Richard (not Reuben)

[Judy G. Russell]

There is one very poignant line in David Baker's application for a Revolutionary War pension, filed in 1832, as he described his own service at the Battle of Trenton (25-26 Dec 1776): "I had a brother by the name of Richard killed in that action."

Some folks reading the original mistook the script used and read the brother's name as "Ruben." The original makes it clear: the name was Richard.

Richard's death was particularly tragic because few if any American soldiers died due to enemy fire in the engagement.

According to David McCullough in his masterful 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005), no American troops died in the fighting, but two froze to death in the terrible winter conditions. If true, then Richard Baker was one of those two. But other sources do not accept the no-battle-casualties conclusion.

In Rebels & Redcoats by George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin (Da Capo Press, copyright 1957, paperback reprint), the authors quote a relatively contemporaneous account attributed to an aide to General George Washington, probably Col. John Fitzgerald, as stating that there were "two killed and three wounded" and the wounded included Captain William Washington and Lieutenant James Monroe - both assigned to the 3rd Virginia Regiment, the regiment in which David Baker did serve and in which Richard Baker most likely served (there are no extant records to establish for certain Richard's regiment).

David Hackett Fischer, author of Washington's Crossing (Oxford University Press, 2004), cites a similar count by Washington aide Tench Tilghman and contends that the bulk of the evidence supports a finding that two privates were killed in action and another four or five died of illness or exposure.

If these other sources are correct, then David Baker's choice of the word "killed" to describe his brother's death (as opposed to a more passive word such as "died") would suggest that Richard was one of those killed in action.