A Christmas Gift From 1776

The Christmas Gift from 1776
Told By: Howard C. Norton

1776 had not been a good year for the ragtag army of the colonies. After the short lived success of driving the British back from Concord and their ability to hold at Bunker Hill, the British had been forced to abandon Boston. This was about all that had gone well for the American forces. They were after all an undisciplined and untrained army that had been pulled from the workshops and farms of New England. The strain of these factors had given rise to a great deal of desertion and scattering. George Washington had been put in charge of the army and had collected as many of the colonies militias to New York to begin his war against the British. Reports from northern New York were not good and the British seemed to be advancing from the lakes area of New York also. Fighting stubbornly through the summer and autumn of 1776, Washington and his army had to abandon Long Island and flee to Manhattan. On Manhattan they gathered at Fort Washington and tried to regather themselves to defend against the hard advancing British and Hessian armies.

Unfortunately, Washington soon realized that the fort called by his name could not stop the enemy’s vessels from passing up the Hudson River and decided it would be best to abandon it. He urged General Greene the New York commander to give up the fort but left the ultimate decision to him while he went to check on General Heath at West Point. The Continental Congress convinced General Greene to not give up Fort Washington and that turned into a serious mistake. The British closed around the fort and launched a full attack on it on November 17th. The fort, three thousand men, a great quantity of cannon, muskets and military stores were lost to the British. On November 21st, General Greene and the entire remaining army at New York also had to abandon Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. This was done so quickly that the British found the American’s cannon and pots of stew still at the fort left behind.

Washington now had less than six thousand men left from the retreat. Before December 1st, 2,026 demoralized men had their enlistments run out and refused to reenlist and returned to their homes. Messages were sent to General Lee and his seven thousand troops at North Castle, NY to come join Washington but he refused. Washington began a quick retreat across New Jersey fleeing from General Cornwallis and the British armies. Repeatedly, Washington sent messengers to General Lee urging him to come join him with all possible hast but they were answered with arguments, excuses, pretenses of misunderstandings and refusals. Little did Washington know at the time, that General Lee was actually trying to position himself to become dictator and takeover as commander of the American armies. He had been writing governors of the colonies and to members of the Continental Congress and many of those whom Washington had counted as trusted colleagues. He was trying to convince them that the setbacks the armies were having was because of Washington’s incompetence and they began to conspire against him and talk poorly of the job he was doing.

Half of the army was fleeing for their lives across New Jersey while hundreds of its members were leaving for their homes giving up on the cause as a loss. The traitor, General Lee, about a hundred miles away was holding the other half of the army hostage. When Lee finally began to move his army, the British did the American’s a great favor by capturing General Lee at a village tavern on the night of December 13th, while he was enjoying a leisurely evening away from the troops. His army was then quickly sent to rejoin Washington and the rest of the army. General Washington wrote, “Unless we are absolutely forced into, we shall avoid a large battle. With the fate of America at stake, our job is to prolong this war as much as possible.” General Howe and the British armies fully intended to catch Washington in West New Jersey against the Delaware River. But he was extremely surprised to find that Washington and his fleeing army had already crossed the river in retreat. A wise General Washington had sent ahead a group of soldiers and had commandeered or destroyed every boat on the Delaware River for seventy miles so that his retreat would be controlled by him and leave the British on the New Jersey side of the river. The Continental Congress was becoming very excited about the British being so close to Philadelphia and on December 12th they packed up and left for Baltimore, MD. British General Howe believed that the war was over and that the armies of the Americans had collapsed. He retired to New York while his commander General Cornwallis was preparing to return to England for the winter. The British army of twenty five thousand controlled all of New York and New Jersey with the small three thousand man battered American army using the Delaware River as protection for the winter. Washington admitted in a letter “that the game was about up.”

Colonel Sullivan and the army that General Lee had held up arrived, another new five hundred soldiers from Philadelphia arrived and two thousand men from upper New York retreated to his position. On December 24th, the American armies finally numbered between five and six thousand scattered between Philadelphia and Bristol, PA. The light of dawn was approaching the darkness that the American army had been engulfed in. But there was still the problem of deserters and those whose enlistment was running out. For you see, the soldiers of the army had been enlisted for only six months as ordered by the Continental Congress. There enlistment ran out on December 31st. With little money for payment, food that was hard to come by, shelter and warmth a problem and after defeat after defeat, the army looked like it would fall apart on January 1st. There would only be fifteen hundred left in the whole army! The dream of freedom would come to an end and the new country would fall under oppression again.

It was time to put into place the plan that Washington had conceived. The town of Trenton was occupied by fifteen hundred Hessian troops. These were the German mercenaries who had been hired by the British to help fight the war. The American army on Christmas Day would recross the Delaware River using the fleet of iron ore and freight boats that he had commandeered for their retreat, and capture the army of Hessians in Trenton while they slept after their Christmas celebrations.

All of the plans were made and each of the five divisions of the army was to do a specific assignment. Everything was thought out and planned for. Nothing was overlooked or omitted. But then, for some reason or another, nothing went as planned. Every one of the division commanders failed to do his part. Gates the commander in Bristol, disapproved of the plan and was on his way to tell congress of the mistake, his second in command, Cadwalader and his two thousand men from Bristol never crossed the river. He thought that it was too dangerous with the ice flows and speed of the water and gave it up as too desperate. Griffin the head of the New Jersey militia fled before the British at Burlington. Putnam the commander in charge of the troops at Philadelphia never left Philadelphia. Ewing the commander directly across from Trenton made no effort to cross the river. Washington, thinking all were doing what they should, set out with his twenty four hundred worn out soldiers.

At 2:00PM on Christmas day 1776, Washington began marching his army towards his crossing point on the Delaware River at Mackonkey’s Ferry. Arriving after dark, they began to cross the river that was swollen with ice and rushing water. At 11:00 PM it started snowing. By 3:00 AM they had finally finished crossing the river. At 4:00 AM they begin their nine-mile march towards Trenton. It was bitter cold, snowing, hailing and sleeting for their march. The wind was driving the snow and sleet sharply into the faces of the troops. An officer on Washington’s staff wrote in his diary, “It will be a terrible night for the soldiers who have no shoes. Some of them have tied old rags around their feet; others are barefoot, but I have not heard a man complain. They are ready to suffer any hardship and die rather than give up their liberty.” Indeed the reports of those who were there said that anyone could have followed the trail of the army that night. Their marching left a solid trail of red from the blood left in the snow. Men were so cold that they became numb and collapsed in the snow and had to be helped along by their fellow soldiers. The determination of the men in Washington’s plan was even more emphasized by the password they used to identify themselves for this mission: “Victory or Death!”

They split into two columns four miles north of Trenton. General Sullivan, who led the second column, sent word to Washington that the arms of the soldiers were wet. Washington replied, “Tell your general to use the bayonet, for the town must be taken!” At 8:00 AM with the snowstorm still raging, Washington encountered the first sentries north of Trenton. Five minutes later, at 8:05 AM, the second column encountered sentries on the west side of Trenton. After driving the Hessians from their barracks and through the streets of Trenton, the Hessians tried to regroup in the apple orchards. At 9:30 AM the battle ended when the remaining Hessians surrendered. By 12:00 PM on December 27th, Washington and his troops were back in their camp in Pennsylvania. By the end of the day on December 27th, over 1,000, almost half of the army had reported as ill.

Of the Hessians, 22 were killed, 98 wounded, 200 escaped south past where one of the American divisions was supposed to be and 948 were captured as prisoners. The American army of 2,400 had 4 wounded and no dead from combat. Two froze to death and none were captured. They seized six cannon, twelve hundred muskets and the winter stores including a large supply of blankets from the Hessian troops in Trenton. The victory at Trenton astonished everyone; Washington had guarded his secret plans so well. As the news spread through the country, the rejoicing was loud and joyous. A larger and more hopeful army was built and reenlistments were common. Washington’s reputation as a military leader was restored. Cornwallis on hearing of the defeat of his troops put off his return to England and marched on Trenton with 8,000 of his best troops. Washington recrossed the Delaware River on December 30th and after outmaneuvering General Cornwallis, defeated his rear guard at Princeton on January 3rd. The war had finally turned around. Washington never denied the Provident help that he and his troops received in defeating the much larger, better equipped and better trained British armies during the war.

A Christmas gift was given to us that day for all of us to enjoy for centuries to come. Sacrifice, the willingness to lay down their lives for us and the love of their country made it a Christmas gift that would be remembered forever and make us grateful for their bravery.



MERRY CHRISTMAS!