Rall's Headquarters

Johann Gottlieb Rall (ca. 1726 - December 26, 1776 ) was a German colonel in command of Hessian troops in Trenton, New Jersey. By 1776, Rall belonged to the infantry regiment of the 1st Division under General Phillip Leopold von Heister and commanded approximately 1,200 men fighting for Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War. He was at the Battle of Brooklyn at Flatbush, the Battle of White Plains, the Battle of Long Island, and figured prominently in the Battle of Trenton. At the Battle of Trenton, Rall was mortally wounded and taken back to his headquarters where he died.

"Rall’s head-quarters. This is a frame building standing upon Warren Street, opposite Perry, near the corner of Bank Alley. The buildings on the left are also of ante-Revolutionary origin. This house was a tavern at the time, kept by Stacey Potts, the grandfather of Stacey G. and Joseph C. Potts, Esqrs., of Trenton. In a pane of glass, in the front window on the left of the front door, lower story, may be seen a hole made by a bullet, shot during the battle. Colonel Rall died in the front room in the second story, immediately over this window. It is related that a daughter of Mr. Potts, who was at a neighbor’s when the firing commenced, was running toward her father’s house, when a musket-ball struck her comb from her head and slightly injured her scalp."—Lossing, 1851

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