As they drew near the British encampment they were halted for a rest. They stood there in the snow, panting and leaning on their muskets. They could hear, through the snowy air, the ringing of the bells, and the shouts of the British soldiers. A gun was fired. They almost thought they heard a roar of laughter. The British were making merry at Christmas with no thought that their enemies were so near.
“Silence, and forward!”—the muffled order passed along the line.
The soldiers again shouldered their muskets and marched on. The deep drifts muffled their footsteps and the falling snow hid them like a curtain. Two hundred yards from the British encampment they were formed in line and the order rang out, “Forward, charge!”
Down upon the encampment they swept, running, leaping, stumbling through the drifts.
There was a wild alarm in the British camp, and a scramble for muskets, but the surprise was too sudden for them. They could not escape, and within half an hour the Americans had made one thousand of them prisoners; they had also captured one thousand muskets, and sixteen hundred blankets. Many a poor lad, for the first time in weeks, slept warm that Christmas night in British blankets.
When the cities heard of the great victory their army had won at Trenton, bells were rung and bonfires were lighted; they went mad with joy.
The battle of Princeton, which followed soon after, was an even greater victory for the Americans. But Delaware could not share in the rejoicings that followed, for her brave regiment was almost cut to pieces in that battle. Of the eight hundred men who fought that day barely one hundred were left, and Colonel Haslet was killed by a shot through the head.
Washington now called for more troops, and again Delaware gathered together a regiment and sent it north to join him.
The men under Hall were with Washington in the battle of Brandywine, when his forces were terribly defeated, and also in the battle at Germantown; and they went with him into winter quarters at Valley Forge.