The Miracle at Trenton
December 25, 1776. On that cold and blustery Christmas Day, the fate of the new American republic hung in the balance. The previous summer, some 30,000 British troops had arrived in New York Harbor and proceeded to rout Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army at the battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, and Fort Lee. Several hundred miles to the North, Gen. Benedict Arnold had managed to hold off the king’s forces at Valcour Island, but he, too, was ultimately defeated. Facing a well-trained and well-armed foe, the Continental Army suffered chronic shortages of food, clothing, and blankets and was buckling under the strain of disorganization and faction.
By December, Washington’s ragtag army was on the retreat, engaged in a hopeless game of cat-and-mouse with British forces as it snaked along the coastline of western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. Recognizing the need for a decisive military victory, Washington had laid careful plans for a three-pronged assault on the British and Hessian units then occupying the area in and around Trenton, New Jersey. It was a bold and risky strategy that carried the high probability of failure. But it was the only way forward.
From his position at Johnson’s and McConkey’s ferries, roughly ten miles north of Trenton on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, Washington would lead 2,400 Continental soldiers on a daring midnight boat crossing and up a rough dirt trail that led to a Hessian outpost. Just south of Trenton, 800 troops under James Ewing’s command would cross at Trenton Ferry and cut off the enemy’s escape route. Meanwhile a third force comprising roughly 1,200 Philadelphia militiamen and 600 New England Continentals would cross over from Bristol, Pennsylvania, and tie up Hessian and British troops then stationed in Bordentown and Burlington, on the New Jersey side of the river. The plan called for all three forces to reach their points of assembly by nightfall on Christmas night—about 4:40 PM—and make their passage over the Delaware beneath the cloak of darkness.
From the start, nothing seemed to go right. A winter snowstorm froze up large patches of the river, making it impossible for the troops at Trenton Ferry and Bristol to make their crossing. North of Trenton, Washington’s forces were late in assembling and only began traversing the Delaware at after midnight. With heavy snowfall blocking out the moonlight, and with strong currents and large blocks of ice impeding them, the men struggled to navigate the 800-foot expanse of water separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Though the crossing went off without a hitch, the operation was now three hours behind schedule, making it impossible for the American forces to reach Trenton before daybreak. After reaching the Jersey shore, a forlorn Washington wrapped himself in a heavy cloak, sat down on a wooden crate, and “despair[ed] of surprising the Town, as I well knew we could not reach it before the day was fairly broke.” But as he was also “certain there was no making a Retreat without being discovered, and harassed on repassing the River, I determined to push on at all Events.”
As most students of American history know, Washington’s luck improved markedly over the next several hours. Though the storm made the march to Trenton rough going, it also prolonged the dawn, thus ensuring that the Hessians would be delayed in starting their day. Much to the Commander in Chief’s surprise, the German soldiers were taken unaware that morning. After several hours of intense fighting, the Hessians lost 918 men—22 killed, 83 badly wounded, the rest taken prisoner—and surrendered to their American foes. Carting off precious loads of “muskets, bayonets, cartouche boxes and swords,” in Washington’s words, the Continentals scored a major victory that greatly improved Patriot morale.
Writing from his outpost in New York, Ambrose Serle, secretary to British Adm. Richard Howe, reported being “exceedingly concerned on the public account, as it will tend to revive the drooping spirits of the rebels and increase their force.” He was right. Capt. William Hull of the Seventh Connecticut Regiment spoke for many of his comrades in arms when he wrote, “The Resolution and Bravery of our Men, their Order and Regularity, gave me the highest Sensation of Pleasure. . . . What can’t Men do when engaged in so noble a cause?”
Hull had it right. The American troops who fought under Washington’s command were arguably the most literate and politically engaged army of their day. In the weeks preceding the Christmas campaign, many had read Thomas Paine’s urgent call to arms, “The American Crisis,” which stirred them to action with its gripping and urgent message. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine began. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Dark days still lay ahead for the Continental Army. The Valley Forge winter of 1777 and 1778 would test the mettle of the new nation. But along a narrow bank of river on Christmas Day 1776, George Washington’s army pulled off a daring attack that saved the American cause from early and certain defeat. Immortalized in verse and in painting, it was the beginning of the end of the War of Independence.