At around seven-thirty A.M., the operation was nearly derailed by a preposterous blunder committed by an old Washington colleague. General Adam Stephen had fought with Washington in Braddock’s campaign and vied with him for a seat in the House of Burgesses. The day before the Delaware crossing, he had dispatched a company of Virginians to scout enemy positions in Trenton. Now, as he neared the town, Washington was shocked to meet these fifty Virginians and learn that they had exchanged fire with Hessian sentries, raising the appalling specter that the Hessians had been alerted to the Continental Army’s advent. Under questioning, Captain George Wallis told Washington they had acted under instructions from Stephen. Washington summarily hauled the latter into his presence. “You, sir!” Washington scolded him. “You, sir, may have ruined all my plans by having put them on their guard.”²⁶ Those present were amazed by the vivid show of temper, but Washington soon regained his self-mastery and told the Virginians to fall in with his column.

The mythology of the Battle of Trenton portrays the Hessian mercenaries as slumbering in a drunken stupor after imbibing late-night Christmas cheer. In fact, Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall had kept his men on high alert, and they felt frazzled and exhausted from constant drills and patrols. Quite shrewdly, Washington had worn them down by irregular raids and small skirmishes in the surrounding countryside. If the Hessians were caught off guard that morning, it was only because they thought the forbidding weather would preclude an attack. These tough, brawny hirelings, with a reputation for ferocity, inspired healthy fear among the Americans. But handicapped by their patronizing view of the Americans, they couldn’t conceive of something of quite the scale and daring that Washington attempted. “I must concede that on the whole we had a poor opinion of the rebels, who previously had never successfully opposed us,” said Lieutenant Jakob Piel.²⁷ Having received multiple warnings of the surprise attack, Rall was so certain of the superiority of his men that he dismissed these reports with blithe bravado: “Let them come.”²⁸

As Washington approached Trenton, he was astounded by the valor of his men, who had marched all night and were still eager to attack. Though a snowy tempest still whirled around them, the squalls now blew at their backs as they raced forward at a brisk pace. Intent on exploiting the element of surprise, Washington wanted his men to startle the Hessians. Emerging from the Trenton woods shortly after eight A.M., he divided his wing of the army into three columns and spearheaded the middle column himself, trotting forward in an exposed position. As his men surged ahead, he reported to Hancock, they “seemed to vie with the other in pressing forward.” ²⁹ Washington heard artillery blasts exploding on the River Road, confirming that the two American wings had coordinated their arrival.

Trenton consisted of a hundred or so houses, long since deserted by their occupants. Knox’s cannon began to fire with pinpoint accuracy down the two main streets, King and Queen, with Alexander Hamilton again in the thick of the fray. “The hurry, fright, and confusion of the enemy was [not] unlike that which will be when the last trump shall sound,” said Knox, who forced the German gunners to abandon their weapons and scatter to the southern end of town.³⁰

Colonel Rall mobilized a group of men in an apple orchard, then tried to steer a charge toward Washington. Responding to this move, Washington adroitly positioned his men on high ground nearby. As John Greenwood recalled, “General Washington, on horseback and alone, came up to our major and said, ‘March on, my brave fellows, after me!’ and rode off.”³¹ Washington’s quick-witted action stopped the Hessian advance in its tracks. Colonel Rall, who was riddled with bullets, “reeled in the saddle” before being rescued from his horse and carried to a church. Washington conversed with the dying Rall and ordered that all Hessian prisoners be treated honorably. When he learned from Major James Wilkinson of the surrender of the last regiment, he beamed with quiet pleasure. “Major Wilkinson,” he replied, shaking his hand, “this is a glorious day for our country.”³² Since he had crafted the strategy and led his men to glory, the stunning victory belonged to Washington lock, stock, and barrel.

The American triumph was accomplished in less than an hour.“It may be doubted,” wrote George Trevelyan, “whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.”³³ The battle toll was a bloody one for the Hessians: 22 killed, 84 wounded, and nearly 900 captured (500 escaped to safety) versus only 2 American deaths in combat plus another 4 or 5 from exposure to cold. A huge bonanza of muskets, bayonets, cannon, and swords fell into American hands. The patriots also took possession of forty hogs-heads of rum. Trying to enforce sobriety, Washington ordered the rum spilled on the ground, but many men, unable to resist the comfort of warming liquor, grew wildly intoxicated. The patriotic myth about Trenton inverts the reality: it wasn’t the Hessians who were inebriated before the battle, but the patriots afterward.

Mindful of the frigid weather and the wobbly state of the drunken troops, Washington and his officers decided to hasten back to the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, an operation complicated by the need to shepherd Hessian prisoners as well. The proud but weather-beaten army had endured a sixty-hour marathon of frostbite, disease, and exhaustion and needed rest. In his general orders for December 27, Washington thanked his men with unstinting fervor, banishing all traces of the snobbery he once felt toward them: “The General, with the utmost sincerity and affection, thanks the officers and soldiers for their spirited and gallant behavior at Trenton yesterday.”³⁴ The army had harvested a trove of Hessian trophies, ranging from guns to horses, and Washington had the cash value of these spoils distributed proportionately among his soldiers. Even though some had gotten roaring drunk at Trenton, Washington relaxed his usual practice and had more rum ladled out to his thirsty men.

In truth, Washington had little time to rejoice after this bravura performance. Now headquartered in the “old yellow house” of widow Hannah Harris, he convened a war council on December 27 at which the generals digested a startling piece of news: that morning, Colonel Cadwalader had belatedly crossed the Delaware with eighteen hundred militiamen, hoping to mount a second New Jersey offensive. The generals grappled with a tough predicament. They voiced doubts about recrossing the Delaware and tempting fate again, but they were loath to strand Cadwalader and wanted to prove that the first crossing hadn’t been a fluke. A consensus slowly took shape to strike again at Trenton. “It was a remarkable and very instructive success for Washington’s maturing style of quiet, consultative leadership,” notes David Hackett Fischer.³⁵ The Trenton victory had wrought a wondrous transformation; the deliberations of Washington and his generals were now informed by a newfound confidence.

On December 28, amid thickening snow flurries, Washington ordered militia units in northern New Jersey to stymie the enemy and “harass their flanks and rear.”³⁶ Then on December 29 he set in motion the enormous gamble ratified by his generals, sending his men back across to Trenton. This second crossing, even more ambitious than the first, encompassed eight crossing points and twice as many cannon. A fresh sheet of ice impeded the boats and retarded the operation. Washington himself didn’t cross the Delaware until December 30, when he stationed his men on a secure slope behind Assunpink Creek, a narrow, fast-moving creek at the southern end of Trenton. This entrenched position posed more formidable risks than the swift hit-and-run raid launched on Christmas Night.