Many know of Bordentown’s role during the American Revolution. The town was the home of several Revolutionaries of the age ranging from men of state and letters to soldiers and spies.
The town itself came under fire at least three times, the first of which came during those dark, uncertain weeks at the end of 1776. This was the time that tried men’s souls, when the Cause looked like a ruinous venture, and the days were being counted until the inevitable defeat of General George Washington’s tattered army came to pass.
Most patriotic residents had fled town by Dec. 9. Washington’s army had crossed the Delaware River from Trenton and was busy assessing their next move, finding solace in very little. Detachments foraged and established posts at the ferry landings while others secured every boat and object that floated to prevent them falling into the wrong hands.
From the Pennsylvania riverside, Americans spied the foreign visitors now filing into Bordentown. These were those German mercenaries whose reputations proceeded them so resoundingly that Americans convinced themselves the Hessians were not humans, but monsters.
Despite having lost an eye in a drunken duel with a fellow officer, Captain Johann Ewald took offense to such labels.
In command of the second company of the Jägers (imagine the Green Berets of the German army), Ewald arrived in America in October, saw action at White Plains and Fort Washington, and was now part of Colonel Carl von Donop’s brigade that sought to occupy northern Burlington County. Reading Ewald’s wartime diary (which I recommend) is a pleasure.
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As thorough as it is, one incident is conspicuously absent: that time he notarized a book belonging to Bordentown’s own Francis Hopkinson. While not found in Ewald’s diary, the incident is found within Major E.M. Woodward’s voluminous 1883 A History of Burlington County, New Jersey. Hopkinson, then part of the Continental Congress, was not home.
Over the course of the second and third weeks of December, a large portion of the Hessian brigade occupied Bordentown, including the Minnigerode grenadier battalion and Col. Donop himself.
As a Jäger captain, Ewald was often sent on horseback to patrol the countryside and would then return to report. It appears on Dec. 16 during some down time, he ventured into the house of Hopkinson.
Exactly what followed is unknown. But picking through the delegate’s library, the Hessian apparently grabbed a copy of William Smith’s Discourses on Public Occasions in America. For his amusement, according to the account given by Oliver Hopkinson, the grandson, Ewald wrote on the book’s fly leaf: “I Ewald, plundered on the 16th Dec., 1776, at Bordentown.”
The book had been a gift from its author in November 1764 and endorsed by Smith himself. At some point, the book was returned, and Francis Hopkinson completed the passage with, “This Book was taken from my Library by a Hessian Captain, when the Hessian Troops were in possession of Bordentown, in the year 1776, and was afterwards given to a person in Philadelphia, who returned it to me, F.H.”
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The next part of this story needs scrutiny. According to Woodward’s history, Ewald had written the following among the Hopkinson coat of arms (printed within the book’s contents): “The author of this book I had the happiness to become acquainted with on the 24th September, near Philadelphia, where he possessed a fine country seat. He is rector of the university of the city.” Then, below the coat of arms, Ewald finished, “This man [Hopkinson] was one of the greatest rebels, but considering his carefully selected library, mechanical and mathematical instruments, I concluded he must also have been a very learned man.”1
Ewald had not yet landed in America on Sept. 24, 1776. However, he did meet William Smith. Ewald’s journal entry for Oct. 3, 1777 finds the two sharing a late afternoon walk through Smith’s property in Philadelphia.
Ewald’s detachment was enjoying several days rest posted there. Admitting his loyalties lay with America, according to Ewald, Smith said, “You have shown me that humanity which each soldier should not lose sight of. You have protected my property. I will show you that I am grateful. You stand in a corps which is hourly threatened by the danger of the first attack when the enemy approaches. Friend, God bless your person! The success of your arms I cannot wish.—Friend! General Washington has marched up to [Norristown] today! —Adieu! Adieu!”2
Ewald admits it took him a moment to process what was told to him; he promptly returned to headquarters to pass along the information. This turned out to be the first intelligence the British army received about Washington’s position.
The following day, the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Germantown. Quite remarkable that this short, seemingly harmless conversation may have alerted the British to Washington’s pending attack the next morning.
So it’s plausible Capt. Ewald and Mr. Smith did meet on Sept. 24 in 1777. One might speculate that Ewald, upon meeting him, handed over the book he stole from Hopkinson’s library.
It’s not unlikely that the brief camaraderie the two shared played a role. Perhaps the officer finished reading it in his spare time and no longer desired to lug it around? Or perhaps he returned the book as a thank you for the small piece of critical intelligence?
My guess is the book found its way back to Hopkinson from these days Ewald’s Jägers occupied Smith’s house. And despite remaining enemies, the haphazard trust Smith endured with Ewald shows that the Hessian Ewald, who alternated between wearing an eye patch and a glass eye, was no monster after all.
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1. Major E.M. Woodward, History of Burlington County, New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Philadelphia, 1883, 461-62.
2. Joseph P. Tustin; Captain Johann Ewald, Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal, Yale University Press, 1979, 92.
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Adam Zielinski is president of the Rev War Alliance of Burlington County.
