Washington Crossing the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton

Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River on the night of 25–26 December 1776, and his surprise attack on the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, the next morning, are among the best-known episodes of the American Revolutionary War. After months of defeat, the Continental Army captured about 900 enemy soldiers at almost no cost to itself. The victory came when the cause of independence seemed close to collapse, and it gave the Patriots fresh hope at the darkest point of the war.

Background: the retreat of 1776

The summer and autumn of 1776 had been a disaster for George Washington. In late August the British under General William Howe defeated his army at the Battle of Long Island, and in the weeks that followed Washington lost New York City, was beaten at White Plains in October, and saw Fort Washington on Manhattan fall on 16 November with the capture of some 2,800 men. Fort Lee on the New Jersey shore was abandoned four days later.

What remained of the army retreated across New Jersey with British forces under Lord Cornwallis following. In early December Washington took his troops over the Delaware into Pennsylvania, gathering every boat along the river so the British could not follow. On 13 December his second-in-command, General Charles Lee, was captured by British cavalry at a tavern in Basking Ridge.

By mid-December Washington had only a few thousand fit men, many of them without shoes or warm clothing. Most enlistments were due to expire on 31 December 1776. Congress had fled Philadelphia for Baltimore, and in New Jersey thousands of inhabitants accepted British offers of pardon. Washington wrote to his brother that he feared “the game is pretty near up”.

The mood was captured by Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense had helped persuade Americans to seek independence earlier that year. On 19 December he published the first number of The American Crisis, which opened with the words “These are the times that try men’s souls”. According to tradition, Washington had it read aloud to his troops before the attack.

The plan and the crossing

Rather than wait for his army to dissolve, Washington decided to strike. The British had spread their troops across New Jersey in a chain of winter posts. The garrison at Trenton, on the east bank of the Delaware, consisted of about 1,400 to 1,500 Hessians: three regiments of German soldiers hired by Britain from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, together with a small detachment of artillery and jägers (light infantry riflemen). Their commander was Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall, a brave and experienced officer who held the American army in low regard and had not fortified the town.

Washington’s plan involved three separate crossings. He would lead the main force of about 2,400 men across at McConkey’s Ferry, some nine miles north of Trenton, and march south to attack the town at dawn. General James Ewing, with about 700 Pennsylvania militia, was to cross directly opposite Trenton and block the Hessians’ escape across the bridge over Assunpink Creek. Colonel John Cadwalader, with around 1,800 men, was to cross further south near Bristol and make a diversion against the Hessian posts around Bordentown.

The crossing began after dark on Christmas Day. A powerful storm of rain, sleet and snow swept in during the night, and the river was choked with floating ice. The boats were mostly Durham boats, long flat-bottomed craft normally used to carry iron ore and grain, together with ferries for the horses and artillery.

The boats were handled by Colonel John Glover’s regiment from Marblehead, Massachusetts, a unit made up largely of fishermen and seamen. Colonel Henry Knox, a former Boston bookseller who commanded the artillery, organised the operation on the riverbank, his loud voice directing the men through the darkness. Eighteen cannon were ferried across, a large number for a force of this size.

Washington had hoped to complete the crossing by midnight. In fact it was about 3 a.m. before the last troops were over and close to 4 a.m. before the march began. The password for the night was “Victory or Death”. The army moved south in two columns: one under General Nathanael Greene, accompanied by Washington, took the inland Pennington Road, and the other under General John Sullivan followed the River Road. At least two soldiers are reported to have died of exposure on the march.

Neither of the other crossings succeeded. Ewing judged the ice too heavy to cross at Trenton, and Cadwalader got some of his men over but had to bring them back when he could not land his artillery. Washington’s column would have to fight alone.

The battle

The two columns reached the outskirts of Trenton at about 8 a.m. on 26 December, only minutes apart. The Hessian outposts were driven in, and American artillery set up at the head of King Street and Queen Street, the town’s two main roads, began firing down them. Sullivan’s men pushed into the lower part of the town and seized the bridge over Assunpink Creek, closing the main escape route.

The Hessians tried to form up in the streets but were caught by cannon fire and by Americans firing from houses and behind walls. The wet weather had soaked many muskets, and the artillery proved decisive. Rall led a counter-attack but was struck by two musket balls and mortally wounded. Two of his regiments surrendered in an orchard to the east of the town, and the third, the Knyphausen regiment, was surrounded and gave up soon afterwards. The fighting had lasted little more than an hour.

Among the few American wounded were Captain William Washington, a distant cousin of the commander, and Lieutenant James Monroe, the future fifth President of the United States, who were both hit while charging a Hessian gun crew. Rall died of his wounds the following day.

Consequences: the ten crucial days

Washington did not try to hold Trenton. With his prisoners and captured supplies, he recrossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania on the afternoon of 26 December. The Hessian prisoners were marched through Philadelphia, where crowds gathered to see the soldiers who had been portrayed as fearsome mercenaries.

At the end of December Washington crossed the river once more and reoccupied Trenton. With enlistments expiring on 31 December, he personally appealed to the troops and offered a bounty of ten dollars to men who would stay for six more weeks; many agreed. On 2 January 1777 Cornwallis advanced on Trenton with a strong force and was held back along Assunpink Creek, in what is sometimes called the Second Battle of Trenton.

That night Washington left his campfires burning, slipped his army around the British flank and on 3 January 1777 defeated a British force at the Battle of Princeton. He then withdrew into winter quarters at Morristown. The period from 25 December 1776 to 3 January 1777 is often called the “Ten Crucial Days”. By its end the British had given up most of their posts in western New Jersey.

By the numbers

Key people

George Washington (1732–1799) commanded the Continental Army. The decision to attack across a frozen river in a storm was a serious gamble, and its success greatly strengthened his standing with Congress and the public at a time when some critics doubted his leadership.

Johann Gottlieb Rall (c. 1726–1776) commanded the Trenton garrison. He was praised for his bravery at White Plains and Fort Washington, but he ignored warnings of an attack and did not build earthworks around the town.

Henry Knox (1750–1806) and John Glover (1732–1797) made the crossing possible, Knox by organising the transport of men and guns and Glover by providing the boatmen. Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan led the two attacking columns.

Myths, memory and legacy

A popular story holds that the Hessians were drunk after celebrating Christmas. There is no reliable evidence for this. The garrison had been exhausted by repeated alarms and raids by New Jersey militia in the days before the attack, and the storm convinced many officers that no enemy would march that night.

The most famous image of the event is Emanuel Leutze’s painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, completed in Düsseldorf in 1851 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is a powerful work of art but not an accurate record. The crossing took place in darkness and bad weather; the boats were larger than the one shown; standing up in such a boat would have been unwise; and the Stars and Stripes flag in the picture was only adopted by Congress in June 1777.

The crossing site on the Pennsylvania side is preserved as Washington Crossing Historic Park, and the New Jersey landing as Washington Crossing State Park. A re-enactment of the crossing is staged on the river most Christmas Days. The Old Barracks in Trenton, where British and Hessian troops were quartered, also survives as a museum.

Historians such as David Hackett Fischer have argued that the campaign also mattered for how the war was fought. Washington ordered that the Hessian prisoners be treated humanely, a policy that contrasted with the harsh treatment of many American prisoners in New York and helped shape the Patriots’ sense of the cause they were fighting for.

Timeline

• 1776, 16 November: Fort Washington on Manhattan falls to the British.
• 1776, early December: Washington’s army retreats across the Delaware into Pennsylvania.
• 1776, 13 December: General Charles Lee is captured at Basking Ridge, New Jersey.
• 1776, 19 December: Thomas Paine publishes the first American Crisis essay.
• 1776, 25 December (night): The army crosses the Delaware at McConkey’s Ferry in a winter storm.
• 1776, 26 December: Washington defeats and captures the Hessian garrison at Trenton.
• 1776, 27 December: Colonel Rall dies of his wounds.
• 1777, 2 January: Americans hold off Cornwallis at Assunpink Creek.
• 1777, 3 January: Washington wins the Battle of Princeton.

Why it matters

Trenton was a small battle by the standards of the war, but it came at the decisive moment. Without it the Continental Army might have melted away at the end of 1776. Together with Princeton, it restored the army’s morale, revived recruitment and convinced many Americans and Europeans that the struggle for independence, declared only months earlier in the Declaration of Independence, was not yet lost.