his sympathy with them immediately after their
surrender. Stirling, who had but recently been exchanged
after his capture on Long Island, told the officers that
visited him that Heister had treated him like a brother,
and that so would he treat them. He accompanied
them on their visit to General Washington, and
invited several of them to dinner.[1] Washington paid
the same politeness to some of the others. One of his
guests has left in his journal the record of the impression
made on him by the most famous of Americans:
“This general does not show in his face the greatness
with which he is generally credited. His eyes have
no fire, but the smiling character of his expression
when he speaks inspires affection and respect.”
Wiederhold writes: “On the 28th, as I said, I dined, as did several other officers, with General Washington. He did me the honor of talking a great deal with me, about the unlucky affair, and as I freely told him my opinion that our arrangements had been bad, otherwise we should not have fallen into his hands, he asked me if I could have made a better arrangement, and how. Thereupon I said yes; mentioned all the faults that had been committed, and showed what I should have done, and how I would have got out of the scrape with honor. He not only applauded this, but made me a complimentary speech on the subject, as also on my
- ↑ Stirling told the Hessian officers that the Americans at Trenton were “not stronger than six thousand men, and had fourteen cannon and two howitzers with them.” This expression may have been used to mislead the Germans. The Americans at Trenton, according to Bancroft, numbered but twenty-four hundred men, veterans chiefly of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and Washington's whole army in Pennsylvania at the time only sixty-two hundred effective men. See also p. 92, note.
