The American commander passed the North river with a part of his army, and followed the movement of the British into the state of New Jersey. Not being in sufficient force to prevent their successes, he was gradually driven from one position to another, until he at length crossed the Delaware, and took up a position on its right bank, fur the purpose of covering Philadelphia. Amid all these disasters, the indefatigable courage of Washington never flagged, and his exertions suffered no intermission because weaker minds considered all as lost. With him, the republic was never to be despaired of, and his army always saw him as calm and collected as when fortune smiled most graciously upon his banners. General Lee was ordered to join him with the rest of the main army which had been left on the east side of the Hudson. General Schuyler, in the north, was directed to march southward with all possible ex pedition; similar instructions were forwarded to Generals Gates and Heath, and urgent entreaties were addressed to the various states from which succours might be expected in this perilous crisis.
But all of these various armies were suffering under a visitation long anticipated by the watchful eye of Washington, and which had been the con stant subject of his thoughts and labours. The time had now again arrived when the soldiers were entitled to their discharges, and no imme diate means were provided to supply their places.
The special attention of Congress to this most im portant consideration, had been invoked in all the letters of their general, and they were at length induced to vote a permanent army, and to increase the pay of officers and soldiers: but these resolutions came too late for the present campaign, and the weak American force was daily thinned by the dissolution of its component parts. Whole regi ments retired in a body from the service; so that when the commander-in-chief crossed the Delaware in view of his pursuers, less than three thousand men bore the burthen of freedom and her fortunes.
The American general had been sensible for some time that the only chance of arresting the enemy's progress and recruiting his forces, was by a prudent use of the natural impediments pre sented by the river Delaware. All the boats for a distance of seventy miles, were therefore collected together and placed under strong guards: and the army was so posted as to cover the several fords accessible to the British. When these arrange ments were completed, and the immediate pressure of a formidable pursuit removed, it was possible to wait more patiently for the accession of reinforce ments. Fifteen hundred of the citizens of Phila delphia, embodied for the general defence, joined the army in the neighbourhood of Trenton: General Sullivan arrived with Lee's division, alter the sur prise and capture of that incautious soldier by the enemy's cavalry: and with other additions, the American forces found themselves augmented to seven thousand men. The British commander
made repeated efforts to possess himself of the boats and force his passage across the river; but after several disappointments, he at length desisted and began his preparations for retiring into winter quarters. The main body of the army was cantoned between the Delaware and the Hackensack: about four thousand men occupied positions between Trenton and Mount Holly, and strong detachments lay at Princeton, Brunswick, and Elizabethtown. The object of this dispersion over so wide an extent of country, was to intimidate the people and thus prevent the possibility of recruiting for the conti nental service; while in the spring these forces could be immediately concentrated, and it was then proposed to put an easy conclusion to all rebellious contumacy.
Washington was now aware that the desperate condition of his country's fortunes could only be retrieved by some equally desperate but successful enterprise. With the exception of about fifteen hundred effectives, his whole force would be entitled, in a few days, to its discharge: and there was no prospect of new accessions, while public opinion looked upon the American arms as without glory or even hope. The daring resolution was there fore adopted, of a combined and general assault upon all the British posts on the Delaware; in the hope that success upon sonie one point would obliterate the remembrance of former disasters, and impress a lesson of wholesome caution upon the triumphant and contemptuous enemy.
Early in the morning of the 26th of December I776,the main body of the American army, twenty four hundred strong, and headed by Washington in person, crossed the river at M'Konkey's ferry, about nine miles above Trenton. The night was tempestuous with rain and sleet, and the river en cumbered with quantities of floating ice, so that the passage, although begun soon after midnight, was not fully effected until three o'clock, and one hour more elapsed Wore the march could be commenced. The Americans moved in two di visions, along the roads leading to the town, and their operations were so ii well combined, and ex ecuted with such precision, that the two attacks on the British outposts were made within three minutes of each other. The pickets attempted re sistance, but were almost immediately driven in upon the main body. which was forming hurriedly in line. Colonel Rohl, their commander, soon after fell mortally wounded; the confusion of the soldiery became irremediable. and after a loss of about killed, one thousand men laid down their arms and surrendered their munitions and artillery. On the American side. the loss in battle amounted to only two killed and four wounded, in cluding James Monroe, afterwards president of the United States.