Washington's Crossing

- Washington's Crossing State Park -
The Delaware River Crossing / The Trenton Battle Monument
New Jersey

This location marks the site of one of the most dramatic events of the American War for Independence. On Christmas night of 1776, during an utterly miserable winter storm of sleet and snow and wind, George Washington led his army across the Delaware River, which was choked with blocks of floating ice that made the crossing extraordinarily difficult. The hazardous crossing was the first step in a plan to surprise an encampment of Hessian troops in the town of Trenton, New Jersey. The Hessians were German soldiers whose service had been purchased by England to assist in the task of defeating the rebellious colonies in America. Now, many hundreds of them were posted in Trenton, waiting for the river to freeze solid so that they might march across it with ease and finish off Washington's battered army on the other side. But if Washington could double back and catch them by surprise on this snowy night, he might turn the tide of misfortune and retreat that had plagued his army since the beginning of the war. As everyone was painfully aware, it was a desperate effort - justified, in Washington's own words, only by "dire necessity" - and it might easily have ended in total and final ruin for the American cause.

But it didn't.

Monument marking the site where the army came ashore on the Jersey
side of the Delaware (with the Pennsylvania shore visible in the distance).

The Johnson Ferry House is the only local building still standing since that night in 1776. This house provided shelter for some of Washington's troops during the crossing, which took several painful hours to complete - much longer than expected. One of the first officers to come ashore, while waiting, took time to write a letter here:

"I am writing from the Ferry House. The troops are all over, and the boats have gone back for the artillery. We are three hours behind the set time. Glover's men have had a hard time to force the boats through the floating ice with the snow driving in their faces...I never have seen Washington so determined as he is now. He stands on the bank of the river, wrapped in his cloak, superintending the landing of the troops. He is calm and collected, but very determined. The storm is changing to sleet, and cuts like a knife."

A narrow staircase in the Johnson Ferry House.
This house is very well preserved, and should not be missed if you visit the park.

Have you ever heard that oft-repeated sob-story about how your parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents, when they were children, had to walk back and forth nine miles to school every day, even in the snow? Washington's troops really did that on Christmas night as they marched from the crossing site to Trenton, about ten miles distant - in the dark, in a miserable blizzard, all their equipment and gunpowder getting wet, dragging heavy cannons through the snow, down into steep ravines and up the other side - while many of the men were barely clothed, some without shoes, their feet cut and bleeding and staining the snow red. Two of them sat down to rest along the way, fell asleep, and froze to death when their absence went unnoticed. It all may seem like a gross exaggeration for the sake of drama, but it really was every bit as bad as it sounds.

And still more problems kept piling up, too. Soldiers at two other crossing sites failed to get across the river at all, leaving Washington with fewer troops than he had been counting on. And his own river crossing, though successful, took so long that the march began much later than expected, dashing all hope for the advantage of a pre-dawn attack. Nevertheless, they covered the distance to Trenton by 8:00 a.m. In a fog of snow flurries, they surprised and defeated the Hessians in a swift battle that improved the morale of Washington's exhausted troops and turned the tide of the war in America's favor. Today, a monument to the victory stands in the city of Trenton:

That's Washington up there, of course.
But I don't know who the guys are down below:

There's a room at the base of the monument, but it was temporarily
closed at the time of my visit, so I don't know what it contains.

There's a widespread myth concerning the condition of the Hessian troops at the time of the decisive battle; it's often said that the Germans had been drinking heavily during the night, in celebration of Christmas, rendering them drunk by the time that Washington arrived to beat them up. This is offered as an explanation for the seemingly easy victory over them. But the author David Hackett Fischer, in his book "Washington's Crossing," strongly challenges this notion. The discipline of the Hessian troops was strictly enforced even on Christmas night, since spies in Washington's camp had already delivered warnings of a potential attack on Trenton; furthermore, the Hessians responded promptly when the fighting began, and eyewitnesses reported seeing not a single drunken soldier in the town. The key to Washington's victory, it seems, was not that his enemy was incapacitated by drink; rather, the blizzard had led the Hessians to relax and lower their guard, on the belief that an attack could not be launched in such severe weather.

Below, a plaque on the door of the monument pretty much sums it all up from the British perspective: