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Washington Strikes Back A New Jersey road trip visits the sites where General George Washington and his ragged Army breathed new life into the American cause. By Bruce Heydt
Nearly 70 years later, a journalist and engraver named Benson J. Lossing found that his fellow Americans held their national heritage in light regard. He lamented that the "invisible fingers of decay, the plow of agriculture, and the behests of Mammon . . . would soon sweep away every tangible vestige of the Revolution . . ." and he set out to do something about it. In an age before the automobile and paved roads, he visited nearly every Revolutionary War battlefield, recording what happened there, writing down his personal impressions and sketching the landscape for posterity. Lossing's fears have proven only partially justified. Some of what he recorded has indeed vanished, but now the National Park Service and state park services protect many Revolutionary War battlefields. As a result, visitors to New Jersey can still find traces of Washington's winter campaign.
No bridge spanned the Delaware then, but Garret Johnson, a New Jersey resident, operated a ferry service. His farmhouse stands near the spot where the Continentals disembarked; local tradition holds that Washington used the building as a command post while the crossing was underway. Refurnished with eighteenth-century pieces, it is now the setting for the park's demonstrations of colonial domestic life. The New Jersey incarnation of Washington Crossing State Park, although dedicated as a historical monument, caters mostly to cyclists, walkers and picnickers, but a modest visitor center tells the story of 1776 with a film called "10 Crucial Days." Historic travelers will undoubtedly be most interested in the reenactment of the crossing staged each year, appropriately—but not necessarily most conveniently—on Christmas Day. The spot's historical significance would be even more understated had Washington lost the ensuing battle, which looked like a possibility on the morning following the all-night crossing. Already well behind schedule, Washington feared that his target—the Hessian outpost in Trenton—would detect his approach and ambush his bone-tired troops. He needn't have worried. The Continental troops ambushed the ill-prepared garrison in Trenton, capturing nearly 1,000 German troops. If Washington's foot soldiers could visit Trenton today they wouldn't recognize the place, but two centuries of development have succeeded only in disguising the city's eighteenth-century roots, not destroying them. With a street map you can easily retrace the attackers' route. Trenton's two main eighteenth-century thoroughfares, King and Queen Streets, are now North Warren and North Broad Streets. Where these two roads converge at Brunswick Avenue, the Battle of Trenton Monument—a 150-foot-high granite column—commemorates the spot where American artillery supported the attack from the town's northern extreme. The attackers pushed down King and Queen Streets in the direction of the Assunpink Creek, past present-day Front Street. A second attacking column, marching south from the vicinity of Johnson's farm via the colonial precursor of today's Route 29, outraced the retreating Hessians to the creek, cutting off their withdrawal and forcing them to surrender in the vicinity of modern-day East State Street. Trenton's Old Barracks is one of the few remaining buildings from the time of the battle. Both sides occupied it at various times during the Revolution. Originally built to house British soldiers during the French and Indian Wars, it now serves as a museum and contains re-created hospital and barrack rooms.
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