January 1st, 1777
As a Post-Christmas gift on December 26 1776, General George Washington surprised and captured the German Hessians while asleep, with a brutal attack by crossing the Delaware and marching into Trenton stealthily. On Christmas day, with twenty four hundred men, Washington thought of a plan to attack the Hessian position at Trenton by starting overnight after being driven out of New York and being forced to retreat to Delaware during the late summer of 1776 and the influence of the annual crisis of the Continental Army’s expiry of enlistment. As a last chance and morale builder, General George Washington decided to take this advantage and catch the Hessians unexpectedly. German Hessians were those hired by the British through various German princes to fight in the Revolutionary war. Over the course of the war, German princes supplied British troops nearly 30,000 men. Washington’s plan was to cross the Delaware River despite the harsh conditions at three points with a force commanded by Lieutenant Col Cadwallader, a second force under Brigadier Ewing of militia, and the third commanded by himself who would attack the Hessian garrison in town. With 2,400 men from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, General Washington led his troops across a river with flowing ice in a cold, dark night. At about 11 PM, a snow and sleet storm broke out and his force did not reach until 3 AM. Cold, tired, and ill-dressed, Washington and his men still had a long way to go. Ewing and Cadwallader failed to make the river crossing and took no part in the attack. Hessian Commander Colonel Rahl had been ordered to construct defense works around the town of Trenton and even