Most Americans take time to reflect on the meaning of independence and the sacrifice of the founding generation of Americans around the 4^th of July or on their summer vacations visiting Colonial Williamsburg, Independence Hall, or Boston’s Freedom Trail.  However, the story of the American Revolution is best told in the freezing days of winter.  As the mid-Atlantic region of the United States hunkers down for snow, it does well to remember what was the absolute worst winter in the 18^th century: the “hard winter” of 1779-1780.

The winter that year was bad.  Over the course of the winter, New Jersey had twenty six snowstorms and six of those were blizzards!  Every saltwater inlet from North Carolina to Canada froze over completely.   In fact, New York Harbor froze over with ice so thick that British soldiers were able to march from Manhattan to Staten Island.

George Washington decided to place his army at Morristown, New Jersey for winter quarters.  When they arrived at the encampment site in November 1779 there was already a foot of snow on the ground.  Some snowfalls dropped more than four feet of snow with snow drifts over six feet.  The temperature only made it above freezing a couple times in the whole winter.  Officers remembered ink freezing in their quill pens and one surgeon recorded that “we experienced one of the most tremendous snowstorms ever remembered; no man could endure its violence many minutes without danger to his life. … When the storm subsided, the snow was from four to six feet deep, obscuring the very traces of the roads by covering fences that lined them.”

Because of the severity of the winter, provisioning almost 10,000 soldiers was nearly impossible.  A soldier in the Connecticut Line, Joseph Plumb Martin remembered “We were absolutely literally starved; – I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except for a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterward informed by one of the officer’s waiters, that some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little dog that belonged to one of them.”

Even General Washington noted after the winter that “The oldest people now living in this Country do not remember so hard a winter as the one we are now emerging from. In a word the severity of the frost exceeded anything of the kind that had ever been experienced in this climate before.”  This came from the man who had suffered the terrible winter of 1776-1777 when his army had to cross an ice-choked Delaware River and who had witnessed thousands of his men die in the freezing winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge.

Despite the severity of this “hard winter” in 1779-1780 at Morristown, Americans tend to think that Valley Forge was the worst winter of the war.  This probably has to do with the fact more soldiers died of disease at Valley Forge than at Morristown.  While about 2,000 soldiers perished at Valley Forge, ‘only’ about 100 died at Morristown.  Also, the Continental army underwent an amazing transformation at Valley Forge, becoming a professional army.  The Morristown encampment, however, resulted in angry and hungry soldiers causing a mutiny that had to be put down.  Joseph Plumb Martin remembered how he and his fellow soldiers were “venting our spleen at our country and government, then at our officers, and then at ourselves for our imbecility in staying there and starving in detail for an ungrateful people who did not care what became of us, so they could enjoy themselves while we were keeping a cruel enemy from them.”

So this winter, as you dig out your driveway or your car over the next few days, take a moment and imagine what the soldiers in Washington’s army had to endure at Morristown in 1779-1780.  Next time you are in New Jersey or New York City make a point to visit the site of that encampment preserved by the National Park Service.  Visiting on a cold day will give you a small taste of the elements they endured.  These soldiers’ dedication to duty helped keep the light of liberty alive through an extremely “hard winter.”

The battle was going poorly for the Patriots.  It was January 3, 1777 and after having been pinned against the banks of the Delaware River by a very large British army the day before, the Continental army made a risky night march around the British army’s flank to escape certain doom.  General George Washington’s small ragged army had nearly reached the small village of Princeton, NJ when they noticed across some open fields British soldiers marching on a different road going the opposite way.  The British soldiers were part of the larger army’s rearguard.  The two forces immediately headed to clash in the open fields just south of the town.  General Hugh Mercer led his Continental brigade to meet the British threat.

The morning was icy cold.  The soldiers began the action in earnest.  The British regulars made short work of Mercer’s brigade.  After engaging in a firefight, the British lunged forward with a bayonet charge.  The American troops were thrown back in confusion.  General Mercer, thought by the British troops to be Washington, was surrounded and bayoneted seven times and left for dead.  The fleeing men from Mercer’s brigade started to create a panic among other brigades in Washington’s army as they ran pell-mell through the reserves under General John Cadwalader.  Many of Cadwalader’s men began to flee as well.  At this moment, the victories at Trenton, the night march, and in many respects, the war itself, were all in the balance.  If Washington’s small force were to be crushed here at Princeton, popular support for the Revolution could potentially be siphoned away, and the American cause could be lost.  The stakes may have never been higher.

And it was at that moment when none other than General Washington arrived on the field personally.  What an amazing sight it must have been to see.  Washington, renowned as one of the country’s best horse riders, riding up to the front lines of battle to direct the movements of his men in a time period where generals of his rank were more properly positioned in the rear to direct movements.  Washington saw the potential collapse and determined to personally appeal to the bravery of his men.

Washington also brought with him more troops that he immediately placed on the line.  Then, as Continental artillery kept the British as bay, he rode into the panicking and retreating soldiers.  Sergeant Nathaniel Root with the 20th Continental Regiment remembered this moment vividly: “At this moment Washington appeared in front of the American army, riding towards those of us who were retreating, and exclaimed, ‘Parade with us, my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy, and we will have them directly.’”  Inspired by his courage and reassured by his presence, the men halted their retreat and reformed their lines.

Washington then rode with the soldiers as he ordered an advance.  The Continentals closed to within thirty yards of the British line.  Washington, in the front line, gave the order to fire.  At the same moment, the British soldiers unleashed a volley into the American line.  Washington’s aides feared with the crossfire Washington would have assuredly been shot down, but he came through the smoke of battle unscathed.  James Read, an officer with the Pennsylvania Associators remembered: “I shall never forget
what I felt at Princeton on his account, when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as if it were by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself.”

The American line overlapped the British line, and the superior British soldiers were forced to retreat in the face of the American rebels.  Washington spurred his horse after the retreating British exclaiming, “It is a fine fox hunt, my boys!”

After defeating the British at Princeton, the American army went into winter quarters in Morristown, NJ.  The result of Washington’s brilliant victories at Trenton and Princeton was a huge boost to American morale.  The militia in New Jersey rose up, enlistments in the army rose, and foreign powers took note as the vastly superior British army was forced back to the city of New York, showing they were unable to conquer New Jersey.  The war would continue for another five bloody years, but Washington had saved the American Revolution from being killed in the crib.

The ground where this battle occurred truly should be remembered as some of America’s most hallowed ground.  Some of it was saved and made into Princeton Battlefield State Park. To learn more about this momentous battle and the crucial ten day campaign it capped, check out one of the inaugural Emerging Revolutionary War books, “Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, December 25, 1776 – January 3, 1777.”