked with all the trappings of Royalty.

"I was visited by my quondam fellow collegians Coxe, Chew, Tilghman, Mifflin, Redman, Graydon and Hillegas, and a few days after by my most valued friend Mr. West, a gentleman who expressed the greatest pleasure at seeing me. Our joy was reciprocal. He was a second father to me while under his guardianship, and on many occasions showed the sincerest regard for my father. He left Mrs.

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