As we all take time today and enjoy our time with friends and family, take a moment to thank God for all the blessings He has bestowed upon our great nation and remember where we came from. It was on this day in 1776 when George Washington did the unthinkable; against all odds he crossed the Delaware River to launch a surprise attack against better trained and better equipped Hessian soldiers in the town of Trenton on the following day. At the time this victory was seen as only a minor nuisance and setback for the powerful British forces, but as you read below, its significance was greatly miscalculated.
Battle of Trenton:
December
25 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American
Revolution. The ragtag Continental Army was encamped along the
Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware River exhausted, demoralized and
uncertain of its future.
The
troubles had begun the previous August when British and Hessian troops
invaded Long Island routing the colonial forces, forcing a desperate
escape to the island of Manhattan. The British followed up their victory
with an attack on Manhattan that compelled the Americans to again
retreat, this time across the Hudson River to New Jersey.
The British
followed in hot pursuit, chasing the Americans through New Jersey and
by December had forced the Continental Army to abandon the state and
cross the Delaware into Pennsylvania. With New Jersey in their firm
control and Rhode Island successfully occupied, the British were
confident that the Revolution had been crushed. The Continental Army
appeared to be merely an annoyance soon to be swatted into oblivion like
a bothersome bee at a picnic.
To compound
Washington’s problems, the enlistments of the majority of the militias
under his command were due to expire at the end of the month and the
troops return to their homes. Washington had to do something and
quickly.
His decision was to attack the British. The target was the Hessian-held town of Trenton just across the Delaware River.
During the
night of December 25, Washington led his troops across the ice-swollen
Delaware about 9 miles north of Trenton. The weather was horrendous and
the river treacherous. Raging winds combined with snow, sleet and rain
to produce almost impossible conditions. To add to the difficulties, a
significant number of Washington’s force marched through the snow
without shoes.
The next
morning they attacked to the south, taking the Hessian garrison by
surprise and over-running the town. After fierce fighting, and the loss
of their commander, the Hessians surrendered.
Washington’s
victory was complete but his situation precarious. The violent weather
continued – making a strike towards Princeton problematic. Washington
and his commanding officers decided to retrace their steps across the
Delaware taking their Hessian prisoners with them.
The news of
the American victory spread rapidly through the colonies reinvigorating
the failing spirit of the Revolution. The battle’s outcome also gave
Washington and his officers the confidence to mount another campaign. On
December 30 they again crossed the Delaware, attacked and won another
victory at Trenton on January 2, and then pushed on to Princeton
defeating the British there on January 3.
Although
not apparent at the time, these battles were a decisive turning point in
the Revolution. The victories pulled the languishing Revolution out of
the depths of despair, galvanized colonial support, shocked the British
and convinced potential allies such as France, Holland and Spain, that
the Continental Army was a force to be reckoned with.
Elisha
Bostwick was a soldier in the Continental Army who took part in the
battle and published his memoirs shortly after. We join his story as
Washington (whom he refers to as “his Excellency”) and his force begin
to cross the Delaware:
Elisha
Bostwick was a soldier in the Continental Army who took part in the
battle and published his memoirs shortly after. We join his story as
Washington (whom he refers to as “his Excellency”) and his force begin
to cross the Delaware:
“[Our] army
passed through Bethleham and Moravian town and so on to the Delaware
which we crossed 9 miles north of Trenton and encamped on the
Pennsylvania side and there remained to the 24th December. [O]ur whole
army was then set on motion and toward evening began to re-cross the
Delaware but by obstructions of ice in the river did not all get across
till quite late in the evening, and all the time a constant fall of snow
with some rain, and finally our march began with the torches of our
field pieces stuck in the, exhalters. [They] sparkled and blazed in the
storm all night and about day light a halt was made at which time his
Excellency and aids came near to the front on the side of the path where
soldiers stood.
I heard his
Excellency as he was coming on speaking to and encouraging the
soldiers. The words he spoke as he passed by where I stood and in my
hearing were these:
‘Soldiers, keep by your officers. For God’s sake, keep by your officers!’ Spoke in a deep and solemn voice.
While
passing a slanting, slippery bank his Excellency’s horse’s hind feet
both slipped from under him, and he seized his horse’s mane and the
horse recovered.
Our horses
were then unharnessed and the artillery men prepared. We marched on and
it was not long before we heard the out sentries of the enemy both on
the road we were in and the eastern road, and their out guards retreated
firing, and our army, then with a quick step pushing on upon both
roads, at the same time entered the town. Their artillery taken, they
resigned with little opposition, about nine hundred, all Hessians, with 4
brass field pieces; the remainder crossing the bridge at the lower end
of the town escaped….
Marched the
next day with our prisoners back to an encampment. I here make a few
remarks as to the personal appearance of the Hessians.
They are of
a moderate stature, rather broad shoulders, their limbs not of equal
proportion, light complexion with a bluish tinge, hair cued as tight to
head as possible, sticking straight back like the handle of an iron
skillet. Their uniform blue with black facings, brass drums which made a
tinkling sound, their flag or standard of the richest black silk and
the devices upon it and the lettering in gold leaf….
When
crossing the Delaware with the prisoners in flat bottom boats the ice
continually stuck to the boats, driving them down stream; the boatmen
endeavoring to clear off the ice pounded the boat, and stamping with
their feet, beckoned to the prisoners to do the same, and they all set
to jumping at once with their cues flying up and down, soon shook off
the ice from the boats, and the next day recrossed the Delaware again
and returned back to Trenton, and there on the first of January 1777 our
years service expired, and then by the pressing solicitation of his
Excellency a part of those whose time was out consented on a ten dollar
bounty to stay six weeks longer, and although desirous as others to
return home, I engaged to stay that time and made every exertion in my
power to make as many of the soldiers stay with me as I could, and quite
a number did engage with me who otherwise would have went home. “
Liberty forever, freedom for all!
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