Published: Monday, Dec. 23, 2002

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December 23- 9, 1776

This week we focus our attention on Commander-in-Chief George Washington's bold move to cross the Delaware River, on Christmas Day 1776, a move which reversed the sagging spirits of the American forces and population after a long string of defeats in the Revolutionary War. This action reflects the quality of leadership which characterized Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and which is being demonstrated only by Lyndon LaRouche, in the crucial crisis we face today.

The situation of the American colonists was desperate, as we indicated in our last week's column on the Crisis paper of Tom Paine. On top of the string of defeats, and the retreat down New Jersey, were the threat that a large portion of the Army, which was made up of colonial militiamen who had enlisted for short periods of time, was about to go home; the enticement of an amnesty which had been offered by the British Commander Cornwallis; and the miserable condition, in terms of supplies, of the Continental Army itself.

Washington, then 43, was faced with the need both to defend Philadelphia, the seat of Congress, and to remoralize his forces. Having retreated across the Delaware River, the border between Delaware and Pennsylvania on one side, and New Jersey on the other, he decided to launch a counterattack back across the Delaware River into New Jersey, to ambush the British troops which were settling in for the winter. Washington's plan called for attacking all the British posts on the Delaware, but it ended up that several divisions didn't make it, leaving the major engagement to occur at Trenton.

One reason Washington was able to do this, was that he had commandeered all the boats along the Pennsylvania side of the river, denying them to the British who had wanted to cross over into Pennsylvania, and making them available for his bold plan. In addition, he had received reinforcements from the North.

It was a daring plan, which hardly could have been popular with Washington's ill-clad Army. It called for one column to cross the river above Trenton, on the night of Dec. 25, march south, and storm the British troops' winter quarters in Trenton. These troops, 2,400 in all, were to be led by General Washington himself.

According to the testimony of John Marshall, in his biography of General Washington, "The cold on the night of the 25th was very severe. Snow, mingled with hail and rain, fell in great quantities, and so much ice was made in the river" that it was impossible to keep the original schedule Washington had devised. Thus, while the General's contingent was supposed to cross the river starting at 12 midnight, and meet the body of Pennsylvania militia coming up from the South at 5:00 a.m., Washington's troops couldn't get across the Delaware until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m..
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