Songs and ballads of the American Revolution

26 December 1776

Battle of Trenton

BATTLE OF TRENTON.1

Numerous songs, odes, epigrams and pasquinades, commemora
ting this battle, appeared during the war. We have several loyal
productions upon this subject ; but they are too profane and corrupt
for publication at the present time. The author of the one subjoined
is unknown. The Earl Dorset's lyric " Fire of Love," which was
very popular at the period of the Kevoluti n, is, probably, the song
upon which this was modelled.

BATTLE OF TRENTON.1

ON Christmas day in seventy-six,
Our ragged troops with bayonets fix'd,

BATTLE OF TRENTON. 151

In memory of that day.

1 Battle of Trenton. Curiosities of American Literature, byRufus
W. Griswold.

2 Some scampered there. " It is said some Hessian officers ami
other mercenaries, were greatly disturbed one morning, at Trenton,
when they waked up and found rebels knocking in their doors."

THE PROPHETIC EGG. 161

And when veracity again,
Shall in a Tory's bosom reign ;
When vice is virtue, darkness light,
And freemen are afraid to fight ;
When they forget to play the men,
And with the spirit of a hen,
Desert the just and sacred cause ;
And opening Heaven smiles applause
On such a bloody, barbarous foe,
Then I'll be conquered by a Howe.

1 Another prophecy. The credulity of the ignorant was often im
posed on by the advocates of both parties, during the revolution.
fihe following extract from a letter, written a short time after the
battle at Trenton, will explain itself. u '1 he enemy appear to be
panic-struck in the extreme. God prospers our arms in an extraor
dinary manner. There is to be an eclipse of the sun to-day, and we
mean, if possible, to attack the Germans as soon as it begins, and
take advantage of their ignorant superstition."

10 intern.

TO BRITAIN.

1777.

This song " was sung before General Sullivan and a few respecta
ble gentlemen, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after the battle of
Trenton."

GENERAL SULLIVAN'S SONG.