Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/105

well at Chatterton Hill, where the American right wing had been turned, and the fate of the day decided, by his brigade. He had taken a leading part in the storming of Fort Washington. The same adventurous spirit which in former years had led him to join the Russians under Orloff as a volunteer to fight against the Turks, served him on those occasions. The ease with which he had seen victories won, since he had come to America, had filled him with an overweening confidence. The ragged wretches who had been driven across New Jersey might capture a patrol or drive in a picket, but were, he thought, quite incapable of a serious attack on a Hessian brigade. “Earthworks!” said he with an oath to Major von Dechow, who came to advise him to fortify the town; “only let them come on! We'll meet them with the bayonet;” and when the same officer requested him to have some shoes sent from New York, he replied that that was all nonsense. He and his brigade would run barefoot over the ice to Philadelphia, and if the major did not want to share the honor, he might stay behind. General Grant, the English general commanding in New Jersey, shared Rall's contempt for the rebels, and when the latter proposed to him to send a detachment to Maidenhead, to keep open the communication between Princeton and Trenton, replied scornfully that he could bridle the Jerseys with a corporal's guard. Von Donop, who commanded at Bordentown, sent a captain of engineers to Trenton to induce Rall to allow the place to be fortified, but the latter was obstinate. Earthworks were unnecessary, he said. The rebels were good-for-nothing fellows. They had landed below the bridge several times