Additional contingents marched in, from the forces of Generals Gates and Arnold in New York and New England - from which locations they could hardly be spared, for the British were threatening offshore in Narragansett Bay. The addition of these seasoned men built Washington's army up for an intended offensive to some 10,000 men; of which however 3.500 were sick or disabled. The remaining 6,500 effective soldiers were distributed along the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware in these
contingents:

     3,000 under direct leadership of Washington and his principal Generals, near Newtown, Pennsylvania.

     800  under Generals James  Ewing and Philemon Dickinson at the "lower Trenton ferry." these  being principally New Jersey militiamen.

     1,500 under General John Cadwalader and Colonel Joseph Reed, near Bristol.

     1,200 as a protective force at the capital city, Philadelphia, under General Isreal Putnam. Colonel Samuel Griffin, a Virginian and former aide-de-camp to General Charles Lee, had by this time been reassigned to serve as adjutant- general under Putnam in Philadelphia.

     By what amounted to a miracle in the way of successful secrecy, Washington's planned attack  on Trenton did not penetrate the consciousness of the enemy until the assault began.

     To this assault the Commander in Chief had been strongly urged by his associates, notably by Rhode Island's General Nathanael Greene and New Jersey's Colonel Joseph Reed. Greene was an outstanding tactician; Reed was familiar with the New Jersey countryside and crossed the Delaware several times in December to appraise the enemy positions and study routes for the projected mid-winter offensive.

     Wagonloads  of  shoes,  breeches,  coats, medicines and  rum  were  rounded  up  in Philadelphia by patriots, and hauled north on crusty roads to supply the army, translating it from a down-at-heels force to a determined body of troops ready to strike.

     On December 17 Colonel Samuel Griffin was instructed to cross the river from Philadelphia with a few field pieces, gathering some 600 men and boys as he went, to harass the enemy in Burlington County. This might possibly have given  away  the intended surprise against Trenton; but Hessian Colonel von Donop, hearing exaggerated reports of the movement, interpreted it as a threat to his 2,000 man contingent at Bordentown - at which location he visualized being backed against the Delaware with no means of escape.

     The Hessian Colonel therefore came out fighting, after his alarm guns several miles away warned of the American advance on December 22; and following an  extended skirmish at Petticoat  Bridge  the enemy  force followed Griffin south and inland  to  bombard  the American encampment at Mount Holly on December 23 and 24. Griffin's men withdrew to Moorestown, and von Donop's army settled down to spend as merry a Christmas as might be in Mount Holly.

     For the enemy troops in Mount Holly, and for their 1.500 compatriots now more than twenty miles away at Trenton, this Christmas Day seemed merry enough; despite overcrowded quarters in what to them was a foreign land where nobody understood their language. Within the ranks there was much drinking and feasting - but on the next morning, December 26,   the merriment ended.

     The rumble of guns from the north spelled humiliation to von Donop, at Mount Holly; and to commander Gottlieb Rahl at Trenton the guns spelled death.

     Washington's plan had envisaged a triple thrust across the  river:  his own  army at McConkey's Ferry eight miles above Trenton, to march in midnight columns on the city; the Ewing-Dickinson force at the lower Trenton ferry, to prevent any escape by the Hessians into Burlington County by means of the so-called   "Trenton   Bridge;"  and  the Cadwalader-Reed troops and artillery near Burlington, to divert von Donop from any cooperation with Rahl at Trenton.

     The weather had turned bitter two days earlier, and at midnight on Christmas night sleet was falling. Two of the three thrusts failed, at the lower Trenton ferry and at Dunk's Ferry, the present site of Beverly, where ice had formed solidly a third of the way across the Delaware. At McConkey's Ferry Washington, morose and implacable, crossed with his army amidst floating ice, and formed his forces into two extended  columns under Greene and Bullivan.

     The time schedule could not be held; it was four in the morning before the columns were underway in New Jersey, and the element of a daybreak surprise at Trenton appeared to be lost. Still the men plodded on, poorly shed against the sleet-filled Hunterdon County roads, and the clomp and creak of horses' hoofs and artillery wheels echoed against the night.

     The element of surprise, however, was not lost.  In  early  daylight  the  Americans  overpowered Hessian pickets on the roads north of the city; and Colonel Rahl and his principal force were caught unaware of the oncoming Americans until the rattle of musketry began, followed by the roar of cannon from the intersection at the head of King and Oueen Streets.

     In the course of two mid-morning hours the Battle of Trenton was won, leaving Colonel Rahl mortally wounded and twenty two other Hessians dead.

     The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun. A young officer approached Washington with the words: "Sir, they have struck!"

     "Struck?"

     "Yes. Their colors are down!"

     Washington wiped the sleet from his field glass and stared at the huddled ranks of enemy troops, their regimental flags no longer flying. With great emotion he underscored the victory with a rapt understatement: "So they are."

     More than nine hundred Hessians were disarmed and taken as prisoners; the remainder, aside from the casualties, escaping across the Trenton bridge - convincing Washington that the Ewing and Dickinson force had been unable to cross the river. Lack of firing to the south convinced him also that Cadwalader and Reed had been unable to bring their army across.
Isolated at Trenton and with a large force of English known to be at Princeton, he made the decision to re-cross the Delaware into Pennsylvania the same afternoon.

     If anything, it was a more difficult crossing than the one the night before. Without sleep, and with a horde of prisoners, a thousand stands of enemy arms and six captured artillery pieces  in tow, the Americans made the icy journey back to their quarters.

     The story of the lop-sided victory, the weather, and of their hardships could be appraised by a glance at the American casualty list resulting from the  Battle of Trenton: four men wounded, and five frozen to death.

     The next day, the captured Hessian regimental flags were carried to the Continental Congress, in token of victory.