4/26/00 1:30 p.m.
A Fine Fox Chase
With the leadership of Washington, the battle-weary revolutionaries send the British fleeing.

By Richard Brookhiser, NR senior editor, from his book, Founding Fathers

British sergeant, later taken prisoner, said the men in Princeton "felt as safe as if we had been in the kingdom of heaven." So it was a surprise when several hundred British grenadiers, leaving town to join the main army in Trenton, encountered a smaller party of American riflemen coming toward them. The two units met in an orchard. "Dress [line up] before you made ready," an American officer shouted. "Damn you, we will dress you," the enemy answered. British infantry tactics relied on bayonets rather than firepower, since a well-disciplined soldier could outrun the range of a musket in the time it took an enemy to reload. So it was now: after the first volleys, the British charged and came upon the Americans before they could get off a second shot. General Hugh Mercer, the American senior officer, was bayoneted seven times; Lieutenant Bartholomew Yeates of the 1st Virginia regiment was stabbed thirteen times. The surviving Americans fell back from the orchard to a second road, where they ran into the main body of their own army coming up. Fresh troops and bloodied troops milled in confusion.

Now the "noble horse" and its rider, so stolid the night before, were all in motion. Washington put his troops in line, then led them toward the British. "Parade with me, my brave fellows," one remembered him calling. When they were thirty yards away, he gave the command to fire. Colonel John Fitzgerald, a staff officer, pulled his hat over his eyes, lest he see Washington fall. When he pulled it away, the British line had broken and Washington was unhurt. Fitzgerald wept with relief; Washington clasped his hand, then rode after the fleeing British, crying, "It's a fine fox chase my boys."