Christmas Day, 1776, was dismally cold. There was a driving storm
of sleet and the broad swollen stream of the Delaware, dotted
with dark masses of floating ice, offered a chill prospect. To
take an army with its guns across that threatening flood was
indeed perilous. Gates and other generals declared that the
scheme was too difficult to be carried out. Only one of the three
forces crossed the river. Washington, with iron will, was not to
be turned from his purpose. He had skilled boatmen from New
England. The crossing took no less than ten hours and a great
part of it was done in wintry darkness. When the army landed on
the New Jersey shore it had a march of nine miles in sleet and
rain in order to reach Trenton by daybreak. It is said that some
of the men marched barefoot leaving tracks of blood in the snow.
The arms of some were lost and those of others were wet and
useless but Washington told them that they must depend the more
on the bayonet. He attacked Trenton in broad daylight. There was
a sharp fight. Rahl, the commander, and some seventy men, were
killed and a thousand men surrendered.

Even now Washington's position was dangerous. Von Donop, with two
thousand men, lay only a few miles down the river. Had he marched
at once on Trenton, as he should have done, the worn out little
force of Washington might have met with disaster. What Von Donop
did when the alarm reached him was to retreat as fast as he could
to Princeton, a dozen miles to the rear towards New York, leaving
behind his sick and all his heavy equipment. Meanwhile
Washington, knowing his danger, had turned back across the
Delaware with a prisoner for every two of his men. When, however,
he saw what Von Donop had done he returned on the twenty-ninth to