. Making that
most serious of mistakes for a military man of despising his opponents,
Howe had scattered his army, for convenience in quartering, in various
small detachments along the river. The small American army,
supplemented by the Pennsylvania militia, had been placed opposite the
different fords from Yardley to New Hope, to hold the enemy in check in
case an attempt should be made to force a crossing.

The fortunes of the country were at the lowest ebb. But there was to
be a speedy reversal of conditions, and the world was to learn how
dangerous a man was leading the Continental troops. Washington, to
whom a retreat was as hateful as it had been necessary, had long
meditated an attack whenever any chance whatever of success might
present itself. The necessity for a change was apparent, not merely
for the material result which would flow from a victory, but for the
moral effect as well. The fancied security of the enemy, their exposed
positions, disconnected from each other, and the contempt they felt for
his own troops, were large factors in determining him to strike then;
but another factor had still more weight, and that was the fact that
the time of the enlistment of nearly the whole of his own army expired
with the end of the year, and whatever was to be done must be done
quickly. He therefore conceived the daring and brilliant design of
suddenly collecting his scattered forces, crossing the river, and
falling upon his unsuspecting enemy at Trenton, where a small brigade
of Hessians, under Colonel Rahl, was stationed.

It would be a piece of unparalleled audacity. To turn, as it were,
just before the dissolution of his army, and cross a wide and deep
river full of ice, in the dead of winter, and strike, like the hammer
of Thor, upon his unwary foe, rudely disturbing his complacent dreams,
was a conception of exceeding brilliancy, and it at once stamped
Washington as a military genius of the first order. And with such an
army to make such an attempt! Said one of the officers of the period
in his memoirs: "An army without cavalry, partially provided with
artillery, deficient in transportation for the little they had to
carry; without tents, tools, or camp equipage,--without magazines of
any kind; half clothed, badly armed, debilitated by disease,
disheartened by misfortune." But their leader was a Lion, and the Lion
was at last at bay! There was another factor which contributed greatly
to the effi