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The Ten Crucial Days: Washington's Crossing, Trenton and Princeton at 250

How a beaten army crossed the Delaware and won at Trenton and Princeton.
Oil painting of Continental soldiers crossing the icy Delaware River by night in wooden boats

By December 1776 the war for independence looked close to lost. In four months the British had driven George Washington's army off Long Island and Manhattan, captured nearly 3,000 Americans at Fort Washington, and chased the survivors across New Jersey and over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Congress had fled Philadelphia for Baltimore. Most of the soldiers' enlistments would run out on December 31, and Thomas Paine, who had marched with the retreat, opened his new pamphlet, The American Crisis, with the line "These are the times that try men's souls."

Over the next 10 days the army turned around. On the night of December 25–26, about 2,400 men crossed the ice-choked river at McConkey's Ferry, with Colonel John Glover's Marblehead sailors working the boats and Colonel Henry Knox directing the crossing. At dawn they marched on Trenton in two columns under Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, and in a short morning fight they captured about 900 of the town's Hessian garrison; its commander, Colonel Johann Rall, was mortally wounded. A week later Washington held off Charles Cornwallis at Assunpink Creek on January 2, 1777, slipped away in the night, and beat a British force at Princeton on January 3, where General Hugh Mercer was mortally wounded. The army then went into winter quarters at Morristown.

Neither battle was large, but together they changed what people on both sides believed was possible. Enough soldiers stayed on to hold the army together, the British pulled back from most of New Jersey, and Washington's standing with Congress and with observers in Europe recovered. This guide follows that winter in three stages: the retreat that set it up, the 10 days themselves, and the campaigns the army survived to fight. December 26, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of Trenton, and January 3, 2027, the 250th anniversary of Princeton.

The Retreat of 1776

The crossing only makes sense against what came before it. From August to December 1776 the Continental Army lost New York, lost thousands of men to capture, desertion and expiring enlistments, and fell back across New Jersey with the British close behind. By mid-December Washington had only a few thousand men fit for duty, and Congress had left its capital.

Continental Army retreat across the East River, 1776
Battle of Long Island
The August 27, 1776, defeat that opened the British campaign for New York and began the long American retreat.
The Continental Congress in session in Philadelphia, founding fathers debating colonial independence
Continental Congress
Congress left Philadelphia for Baltimore on December 12, 1776, and on December 27 gave Washington broad emergency powers for six months.
Portrait of Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and The American Crisis
Thomas Paine
Paine marched with the retreating army and wrote The American Crisis, published in December 1776, which Washington is said to have had read to his troops.
Colonial New Jersey countryside
New Jersey
The state the army crossed twice that winter, first in retreat and then on the attack.
The Ten Days

Between Christmas night 1776 and January 3, 1777, Washington crossed the Delaware, took the Hessian garrison at Trenton, held off Cornwallis at Assunpink Creek, and won at Princeton. The people below led the attacks, fought in them, or were wounded in them.

Portrait of George Washington, first President of the United States
George Washington
The commander who chose to attack with an army about to dissolve, and who rallied his men in person under fire at Princeton.
Illustration of Washington crossing the Delaware at the Battle of Trenton, 1776
Battle of Trenton
The December 26 surprise attack after a night crossing at McConkey's Ferry, which captured about 900 Hessians and left Colonel Johann Rall mortally wounded.
Portrait of Nathanael Greene, Continental Army general
Nathanael Greene
Led one of the two columns that converged on Trenton and fought again at Princeton, years before his campaign in the South.
Portrait of James Monroe, 5th President of the United States
James Monroe
The future fifth president, then an 18-year-old lieutenant, was badly wounded at Trenton while charging Hessian guns.
Battle of Princeton, January 1777
Battle of Princeton
The January 3, 1777, victory that followed a night march around Cornwallis's army and cost the Americans General Hugh Mercer.
What the Victories Bought

Trenton and Princeton did not win the war, which went on for almost five more years. They kept an army in existence long enough to fight the campaigns of 1777 and 1778, and to win the victory at Saratoga that brought France in as an ally.

Continental Army soldiers in battle during the American Revolution
The American Revolution
The whole war, from Lexington and Concord to the Treaty of Paris, in which the winter of 1776–77 was both the low point and the first recovery.
Illustration of the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point of the American Revolution, 1777
Battle of Saratoga
The October 1777 American victory in New York that brought France into the war, won by an army Trenton and Princeton had helped keep in the field.
View of the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777–1778
Valley Forge
The winter camp of 1777–78, where the army that survived 1776 was drilled into a more disciplined force.
Battle of Monmouth, 1778
Battle of Monmouth
The June 28, 1778, battle in New Jersey where the retrained Continentals held their own against British regulars in open-field fighting.

For the rest of the war, battle by battle, see Every Major Battle of the American Revolution, or place these 10 days in the full sequence of events with The American Revolution: A Complete Timeline. To walk the ground yourself, see Revolutionary War Sites You Can Still Visit.

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