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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26.

At Trenton: Surprises the Hessians, who, after a short and decisive engagement, surrender, and recrosses the river the same evening, with nearly a thousand prisoners, the same number of arms, and several cannon.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27.

At Newtown, Pennsylvania: "I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the success of an enterprise, which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning."— Washington to the President of Congress.

Newtown, where Washington made his head-quarters after the battle of Trenton, then the county-seat of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is about five miles west of the Delaware River, and about the same distance south west of Taylorsville. The house occupied was the property of John Harris; it was retained by Washington as his quarters until December 29, when he set out to recross the Delaware.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29.

At Newtown: "I am just setting out to attempt a second passage over the Delaware, with the troops that were with me on the morning of the 26th."- Washington to the President of Congress.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 30.

At Trenton: This morning Washington crossed the Delaware at McKonkey's Ferry, in advance of the troops, and proceeded to Trenton.

Washington's head-quarters at Trenton were at the house of Major John Barnes (a Loyalist), on the west side of Queen, now Greene Street, a short distance north of the Assunpink Creek. These quarters he retained until January 2, when he moved to the "True American Inn," on the south side of the creek.

1777.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1.

At Trenton: "On Monday morning [December 30, 1776,] I passed the Delaware myself; the whole of our troops and artillery not till yesterday, owing to the ice, which rendered their passage extremely difficult and fatiguing. . . General Mifflin is at Bordentown with about eighteen hundred men, and General Cadwalader at Crosswicks with about the same number."- Washington to the President of Congress.

The troops under Generals Mifflin and Cadwalader, composed of Pennsylvania militia, joined the main army at Trenton by a night march, on the 1st.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2.

At Trenton: The enemy, who were in force at Princeton, under Lord Cornwallis, advanced during the day, the head of their column reaching Trenton about four o'clock in the afternoon. After making several attempts from the north, to cross a small bridge spanning the Assunpink Creek, to the south of which the army was encamped, they halted for the night. Washington, having discovered by this time that they were greatly superior in number, called a council of war, in which it was decided to abandon the Delaware, and by marching silently in the night gain the rear of the troops still at Princeton, and, if possible, strike a blow at New Brunswick, the depository of the British stores. Accordingly, after renewing all the fires, the army left its position at midnight, and by a circuitous route reached Princeton, ten miles distant, about sunrise of the 3d.

The council of war was held at the Douglas House, nearly two squares south of the creek, on ground now occupied by the German Lutheran Church.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3.

At the battle of Princeton: The seventeenth and fiftyfifth regiments of the British brigade, commanded by Colonel Mawhood, being defeated, the former retreated towards Trenton, and the latter to New Brunswick, as did also the fortieth, which took little part in the action.

Washington pursued the enemy as far as Kingston, beyond the Millstone River, three miles northeast of Princeton, and then filing off to the left, after destroying the bridge, marched to Somerset Court-house, now Millstone, where the troops bivouacked for the night. "Washington and some of his staff quartered at the residence of John Van Doren, just south of the village; the house is still standing, as is the barn in which the general's horse was stabled."* In the morning the army continued the march over the hills to Pluckamin, twenty miles north of Princeton, which place was reached during the afternoon.

When Horace Walpole heard of the affair at Trenton, and Washington's night march to Princeton, he wrote to Sir Horace Mann: "Washington the dictator, has shown himself both a Fabius and a Camillus. His march through our lines is allowed to have been a prodigy of generalship."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 5.

...

At Pluckamin, New Jersey: "Fortune has favored us in an attack on Princeton. . . . Three regiments of British troops were quartered there, which we attacked and routed. The number of the killed, wounded, and prisoners amounts to about five or six hundred. . . . After the action we immediately marched for this place. I shall remove from hence to Morristown."- Washington to General Putnam.

"January 5th, 1777.-This morning the General ordered 40 of our Light Infantry to attend the funeral of Col. Leslie one of the enemy [wounded at Princeton], to bury him with the honors of war."-Diary of Captain Thomas Rodney, "Papers of the Hist. Soc. of Delaware," viii.

MONDAY, JANUARY 6.

At Morristown, New Jersey: "January 6th.-We left Pluckemin this morning and arrived at Morristown just before sunset."-Diary of Captain Thomas Rodney.

*The "Story of an Old Farm," by Andrew D. Mellick, p. 382.

At Morristown, Washington made his head-quarters at a tavern owned and kept by Colonel Jacob Arnold, on the northwest side of the Public Square. It was a frame building, which was removed in 1886.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18.

At Morristown: "The enemy by two lucky strokes, at Trenton and Princeton, have been obliged to abandon every part of Jersey except Brunswic and Amboy, and the small tract of country between them, which is so entirely exhausted of supplies of every kind, that I hope, by preventing them from sending their foraging parties to any great distance, to reduce them to the utmost distress, in the course of this winter."- Washington to General Schuyler.

MONDAY, JANUARY 20.

At Morristown: "Our affairs here are in a very prosperous train. Within a month past, in several engagements with the enemy, we have killed, wounded, and taken prisoners between two and three thousand men. I am very confident, that the enemy's loss here will oblige them to recall their force from your State."- Washington to Governor Cooke, of Rhode Island.

On the 26th of December, 1776, the squadron of Sir Peter Parker, bearing between eight and ten thousand men, British and Hessians, commanded by General Clinton and Earl Percy, entered Narragansett Bay. The troops landed about four and a half miles above Newport, and took possession of Rhode Island. Early in May, 1777, General Clinton, with nearly half the army, left for New York, and the command devolved upon Major-General Prescott, who was superseded in 1778 by Sir Robert Pigot, with reinforcements. In August, 1778, General Sullivan in conjunction with the French fleet under D'Estaing undertook to regain possession of Rhode Island, but the attempt was unsuccessful, and Sullivan, after the battle of August 29 (Quaker Hill), was forced to evacuate the Island. The British held possession until October 25, 1779, when Sir Henry Clinton, apprehending an attack upon New York by the combined forces of the French and Americans, withdrew the troops.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23.

At Morristown: "The Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse

under the command of Captain Morris, having perform'd their Tour of duty are discharged for the present.

"I take this Opportunity of returning my most sincere thanks to the Captain and to the Gentlemen who compose the Troop, for the many essential Services which they have rendered to their Country, and to me personally during the Course of this severe Campaign. Tho' composed of Gentlemen of Fortune, they have shewn a noble Example of discipline and subordination, and in several Actions have shewn a Spirit of Bravery which will ever do Honor to them and will ever be gratefully remembered by me."— Washington to the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24.

At Morristown: "While our dependence is upon militia, we have a full army one day, and scarce any the next; and I am much afraid, that the enemy one day or other, taking advantage of one of these temporary weaknesses, will make themselves masters of our magazines of stores, arms, and artillery."- Washington to Governor Trumbull.

The letter from which the above extract is made was sent as a circular to each of the New England States. After alluding to the want of a regular body of troops, on whom he could depend for a length of time, and urging the prompt equipment of the battalions allotted to each State by the resolutions of Congress of September, 1776, Washington wrote: "Nothing but their [the enemy's] ignorance of our numbers protects us at this very time, when, on the contrary, had we six or eight thousand regular troops, or could the militia, who were with me a few days ago, have been prevailed upon to stay, we could have struck such a stroke, as would have inevitably ruined the army of the enemy, in their divided state."

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25.

At Morristown: Issues a proclamation commanding and requiring every person who had signed a declaration of fidelity, taken the oath of allegiance, and engaged not to take up arms against the King of Great Britain, to repair to head-quarters within thirty days, and there deliver up such protection, certificate, and passport, and take the oath

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