Battle of Trenton

In the second year of the American Revolution, 1776, an overwhelming force of British soldiers routed the Patriots from New York and through New Jersey into Pennsylvania. The demoralized force suffered attrition from death, injury, and desertion. Infantry enlistments of the early war had a single year duration, and thus many troops, defeated, were going home. After the summer-long chain of defeats and hundred miles of retreat, new enlistees were unlikely. The Continental Congress even fled Philadelphia, leaving everything in the hands of General George Washington.

The General, in a last-ditch maneuver to provide the army a victory on which to recruit, decided to attack the 1560-man Hessian force in Trenton, under the command of Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rahl. An attack was coordinated to surround the city of Trenton, crossing both north and south of the city, at daybreak on December 26, 1776, coordinating with a 600-man unit of New Jersey Militia intended to mount a diversion to distract the German force. In a very risky move having the code name "Victory or Death," Washington began leading his men across the ice-filled Delaware River at five o'clock in the evening on Christmas Day.

In the morning, Washington's troops caught the enemy by surprise and won a huge victory, quickly capturing nearly a thousand enemy troops. There were some casualties, including the wounding of future president James Monroe.

Two years later, Washington wrote:

"The Hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this - the course of the war - that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations; but it will be time enough for me to turn Preacher when my present appointment ceases."