143 Trenton, December 26, 1776

143. Trenton, December 26, 1776

Washington did not give up. On Christmas night, 1776, he crossed the Delaware with a division of his army. A violent snowstorm was raging, the river was full of ice. But Washington was there in person, and the soldiers crossed. Then the storm changed to sleet and rain. But on the soldiers marched. When the Hessian garrison at Trenton looked about them next morning they saw that Washington and Greene held the roads leading inland from the town. Stark and a few soldiers--among them James Monroe--held the bridge leading over the Assanpink to the next British post. A few horsemen escaped before Stark could prevent them. But all the foot soldiers were killed or captured. A few days later nearly one thousand prisoners marched through Philadelphia. They were Germans, who had been sold by their rulers to Britain's king to fight his battles. They were called Hessians by the Americans because most of them came from the little German state of Hesse Cassel.