And now the lad in Brownsburg rose to the situation. There were Germans on the opposite bank, a great host of them, making ready to cross the Delaware. General Wood must know this at once—he must come at once. They say that freckle-faced Marshall Frissell, fifteen years old, on a mad motorcycle, covered the twenty miles to Ft. Hill, Pa., where General Wood had his headquarters, in fifteen minutes, and that by seven o’clock troop trains and artillery trains were moving toward the north, winding along the Delaware like enormous snakes, as Leonard Wood, answering the children’s call, hastened to the rescue.
I dwell upon these minor happenings because they came to my knowledge, and because the main events of the four days’ battle of Trenton are familiar to all. In spite of the overwhelming superiority of the Germans in men and artillery, the American army, spread along a twelve-mile front on the hills opposite Lambertville, made good use of their defensive position, and for three days held back the enemy from crossing the river. In fact, it was only on the evening of the third day, June 21, that von Hindenburg’s engineers succeeded in completing their pontoon line to the Pennsylvania shore. Again and again the floating bridge was destroyed by a concentrated shell fire from American batteries on the ridge a mile and a half back from the river.
American aeroplanes contributed effectively to this work of resistance by dropping explosive bombs upon the pontoons; but, unfortunately, German aeroplanes outnumbered the defenders at least four to one, and soon achieved a mastery of the sky.
A brilliant air victory was gained by Jess Willard, volunteer pilot of a swift and powerful Burgess machine, over three Taubes, the latter attacking fiercely while the champion prize-fighter circled higher and higher, manoeuvring for a position of advantage. I shall never forget the thrill I felt when Willard swooped down suddenly from a height of eight thousand feet, and, by a dangerous turn, brought his machine directly over the nearest German flier, at the same time dropping a fire bomb that destroyed this aeroplane and hurled the wreck of it straight down upon the two Taubes underneath, striking one and capsizing the other with the rush of air. So the great Jess, by his daring strategy, hurled three of the enemy down to destruction, and escaped safely from the swarm of pursuers.
On the fourth day, the Germans—thanks to an advantage of three to one in artillery pieces—succeeded in crossing the Delaware; and after that the issue of the battle was never in doubt, the American forces being outnumbered and outclassed. Two-thirds of General Wood’s army were either militia, insufficiently equipped and half trained, or raw recruits. There were fifteen thousand of the latter who had volunteered within a fortnight, loyal patriots ready to die for their country, but without the slightest ability to render efficient military service. These volunteers included clerks, business men, professional men from the cities of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, thousands of workmen from great factories like the Roebling wire works, thousands of villagers and farmers, all blazing with zeal, but none of them able to handle a high-power Springfield rifle or operate a range-finder or make the adjustments for the time-fuse of a shell.
{Illustration: THE PEOPLE KNEW THE ANSWER OF VON HINDENBURG. THEY HAD READ IT, AS HAD ALL THE WORLD FOR MILES AROUND, IN THE CATACLYSM OF THE PLUNGING TOWERS. NEW YORK MUST SURRENDER OR PERISH!}
“They shot away tons of ammunition without hitting anything,” said one of the American officers to me. “They didn’t know how to use wind-gauges or elevation-sights. They couldn’t even pull a trigger properly.”
And yet, the Germans suffered heavily in that desperate battle of the fourth day—partly because they attacked again and again in close formation and were mowed down by American machine-guns; partly because General Wood had fortified his position with miles of wire entanglements through which high-voltage electric currents were sent from the power-house of the Newtown and Trenton trolley systems in Newtown, Pennsylvania; and, finally, because the American commander, in an address to his troops, read at sunset on the eve of battle, had called upon them in inspiring words to fight for their wives and children, for the integrity of the nation, for the glory of the old flag.
And they fought until they died. When the battle was over, the Americans had lost 15,000 out of 70,000, while the Germans lost 12,000 out of 125,000. Von Hindenburg himself admitted that he had never seen such mad, hopeless, magnificent courage.
Again General Wood faced defeat and the necessity of falling back to a stronger position. For weeks thousands of labourers had been digging trenches north of Philadelphia; and now the American army, beaten but defiant, retreated rapidly and in some disorder through Jenkintown and Bristol to this new line of intrenchments that spread in fan shape from the Schuylkill to the Delaware.