2 January 1777
Trenton: Assunpink Creek
Washington crosses the Delaware again on 29 December and takes up a position at Trenton. On 31 December he asks the men whose enlistments end that day to stay six more weeks for a bounty of ten dollars, and most agree.
Cornwallis gathers more than 9,000 men at Princeton, leaves 1,200 there under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood, and on 2 January marches on Trenton with 8,000. Detachments sent forward by Washington skirmish with him all day. It is almost dark when the British reach the town, and three attempts to cross the bridge over the Assunpink, behind which stand Washington’s 6,000, fail. Cornwallis waits for the morning.
General George Washington at Trenton on the night of 2 January 1777, painting by John Trumbull, 1792Wikimedia Commons, John Trumbull, Public domain (General George Washington at Trenton by John Trumbull.jpeg)
That night a council of war decides to strike Princeton by the back roads. The baggage goes to Burlington, the guns are wrapped in cloth, and 500 men stay behind with two guns to keep the campfires burning and dig as if fortifying. By 2 am the army is marching along the Quaker Bridge road over the frozen ground.
Sources
- David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (2004).
- Richard M. Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers (1973).
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