directing them to march
to Morristown, where his own troops were then halted. The prospect of
this reenforcement, which in all probability he had been expecting to
intercept, may account both for the slowness of Lee's march, and for the
closing sentence of his reply to Heath. Here it is: "I am in hopes to
reconquer (if I may so express myself) the Jerseys. It was really in the
hands of the enemy before my arrival."

[Sidenote: Washington crosses the Delaware.]

[Sidenote: December 8.]

In halting as he did Lee was deliberately forcing a crisis with
Washington, who was all this time falling back upon his supplies, while
the British, having to drag theirs after them, could only advance by
spurts. Here was a rare opportunity for fighting in retreat being thrown
away, as Washington conceived, by Lee's dilatoriness in reenforcing
him. Reluctant to abandon his last chance of giving the enemy a check,
Washington seems to have thought of doing so at Princeton (ignorant that
this spot was so soon to be the field of more brilliant operations) as a
means of gaining time for the removal of his baggage across the
Delaware. It was probably with no other purpose that his advance, which
had reached Trenton as early as the 3d, was marched back to Princeton,
which Lord Sterling was still holding with the rear-guard as late as the
7th, when, as we have seen, Cornwallis made his forced march from
Brunswick to Princeton, in such force as to put resistance out of the
question. Here he halted for seventeen hours, thus giving Washington
time to reach Trenton, get his 2,200 or 2,400 men across the Delaware,
and draw them up on the other side, out of harm's reach, just as his
baffled pursuers arrived on the opposite bank.

Cornwallis immediately began a search for the means of crossing in his
turn.[2] Here, again, he was baffled by Washington's foresight, as
every boat for seventy miles up and down the Delaware had been removed
beyond his adversary's reach.

On the day of this catastrophe, which seemed, in the opinion not only of
the victors, but of the vanquished, to have given the finishing stroke
to the American Revolution, Lee's force, augmented by the junction of
the troops marching down to join him, was the sole prop and stay of the
cause in the Jerseys.

That force lay quietly at Morristown until the 12th of the month, when
it was again put in motion toward Vealtown, now Bernardsville.

[Sidenote: Gates arrives.]

[Sidenote: Le