Washington’s Christmas Gift

The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, which lit the fuse on the American Revolution, were followed by General George Washington’s successful siege of Boston in March the following year. (See my April 19, 2010 blog, "That memory may their deed redeem.") After that, however, the events of 1776 went mostly downhill for Washington and his Continental Army.

New York – at the time not more than a village on the southern tip of Manhattan Island – would be the next logical target of attack, Washington correctly surmised, so he moved his army and began fortifications to withstand the British assault. Some of the Army remained on Manhattan Island and in the village of New York. However, Washington sent some of the Army across the East River to fortify Brooklyn Heights on Long Island, thereby dividing his forces – a strategic blunder in military terms.

In July the British began arriving under the command of General William Howe and the stage was set for the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. It would cost the Americans 1,400 casualties that they could ill afford to lose – as badly outnumbered as the Continental Army was. Before the battle, Washington told his troops:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.

“The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.”

Helped by local Tories on Long Island, the British were guided through an unguarded pass that allowed them to get into the rear of the Americans defending Brooklyn Heights. This they did while feigning a frontal attack that fooled the American forces into thinking they were holding the real British attack at bay. When it became apparent that the Americans were about to be surrounded, Washington was aided by sympathetic locals, who furnished him with every kind of available boat so that he could ferry the survivors across the East River to safety in New York throughout the night. He was helped by providentially calm waters and a fog which covered the retreat of the last soldiers, including Washington, just as day dawned.

The Continental Congress ordered Washington to hold New York City. But he was concerned that his army may have escaped one British trap on Brooklyn Heights for another trap on Manhattan. He kept his escape route open to upper Manhattan Island by once again splitting his forces, with 5,000 left in New York and the rest in Harlem Heights.

In September 1776 General Howe began landing 12,000 men on Manhattan Island and took control of New York. The Americans left rear guards at Fort Washington and Fort Lee, but withdrew the rest to Harlem where Howe tried to surround them. Washington then moved his army to White Plains, fought the British in a brief battle there, and continued moving farther north.

Howe gave up the chase. Instead, he returned to Manhattan and captured Fort Washington and its 3,000 Americans in mid November. Many were killed after surrendering. A few days later he captured Fort Lee, located across the Hudson River from Fort Washington and additional Americans.

Now on the run, Washington got the remainder of his army across the Hudson River and into the New Jersey countryside. But with British General Charles Lord Cornwallis in hot pursuit, he was forced to continue across the Delaware River and into Pennsylvania in early December. Of the 30,000 soldiers he had at his army’s peak, Washington now had only 3,000.

The battles around New York and the loss of the city were the worst period of the Revolutionary War. Morale was collapsing and entire regiments were deserting the revolution. Washington's army was also shrinking because enlistments were expiring. To save themselves from the pursuing Cornwallis, the army had destroyed boats or moved those remaining to the western shore for miles in both directions of where they had crossed the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey.

In the 18th century, armies went into winter quarters rather than fight in harsh winter weather. Cornwallis returned to Manhattan leaving only a small detachment of Hessian troops in Trenton for the winter. Washington could hardly believe his army had been spared pursuit and destruction.

The army encamped near McKonkey's Ferry, not far from the crossing site. Of the men Washington had, 1,700 were unfit for duty and needed hospital care. Valuable supplies had been lost in the hasty retreat across New Jersey. Lost also was contact with General Gates and General Charles Lee and their divisions of Washington’s army. Both were ordered to join the encampment along the Delaware, but snow prevented Gates and Lee was likely insubordinate, because of the low regard with which he held Washington, his commander.

However, on December 20, 2,000 of Lee’s men arrived under the command of General John Sullivan. Lee had been captured by the British on the 12th, allegedly in search of more comfortable lodgings, but since he was captured in a Peekskill New York tavern in his nightshirt, it was rumored that he had spent the night with the tavern’s owner – the “widow” White. An aide escaped to alert Sullivan, who took command. Later that day, Gates arrived with his division reduced to 600 due to expired commissions. Another 1,000 militia men from Philadelphia under Colonel John Cadwalader joined Washington after Gates arrived.

These reinforcements plus volunteers from the local area, raised Washington’s troop strength to 6,000 – enough for a small campaign. Orders were issued to bring supplies to the camp. Men were sent into the surrounding area to recruit new soldiers, producing more volunteers. The Hessians did their cause no good by mistreating the local residents, which helped raise militia troops in surrounding New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The low morale and expiring enlistments were problematic for Washington in those soulful days of 1776. But the first of a series of pamphlets under the general title of The American Crisis was published in the Pennsylvania Journal by Thomas Paine on December 19. Its soaring rhetoric gave a spiritual boost to those in arms by reminding them why they were fighting:

“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 by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Washington ordered that the pamphlet be read to his troops on December 23rd. But he knew something more than stirring words was needed to hold off the anticipated losses of soldiers when enlistments expired at the end of the year. Washington decided to commit his army to a bold winter action and announced to his staff that they would attack the Hessians stationed at Trenton before daybreak on the day following Christmas. Because the Hessians were German troops, they could be expected to celebrate Christmas by excessive drinking and feasting, leaving them vulnerable to the surprise of a dawn attack.

Preparations began immediately. The attack plan called for crossings of the Delaware in three places, including the one that Washington would lead near McKonkey's Ferry. Boats were assembled to carry 2,400 men, many of whom lacked shoes despite the snow and most of whom could not swim. The boats must also shuttle 50 to 75 horses and 18 cannons across the river in the evening of Christmas Day 1776. Only experienced men were allowed to operate the boats – seamen from the Boston harbor area, dock workers, and ferrymen who knew the Delaware River well.

Washington ordered three days’ food rations to be carried and new flints were issued for all muskets. Except for senior officers, everyone was told only that as soon as it became dark they would embark on an unspecified secret mission. As they prepared, the weather worsened, turning from rain to sleet and snow. One soldier wrote in his diary that it “blew a hurricane.”

Washington appointed his portly chief of artillery, Henry Knox, to be in charge of the logistics of the crossing. Knox later wrote in his diary that the crossing was accomplished "with almost infinite difficulty", and that its most significant danger was "floating ice in the river". Another diarist wrote that the whole operation might well have failed "but for the stentorian lungs of Colonel Knox".

Washington was among the first to cross, commanding that a cordon be thrown around the little beachhead for security. No local was to pass through. His men were given as a password “Victory or Death.”

Only Washington’s group would make it across the Delaware to launch the attack. The foul weather prevented one of the other two groups from crossing; and the third group could not get their artillery pieces over the river and therefore ordered the men back into Pennsylvania.

Among Washington’s officers that night were young men who would later play important roles in the new Republic: future President but then Lieutenant James Monroe, future Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, and Alexander Hamilton, future Secretary of the Treasury.

The crossing was complete at 4 a.m., several hours behind plan and losing the cover of darkness for the attack. It was a nine-mile march to Trenton in a driving snowstorm. At 6 a.m. Washington divided his men into two attack columns – one under Green’s command and the other under Sullivan. The columns arrived on the outskirts of Trenton at 8 a.m. and started the attack at two points. The Hessian garrison was caught asleep and still partially drunk. American artillery cannons were quickly wheeled into a position where they could sweep the area into which the roused Hessians poured. When their commander was mortally wounded, 900 of them gave up and only a few made good an escape to the south. Only two Americans were killed versus 22 Hessians killed and 83 wounded. Everything went so well for Washington’s rag-tag army, the fight was over in less than a half hour.

Washington's victory was complete but his situation remained precarious. The horrendous winter storm continued and he had to re-cross the river, this time with all of his prisoners.

When the news of victory in the Battle of Trenton became known, it reinvigorated the flagging spirit of revolution, steeled the will of the Continental Congress, and for the first time, gave hope to the colonies that freedom from the British might just be possible. England was shocked by the American victory, and potential allies in France, Holland, and Spain believed the revolution might be a force to be reckoned with.

Almost five years would pass before General Charles Lord Cornwallis would surrender the British Army in 1781 at Yorktown to General Washington. But he would concede that the war was lost on the heights above the Delaware that day after Christmas in 1776.