Category: Trenton

Christmas Eve Laments 1944: No Silent Night in Bastogne

12/23/2014

Silent Night Memorial Chapel Oberndorf (Austria)

Part I: Lamentations

Silent night, Holy night

A replica Austrian chapel depicts the place of the initial 1818 performance of Stille Nacht (Silent Night). Two pious dudes had an idea for a Christmas Eve show; one had words, the other beats. The wordsmith was Josef Mohr, the man with the beats, Franz Xaver Gruber, played church organ. Stille Nacht was put together like most great things (out of necessity); Mohr had a midnight Christmas Eve performance and needed something new. Including guitar and choir accompaniment, the two crafted the performance that evening – and the show went on at midnight. In 2011, UNESCO declared Stille Nacht part of our intangible cultural heritage.

 All is calm, all is bright,
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child 

No Silent Night: The Christmas Battle for Bastogne, written by Leo Barron and Don Cygan (2012), is the story of a fulcrum battle in the German siege of Bastogne, Belgium, 20-27 December 1944. This German siege within the American Ardennes Counteroffensive hinged on a Christmas Day battle between US infantry, with the 101st Airborne on point, against German tanks, specifically, the feared Panzer and its three inches of steel plating. Tomorrow we’ll view the Christmas Day battle from one officer’s perseverance and patience, Lt. Colonel John T. Cooper. The colonel has a soldier’s day like Lt. James Monroe did in 1776 at the New Jersey Battle of Trenton. In 1776 it was German Hessians hired as mercenaries for the King of England to fight the Yankee Doodle Dandy rebels; in 1944 it was the last of Germany’s Jerries against more of those US rebel Yanks.

Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial (Belgium)

In Belgium (and not far from Bastogne) the Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial is the final resting place for 5,329 WWII US vets: 792 are buried as Unknowns. The memorial itself is grand; the rows of headstones providing background for an emboldened American eagle accompanied by three goddesses: Justice, Liberty and Truth. There are also thirteen stars for America’s founding, when thirteen independent states united to become one nation.

Holy infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
 Sleep in heavenly peace.

Lamentations are passionate expressions of grief or sorrow; they are illuminated wails. Barron and Cygan show their spirit, and the spirit of their book, by prefacing No Silent Night with a German officer’s Christmas night lamentation; the sorrow was chalked in a school after tomorrow’s 1944 Christmas Day battle. Seventy years on and the German’s sorrow rings eternal in its human, all too humanness: besieged by ruins, blood and death, the human nonetheless cries for – laments for – a vision of universal fraternity:

“Let the world never see such a Christmas night again!
To die, far from one’s children, one’s wife and mother, under the fire of guns, there is no greater cruelty.
To take away a son from his mother, a husband from his wife, a father from his children, is it worthy of a human being?
Life can only be for love and respect.
At the sight of ruins, of blood and death, universal fraternity will rise.”

This evening, pause in Peace for that holy infant, so tender and mild … in all of us.
~
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Part II Tomorrow: 70 years from Christmas Day 1944 ~ Perseverance, Patience and Victory in Bastogne.

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1776: “Major Wilkinson ~ This is a Glorious Day for our Country”

12/25/2013

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Christmas night passed and it became 26 December 1776. Lt. Monroe and the advance party securing the crossroad to Trenton kept watch – they watched night turn into dawn, daybreak and sunrise; then, under the adage better late than never, the left wing of the Continental Army appeared: the assault on Trenton was still on. His initial mission accomplished, Lt. Monroe quietly rejoined the Third Virginia; the man encountered at the crossroad – “Dr. Riker” – followed the rebels to Trenton.

There are numerous “General Washington” quotes used in Richard Hanser’s 1976 book, The Glorious Hour of Lt. Monroe, and they give readers a sense of “George” the person on this night in his life. This wasn’t just any mission for him or the army he commanded: it happened to be the mission – an “all-in” moment. Hanser’s quotes show us the George before he became George Washington the statue. The countersign “Victory or Death” for example; a General Knox is hefty joke while boarding the boat to cross the Delaware; a growl at Major James Wilkinson for delivering the mail at the wrong time; a command to “use the bayonet” if the gunpowder is wet; and there’s also the famous one as he’s told the last Hessian units have surrendered: “Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day for our Country.”

Battles have fulcrums. Trenton pivoted on two Hessian cannon commanding King Street. The Third Virginia, under the command of Captain William Washington (a second-cousin of George’s), charged and captured those cannon; moments later, Captain Washington is wounded and (suddenly) Lt. Monroe is the ranking officer of the regiment. Hanser quotes an older Monroe speaking in the dissociating third-person (154):

“The command devolved on Lieut. Monroe, who advanced in like manner at the head of the corps, and was shot down by a musket ball, which passed through his breast and shoulder. He was carried from the field …”

That’s James Monroe, future fifth president of the United States.

Hanser continues (154-5):

Three of his soldiers carried him to a room in a nearby house that had been commandeered as a field hospital. His wound was a bad one. The musket ball, in tearing through the chest and shoulder, had severed an artery. Blood spurted from the wound.

            “I would have bled to death,” Monroe said afterwards, “if this doctor had not been near and promptly taken up the artery.”

            The doughty Dr. Riker had accompanied Lieutenant Monroe and his unit not only along the whole march through that tempestuous night but right into the thick of the street fighting. And his prediction at the start that he might be able to help “some poor fellow” in case of trouble came true: the poor fellow turned out to be Lieutenant Monroe himself. Had the ruptured artery not been “taken up,” or surgically closed, at once, the future fifth president of the United States would have perished, at the age of eighteen, in a pool of blood on a slushy street in Trenton, New Jersey.

            Monroe, barely conscious and in great pain, was treated in the same room where William Washington’s wounds were also being tended. Dr. John Cochran, the future surgeon general of the Continental Army, was also in attendance in that primitive and improvised field hospital. Between the two dedicated doctors, Lieutenant Monroe’s wound was dressed and treated with as much skill and professional knowledge as the medicine of the time and place could provide.

            But the Hessian musket ball remained in his body for the rest of his life …

I have a new understanding and appreciation for the Monroe Doctrine – no European involvement in the Americas – given the fact the guy it’s named after had a European musket ball in his shoulder.

Monroe talked of Trenton and Lt. Monroe more in terms of duty than glory. Maybe he’d accept the phrase ‘the glory of duty’ as a way to describe his actions; there was something special about him that day – even General Washington saw it. Hanser ends his book with Washington’s opinion of our young lieutenant’s character: “I take occasion to express the high opinion I have of his worth. The zeal he discovered by entering the service at an early period, the character he supported in his regiment, and the manner in which he distinguished himself at Trenton, where he received a wound, induced me to appoint him to captaincy … He has in every instance maintained the reputation of a brave, active, and sensible American.”

James Monroe went on to serve the US in many ways; with that Hessian musket ball lodged in his shoulder though, it’s easy to imagine a teenager, a doctor and a particular moment in life – were never really that far away.

Bryan W. Brickner

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“Victory or Death” ~ George Washington’s 1776 Christmas Day Message

12/24/2013

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“Victory or Death” would have been in the minds of 18 year-old Lt. Monroe and the other soldiers crossing the Delaware River that night, 25 December 1776: the phrase was General Washington’s countersign for the attack on the British camp in Trenton. The now (mostly) nameless soldiers crossing with Lt. Monroe were part of the advance party; they were to secure and hold a crossroad.

This wasn’t the young lieutenant’s first combat; he was in battle against British Regulars at Harlem Heights in September (a Continental victory) and then again during a raid on Tories (Americans loyal to the crown) at White Plains in October (another victory). Those victories had little impact on the British advance – that happened at Trenton.

The 2,400 soldiers preparing for battle that Christmas day were the best the American’s had – or more accurately – about all they had. The British had run the Continentals across and out of New Jersey. Soldiers’ enlistments were expiring January 1 and there wasn’t enough of anything (like shoes, blankets and coats) and barely a revolution. In Trenton, protected by the river, was a British camp garrisoned by mercenaries: these were Hessians – professional soldiers the British crown ‘rented’ from German princes and deployed against Washington and the rebellion.

Richard Hanser’s 1976 book, The Glorious Hour of Lt. Monroe, is a biographical tale of revolutionary moments; Lt. Monroe’s big moment takes place on the 26th during the assault. What follows is an excerpt from Hanser’s book (p. 132-3); it’s in the first-person and it’s the voice of Lt. Monroe (50 years older) writing about that night and an encounter he had guarding the crossroad:

“After crossing the river I was sent with my command [a piece of artillery] to the intersection of Pennytown [now Pennington] and Maiden Head [now Lawrenceville] roads, with strict orders to let no one pass until I was ordered forward. Whilst occupying the position, the resident of a dwelling some distance up a lane had his attention directed to some unusual commotion by the barking of dogs. He came out in the dark to learn the cause, and encountered my command, and supposing we were from the British camp ordered us off.

“He was violent and determined in his manner, and very profane, and wanted to know what we were doing there on such a stormy night. I advised him to go to his home and be quiet, or I would arrest him. When he discovered that we were American soldiers, he insisted that we should go to his house and not stay out in the storm, and he would give us something to eat. I told him my orders were strict and we could not leave. When he returned to the house, he brought us some victuals.

“He said to me, ‘I know something is to be done, and I am going with you. I am a doctor, and I may help some poor fellow.’ When orders came for us to hasten on to Trenton, the doctor went with us.”

Let's pause here for tomorrow’s post ~ “Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day for our Country.”

Merry Christmas All ~ Peace-up!
Bryan W. Brickner

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Christmas Eve Laments 1944: No Silent Night in Bastogne

1776: “Major Wilkinson ~ This is a Glorious Day for our Country”

“Victory or Death” ~ George Washington’s 1776 Christmas Day Message

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