“Fertig! Hup!” cried a stocky little Bavarian sergeant, and the grim procession started.
At the four corners of the public green were companies of German soldiers with machine-guns trained upon dense crowds of citizens who had gathered for this gruesome ceremony, high-spirited New Englanders whose faith and courage were now to be crushed out of them, according to von Kluck, by this stern example.
Down Chapel Street with muffled drums came the unflinching group of American patriots, marching between double lines of cavalry and led by a military band. At Osborn Hall they turned to the right and moved slowly along College Street to the Battell Chapel, where they turned again and advanced diagonally across the green, the band playing Beethoven’s funeral march.
In the centre of the dense throng, at a point between Trinity Church and the old Centre Church, a firing squad of bearded Westphalians was making ready for the last swift act of vengeance, when, suddenly, in the direction of Elm Street near the Graduates’ Club, there came a tumult of shouts and voices with a violent pushing and struggling in the crowd. A messenger on a motorcycle was trying to force his way to the commanding officer.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted. “I’ve got a telegram for the general. Let me through! I will get through!”
And at last, torn and breathless, the lad did get through and delivered his message. It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read:
“Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating that his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg, with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American army north of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measures are taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, within twenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestor Frederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to death by a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard. In consequence of this I hereby countermand all previous orders for the execution of American hostages. (Signed) VON KLUCK.”
Like lightning this wonderful news spread through the crowd, and in the delirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germans scarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. The Crown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle of strategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup?
Here were the facts, as I subsequently learned. So confident of complete success was the American commander, that by twelve o’clock on the day of battle he had diverted half of his forces, about 30,000 men, in a rapid movement to the north, his purpose being to cross the Susquehanna higher up and envelop the rear guard of the enemy, with their artillery and commanding generals, in an overwhelming night attack. Hour after hour through the night of October 14th a flotilla of ferry-boats, cargo-boats, tugs, lighters, river craft of all sorts, assembled days before, had ferried the American army across the Susquehanna as George Washington ferried his army across the Delaware a hundred and fifty years before.
All night the Americans pressed forward in a forced march, and by daybreak the Crown Prince and his 3,000 men were caught beyond hope of rescue, hemmed in between the Susquehanna River and the projecting arms of Chesapeake Bay. The surprise was complete, the disaster irretrievable, and at seven o’clock on the morning of October 15th the heir to the German throne and six of his generals, including Field Marshal von Hindenburg, surrendered to the Americans the last of their forces with all their flags and artillery and an immense quantity of supplies and ammunition.