A light rain had begun to fall out of a pewter grey sky, spattering dirt as the troops slowly made their way toward the river. Each man had been ordered to pack sixty rounds of ammunition and three days’ rations, but few knew where they were going. Most of the troops were dressed in rags; few had overcoats, and many were shoeless. The sun was still a half-hour from setting, and already, the treetops were beginning to slap and bend, a sure sign of foul weather on the wind. It was Christmas Day, December 25, 1776, on the western bank of the Delaware River. Among the tattered, freezing troops at McConkey’s Ferry late that afternoon was General George Washington, architect of a planned strike against a brigade of Hessian troops, three regiments wintering across the ice-choked river at Trenton, New Jersey. It is said that genius and madness are at times virtually indistinguishable, and, considering the state of the American Revolution at the time, a fair observation when weighing Washington’s chances of success, even now, from the distance of 250 years.
The operation was the offspring of pure desperation; a dreadful state of affairs rapidly approaching implosion. Just a month before, the Americans had been defending New York City; an effort that had ended poorly, to say the least. After a string of heartbreaking defeats, Washington’s army had been forced back across the Hudson River into New Jersey, its numbers depleted and morale shattered. Washington set his sights on Pennsylvania at the time, hoping to get across the Delaware River before the British could catch his beleaguered forces on the flat roads that stretched south through New Jersey. For some reason, General William Howe, the British commander, had favored Washington with a less-than-aggressive pursuit, however, allowing him to gain the Delaware by early December and cross what remained of his army over to the Pennsylvania side. Howe, now believing the Americans beaten and with winter closing rapidly, decided against additional pursuit and put his army into winter quarters instead, in posts established uniformly across New Jersey, from Staten Island south to Trenton. Howe then returned to New York City, placing the field command in New Jersey in the hands of Major General James Grant, a Scottish-born aristocrat. Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis, sharing Howe’s take on the situation, immediately asked for leave to visit his family in England, a request that was promptly granted.