On Christmas night, 1776, Hessian Colonel Johann Rall sat with other officers drinking and playing cards. Rall must have been relaxed that night – the British Army, his current assignment, had won two major victories against the less organized and ill-equipped troops under General George Washington. In many British circles, it was even believed that the war would be over shortly, once spring came and the armies could once again be out in the field. For the moment, they were content to let Washington sit in Pennsylvania and await his fate. As recent word from British sources said Washington could attack his position, Rall had acted quickly, doubling the guard and sending out extra patrols. Even this very night, he’d received another note of warning. But as the night wore on, a storm of snow and ice began to blow in. Men began to relax – no attack had come for weeks and now the weather had turned so they could afford to rest their vigilance. After all, who would be so bold as to launch an attack in the dead of winter?
The year of 1776 had been a rocky one for the burgeoning republic of the United States. In January, word had arrived from England that King George III had declared them to be in rebellion as a result of two small battles the previous April. Then in July, delegates at the Second Continental Congress had released the Declaration of Independence and officially severed all ties with England. Still, these had only been diplomatic maneuvers, and despite military success in the taking of Boston and Fort Ticonderoga, British forces remained determined to strike a blow. The British Army had landed on Long Island in late August and after a short battle, American forces had scattered. Only three days of rain and a morning of fog had saved Washington’s Army from complete destruction and he had used that time to escape back to the New York mainland. Then the British had won a second victory, which had driven his forces through New Jersey to the banks of Pennsylvania.
Now, as Christmas approached, Washington found himself with only six thousand men, dwindling resources, and poor morale. On top of this, enlistments were set to expire on the first of January. Washington wrote to his brother John, “Between you and me I think our affairs are in pretty bad condition.” He bluntly told his brother about the situation and said that unless his men would agree to stay on, the war was over. In Philadelphia, Congress called for a day of prayer. The revolution which had begun in so much triumph a few months before was on the verge of collapse.
Then on December 22, a letter arrived from Washington’s adjutant. In it, he told Washington that due to recent raids in the area around the Delaware River, Hessian forces had been on high alert, and that they were showing signs of exhaustion. The adjutant further stated that Washington could not afford to wait for another opportunity. Washington needed little pushing, as he had already written several people that he was looking for a “counter stroke.” On Christmas Eve, he called a council of war and announced that he had decided to attack the Hessian garrison in the town of Trenton.
The following afternoon, troops were ordered to begin marching down to the Delaware River. It was hoped that the troops could get across the river and could surprise the Hessians before dawn. However, problems immediately began to dog the operations. First, men were slow to arrive at the crossing points – this may have been because many were in poor health and barely covered in ragged clothing; some were even without shoes. Initially Washington had planned to have his army cross in three different places in the river; this had to be forgotten as the weather suddenly worsened around midnight and forced the units at two of the points to call it off. The rain and snow were falling hard, making the river overrun its banks and become choked with huge chunks of ice. Despite this, Washington pressed ahead. Historians have argued that Washington had little choice; if he turned back, the war was over. By all accounts, Washington seemed to have become very fatalistic, selecting as the password for the night: “victory or death”.
Writers like David Hackett Fischer, David McCullough, and Joseph Ellis have been critical of the Washington’s Crossing painting by Emanuel Leutze, which depicts Washington bolding leaning over the wide bow, draped in a American flag. In actuality, the boats were long and narrow, and the biggest ones had forty men shoulder to shoulder with very little room to move; anyone who had attempted to lean over the bow would have immediately fallen in the river. Most likely, Washington would have been indistinguishable from the other men as the dark storm had enveloped them. But while the weather did nothing to help the men’s moral, it did help mask the noise of the crossing and likely guaranteed any Hessian patrols that night would not stray far from camp.
It wasn’t until 3:00 a.m. on December 26 that all of the men with Washington had made it across. By now, they were three hours behind schedule and still had ten miles of icy roads to march before they arrived in Trenton. The exhausted troops kept moving even when two of their number fell dead to the ground in the cold. Finally, just before 8:00 a.m., Washington ordered his men toward outposts surrounding the town. Still a good distance away, they opened fire. Hessians soldiers, caught by surprise, were overwhelmed and fell back. Rall was roused by a staff officer and rode out to rally his men. It was erroneously reported that Washington’s forces had managed to take control of a key bridge outside of town, leaving the Hessians no escape route. Rall gathered his two regiments around him and moved them forward, and his men began falling as result of American volley and artillery guns that had been moved across the river. As Rall advanced, he became cut off; then, as he turned in his saddle to shout orders, he was hit twice. His officers pulled him down and carried him a nearby church, where he died several hours later, with the note warning of a potential American attack still in his pocket. Still under fire from three directions and with Washington’s forces closing in, the Hessians began laying down their arms.
In all, nearly all of the over one thousand Hessian soldiers were taken prisoner; twenty-two were dead and another eighty-three were wounded. Amazingly, only a few of the 6,000 Americans were wounded. Among them were William Washington (Washington’s nephew) and James Monroe, the future president of the United States. Washington did not savor his victory for long. The next morning he ordered his men to move back across the river, before larger British forces could counter attack.
The sudden victory shocked the British. General Charles Cornwallis, who had been planning to return to London, found himself having to rapidly form an army to march on Washington. This would lead to another improbable American victory in the town of Princeton, just north of Trenton on January 3, 1777. The result of the combined victories proved an enormous boost to the fledgling American nation. More than half of the men under Washington reenlisted, and others joined up for the first time, notably from the newly freed territory of southern New Jersey. The victories also gave Congress hope that the war was not yet over and renewed faith in Washington himself.
The war would drag for another seven years, and more low moments lay ahead. But Washington would manage to keep his army inspired and effective, by fighting a largely defensive war that would eventually leave the British forces largely trapped in New York for the rest of the war. Today, Washington’s Christmas assault is seen by many historians as the decisive moment of the War for Independence, and the battle that saved the Revolution.
Two books by found very helpful in writing this article were
1776 by David McCullough
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
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