Washington Crossing the Delaware: The Night History Held Its Breath
Emanuel Leutze painted it in 1851, Washington standing like a superhero general in a wooden boat, crossing an icy river with the Sun coming up, and the flag of a country that didn't quite exist yet blowing behind him. The painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has been in textbooks for decades. It also has numerous historical inaccuracies. The flag shown didn't exist yet. Washington most likely sat down for the crossing, not stood because standing in a small boat in an ice storm is how generals drown. The dramatic morning light in the painting has no resemblance to the black, sleet-filled midnight of December 25, 1776. However, here is what the painting, inaccuracies and all, gets right. The desperation, courage, and potential consequences of that night were just as incredible as the painting leads you to believe.
By Christmas 1776, the American Revolution was hanging by a thread. It should have been over. Washington had lost New York, lost Long Island, lost Fort Washington, and retreated across New Jersey in a way that Thomas Paine famously called “the times that try men's souls.” His army had shrunk from 19,000 to fewer than 3,000. For men who had enlisted, their commitment expired on January 1st, which was just one week away. If he did not win something, before that date, the army would disband and take the hope of America with it.
The plan Washington designed was both brilliant and reckless. He would cross the Delaware River on Christmas night, when the Hessian soldiers at Trenton would be celebrating and hopefully be completely drunk. Then he would march 9 miles in the dark, and attack at dawn. Three separate crossing groups were organized. Only one, which was Washington's own group of 2,400 men, successfully made it. The other two were turned back by ice and weather. Washington chose to keep moving forward anyway.
It took almost all night to get across the river. The boats they used were large with a flat bottom. They were used in trading on the river, not military boats. Colonel John Glover's regiment of Marblehead, Massachusetts fishermen and sailors managed the oars and poles, breaking ice as they went. Sleet drove into the soldiers' faces. Horses had to be transported separately. The plan called for them to reach Trenton by midnight. Washington's force didn't reach the other side of the river until after 3am.
At daybreak, they attacked by surprise. The battle lasted about 45 minutes. The Hessians, which were real German soldiers, and not drunk holiday partiers as some have said, but genuinely surprised and unable to form proper lines in the narrow streets. The Hessians had 22 soldiers killed, 83 wounded, and 896 captured. Washington lost two men to frostbite instead of enemy fire. It was almost a perfect victory under nearly impossible conditions.
What made it historic was not military math but political timing. Washington recrossed the Delaware with his prisoners after his victory and then, to Britain’s surprise crossed back again to fight at Princeton on January 3rd, winning a second battle before British General Cornwallis could trap him. The two victories reversed the lost colonial morale almost overnight. Men enlisted in surges. France, watching from across the ocean, took a double take and thought that the Americans might not lose after all.
A general with a good army and soldiers full of belief does not cross an icy river in a blizzard on Christmas night. Washington had none of those things. Instead, he crossed because his back was against the wall and there was nothing left to lose and everything left to win.
Sources
Fischer, David Hackett. Washington's Crossing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton. New York: Doubleday, 1973.
Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington: A Military Life. New York: Random House, 2005.
Stryker, William S. The Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898.
Paine, Thomas. The American Crisis, No. 1. Philadelphia, December 19, 1776. Reprint, New York: Library of America, 1995.
