Chapter III
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Washington spent about nine months with the army around Boston. Several times he was ready to attack the British, and to try and drive them from the city; but his officers were afraid the army was not strong enough. So Washington had to wait and watch—he had a good deal of waiting and watching to do all through the war, for that matter. At last, in March, 1776, the Americans around Boston having gradually pushed closer and closer, the British found that they must either leave or fight. Their General did not feel strong enough to fight, so he put his men on ships and sailed away to Halifax. Of course the Americans were greatly rejoiced. Washington got much praise, and deserved it, for he had shown great good judgment and skill in his management of the army.
Washington knew that the British would soon come back, and thought they would come to New York. So he took nearly all his army, and marched them westward to that city.
Early in July the British came, as Washington had expected, and made their camp on the beautiful hillsides of Staten Island. They brought with them what they called propositions for peace. These were simply offers to pardon the Americans for resisting the British tax laws, if they would now obey them. But this would only have left things exactly as they were in the beginning; it came too late. The Americans had already made up their minds that they would not obey the British laws which taxed them, nor any laws of Great Britain, but that in the future they would make their own laws in such manner as seemed to them most just. This purpose was written out in a long paper called the Declaration of Independence, and was signed on the Fourth of July, 1776, by the members of Congress. General Washington caused the Declaration of Independence to be read to his soldiers. "Now," he said to them, "the peace and safety of our country depend, under God, solely on the success of our arms," and he appealed to "every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage."
The year 1776 was a very gloomy one. All efforts to hold New York failed. A hard battle was fought around Brooklyn (August 27), and the Americans were badly beaten. Washington had to give up New York, and content himself with trying to keep the British from going to Philadelphia. Late in the fall he got across the Delaware River, with the British close on his heels. Soon the river filled with ice, as the cold weather came on, and the two armies lay one on one side and the other on the other. The American troops had dwindled away until there were only about three thousand of them.
Washington resolved that something must be done to raise the spirits of the country, or the people would lose all hope of resisting the British with success. At Trenton, on the opposite side from his own army, lay a force of Hessians, who were German soldiers, hired by Great Britain to come to America to fight, and Washington formed the plan of capturing them.
On Christmas-eve, 1776, he crossed the Delaware with 2400 men. The night was bitterly cold; a pelting hail-storm was falling; ice in great blocks was running down the stream, and hindered the boats, so that the army did not get across until four o'clock in the morning. Then the soldiers formed in ranks in the darkness, and being divided into two parties, started for Trenton, nine miles below. Washington led one of the parties, and General Sullivan the other. As they plodded along through the hail and snow, some of the men, exhausted, fell by the road-side, and of these two froze to death before they could be rescued.
As the men under Washington reached Trenton, and began to capture the Hessian soldiers set as sentinels to watch the road, they heard firing on the other side of the town, and knew that Sullivan's men had come up. Then both parties rushed swiftly toward the centre of the town, and with very little bloodshed a thousand prisoners were taken. This was a great success of itself, and had the effect which Washington had hoped for: it gave the whole country new courage.
Washington then started back toward New York, and so rapid was his march that the British commander became frightened lest the Americans should retake the city, and he too went quickly back, and gave up all thought of reaching Philadelphia that year.