To General Heath, he wrote: “I would have you advance as rapidly as the season will permit, with the eastern militia, by the way of the Hackensack, and proceed downwards until you hear from me. I think a fair opportunity is offered of driving the enemy entirely from, or, at least to the extremity of New Jersey.”
On the thirtieth, having again crossed to Trenton, Washington was able to announce that “the eastern Continental troops had agreed to remain six weeks longer, upon receipt of a bounty of ten dollars; and the services of eminent citizens were enlisted in an effort to use the success at Trenton, as a stimulus to recruiting,” and, “to hasten the concentration of the militia.” Washington intensely realized that in a few weeks, at furthest, he was to begin again the instruction of a new army; and determined to get the largest possible benefits from the presence of four thousand veterans who had consented to remain for a short period beyond their exact term of enlistment.
On the twenty-seventh of December, Congress clothed Washington with full dictatorial authority in the matter of raising troops, and in all that pertained to the conduct of the war, for the period of six months; reciting as the foundation of such action, that affairs were in such a condition that the very existence of civil liberty depended upon the right exercise of military powers; and, “the vigorous, decisive conduct of these being impossible in distant, numerous, and deliberative bodies, it was confident of the wisdom, vigor, and uprightness of George Washington.”
It was under the burden of this vast responsibility that Washington rested, when he closed the year 1776 in camp near Trenton. He responded to this confidence on the part of the Continental Congress, in this simple manner: “Instead of thinking myself freed from all civil obligation, I shall immediately bear in mind that as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberty, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside, when those liberties are finally established. I shall instantly set about making the most necessary reforms in the army.”
Thus rapidly, in as natural and orderly sequence as seemed desirable, omitting incidents, correspondence, and names of persons that do not seem essential in the illustration of qualities which attach to the career of Washington as a Soldier, the reader is brought to the midnight hour of December 31, 1776.
All his struggles in camp, in field, on the march, have closed with one tremendous blow struck at British prestige and British power. The greatest soldiers and statesmen of that period recognized its significance, and rendered unstinted praise to the “wisdom, constancy, and intrepidity of the American Commander-in-Chief.”
But, at that midnight hour, the Soldier who had been the kind and faithful guardian of the humblest men in the ranks, as well as the example and instructor of the proudest veteran, waited with swelling breast and aching heart for the morning’s dawn; realizing the solemnity of its certain ordeal, when the organization of a new army, and more herculean efforts of the British crown, were to test not only his own capacity and will, but test the readiness and fitness of the American people to rise to the emergencies of one supreme issue—“Victory or Death!”
CHAPTER XV.
THE FIRST NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN DEVELOPED.—PRINCETON.
Washington’s surprise of the garrison of Trenton, equally surprised General Howe at New York; and he made immediate requisition for twenty thousand additional troops. His last previous requisition for foreign auxiliaries met with little favor on the Continent, and only thirty-six hundred men were secured for service, both in Canada and other American Colonies. In the meantime, Clinton made no demonstration from Newport; and Massachusetts had recovered from the temporary effect of his occupation of that post. Under the impulse of the success at Trenton, new foundries were established; and systematic effort was made to secure a complete artillery outfit for the army, on the new basis of eighty-eight battalions.
