Re-enactors Mark Battle of Trenton

TRENTON, N.J.: Cannoneers from a Colonial regiment trained the muzzle of their big gun down Broad Street, ignited its fuse and braced for the blast.

The gun erupted in a belch of fire, smoke and gunpowder packing before its echoing boom faded into the oohs and ahs of onlookers and a flurry of cell phone calls. "I'm in the middle of a war," quipped one woman over the phone to a friend. "Looks like they took out a lot of them with that one," she said, laughing. Hundreds of spectators, from the idle curious to the most serious history enthusiast, on Saturday gathered at Trenton's War Monument _ a ground zero of sorts for Gen. George Washington's first victory in the American Revolution 225 years ago.

Braving 39-degree weather, they watched about 1,000 Revolutionary War re-enactors replay the Dec. 26, 1776, victory over a garrison of Hessian soldiers hired by the British to help suppress the Colonial uprising.

As historians tell it, Washington's 2,400 troops had marched into Trenton after crossing the Delaware River on Christmas. At Warren and Broad streets' convergence, where the monument now stands, they began a skirmish that eventually left two dozen of the Germans dead, twice that number wounded, and netted the Continental Army nearly 900 prisoners.

"This was Washington's finest hour," said Todd Gerding of Richboro, Pa., in Bucks County, just across the Delaware. "If he didn't win, it would have been just a matter of time before he lost (the war)."

Gerding, a graphic artist, stood clad in the uniform of a Hessian junior officer. The 40-year-old, a descendent of a Hessian, began his involvement in re-enactments at age 9 as a drummer.

"People get immersed in the history. It's a way of studying history while playing the game," he said.

Saturday's event made for a spur-of-the-moment outing for Sean Gallagher's family. "The kids are kind of into the history," said Gallagher, a firefighter from Philadelphia, who brought his wife, Patricia, and sons Sean, 9, and Timothy, 7. "Hold your ears, Sean and Tim." Another cannon erupted. Behind the crowd, musket fire rang out as Colonists drove their foes down Warren Street.

Wolfgang Berker came from Dortmund, Germany, to watch the restaging of history. Berker, who participates in a Prussian regiment that re-enacts Napoleonic era battles, gave the Trenton skirmish high marks.

"All the units are very high standard, the uniforms authentic, very impressive," he said.

Berker got into re-enactments just as Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms released the Soviet Union's grip on East Germany.

"I was in a Battle of Waterloo in 1990. It was the first time we had East German re-enactors, the first time we shook hands with our East German brothers and sisters (dressed) in the old uniforms," he said.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 - ABC, Action News