Having more soldiers doesn’t always mean having more usable fighting power.
At Fort Mercer on October 22, 1777, about 1,200 Hessian troops attacked roughly 500 American defenders under Christopher Greene.
On paper, the Hessians had more than twice the manpower.
But Greene controlled the battlefield.
The Hessians had to cross roughly 400 yards of open ground under fire before hitting an abatis of sharpened timber, followed by a ditch and palisades. These obstacles restricted the attack, forcing large numbers of Hessian troops into a narrow and exposed approach where they could not all engage effectively at once.
American artillery and infantry concentrated fire on the attackers reaching the defenses. Then Hessian commander Carl von Donop was wounded.
After roughly forty minutes, the Hessians withdrew.
The Americans didn’t defeat superior numbers by becoming stronger.
They changed the conditions under which those numbers could fight.
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