Trenton–Princeton Campaign

By December 1776, the Continental Army had retreated across New Jersey and enlistments were expiring. George Washington chose to cross the ice-filled Delaware on Christmas night and attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton.

After the first victory, American forces returned to New Jersey, held off Cornwallis at Assunpink Creek and marched around the British position to defeat troops near Princeton. The campaign forced British deployments back towards the coast and restored American morale.

Washington’s Crossing presents the campaign as a sequence of contingent decisions involving soldiers, civilians, intelligence, weather, leadership and the contrasting military cultures of American, British and German forces.