"As we all are," said his mother; "but we must not forget to give the
glory of that victory, and all others, and also of our final success,
to him who is the God of battles, and by whose strength and help our
freedom was won. As Bancroft says, 'Until that hour the life of the
United States flickered like a dying flame,' but God had appeared for
their deliverance and from that time the hopes of the almost despairing
people revived, while the confident expectations of their enemies were
dashed to the ground. Lord George Germain exclaimed after he heard the
news, 'All our hopes were blasted by the unhappy affair at Trenton.'"

"Unhappy affair indeed!" exclaimed Walter. "What a heartless wretch he
must have been, mamma!"

"And how our poor soldiers did suffer!" sighed Lulu; "it makes my heart
ache just to think of it!"

"And mine," said Grandma Elsie. "It is wonderful how much the poor
fellows were willing to endure in the hope of attaining freedom for
themselves and their country.

"Thomas Rodney tells us that on the night of the attack upon Trenton of
which we have been talking, while Rall caroused and played cards beside
his warm fire, our poor soldiers were toiling and suffering with cold
and nakedness, facing wind and sleet in the defence of their country.

"The night," he says, "was as severe a night as ever I saw; the frost
was sharp, the current difficult to stem, the ice increasing, the wind
high, and at eleven it began to snow. It was three in the morning of the
26th before the troops and cannon were all over, and another hour passed
before they could be formed on the Jersey side. A violent northeast