Tomorrow, we celebrate the victory of the Americans over the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey, the day following Christmas, 1776. The soldiers and officers of the Continental Army, supported by local militias from Pennsylvania and New Jersey surprised and defeated the Hessians, allies of the British. George Washington, of course, was the commanding American general.
These revolutionary citizens bequeathed important gifts that we should apply now, as we move forward from misguided wars and recover from economic disaster. With their tenacity and ingenuity, they reversed a near-hopeless military situation, which many expected would end with the defeat of the American cause. They melded the diverse resources and cultures of the colonies into political and military organizations which collaborated to defeat the most capable professional army of the day. Not least, Washington initiated the American tradition of humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer covers the 1776-77 New York-New Jersey campaigns in his 2004 book, Washington's Crossing, from which much of this material is drawn. The romanticized painting Washington Crossing the Delaware (Emmanuel Leutze, 1851) is an icon for the Christmas night crossing that enabled the attack.
1776 had been a devastating year for the fledgling American army. General Howe’s British forces had punished them badly, routing them from New York City in a campaign from August through November. They drove the Americans SW through New Jersey in November and December, finally occupying all of New Jersey, while Washington’s army retreated across the Delaware into Pennsylvania.
On December 7, as Cornwallis and Howe drove Washington’s troops out of NJ, British General Henry Clinton conquered Rhode Island, without a battle. As Fischer writes,
the six months since the British troops arrived on Staten Island had been a cataract of disaster. Many on both sides thought that the rebellion was broken and that the American war was over.
But the Americans were not broken. Soldier and journalist Thomas Paine stayed with Washington’s army through "the whole of the black times of that trying campaign," the NJ retreat. His pamphlet The American Crisis, written during the retreat, exhorted soldiers and civilians,
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Lt. Colonel Samuel Webb of Connecticut wrote: "It has been the Devil... About 2,000 of us have been obliged to run damn’d hard before about 10,000 of the enemy. No fun for us that I can see; however, I cannot but think we shall drub the dogs."
The British forces were overextended in SW New Jersey. As well, the plundering Hessian army had made enemies of the local people, who began to form militias and harass Hessian patrols. The Americans looked for a chance for a counterstroke.
Colonel Joseph Reed, Washington’s aide, wrote to him on December 22, "our affairs are hasting fast to ruin if we do not retrieve them by some happy event." "The scattered divided state of the enemy affords us a fair opportunity of trying what our men will do when called to an offensive attack." Reed advised Washington "to make a diversion or something more at or about Trenton – the greater the alarm the more likely success will attend the attacks."
The Americans crossed the Delaware during Christmas night, in a brutal, freezing Northeaster. They surprised the Hessians around dawn, capturing about 900. (The myth that the Hessians were sleeping off a Christmas bender has been debunked.)
Fischer:
Trenton, and the follow-up victory at Princeton on 3 January 1777, caused the British to abandon their forward posts in New Jersey. By going into winter quarters at Morristown after the Battle of Princeton, Washington threatened supply lines and thereby swept the enemy from the state. Dwindling support for the cause of liberty was reversed,
and diminished army ranks were strengthened by new volunteers.
In addition to their military success, writes Fischer, "an American policy on prisoners emerged after the battle of Trenton. Washington ordered that Hessian captives would be treated with the same rights of humanity for which Americans were striving."
Fischer writes,
The most remarkable fact about American soldiers and civilians in the NJ campaign is that they did all of these things at the same time. In a desperate struggle they found a way to defeat a formidable enemy, not merely once at Trenton, but many times in twelve weeks of continued combat. They reversed the momentum of the war.
"They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them... Too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that we are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn’t so, and never was. The story of Washington’s crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit – and so are we.
These are our gifts from those rebellious long-ago citizens of New Jersey and Pennsylvania; from their militias; from the soldiers and officers of the Continental Army, "Merry Christmas".
Yes, we can.