In another installment of #TrentonTuesday, we look at the desperate situation George Washington found himself at in December of 1776. With the Delaware River serving as a barrier between his army and the British and Hessians, Washington was hoping to stave off the entire dissolution of the army. He had already seen his army melt away from over 23,000 to just about 5,000 soldiers due to battle casualties, disease, and desertion. By January 1, 1777, the enlistments of many of those remaining soldiers would be up, and he would lose the basic core of his army. Washington wrote on December 18 to his brother John Washington about how his army had “less than 3,000 men fit for duty owing to the dissolution of our force by short enlistments—the enemies numbers by the best accounts exceeding ten, and by others 12,000 men.” He added that “between you and me I think our affairs are in a very bad way.”

He needed to recruit more soldiers. In the same letter to his brother, Washington wrote that “In a word my dear Sir, if every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition I think the game is pretty near up.” Here was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army writing that war was nearly lost.

Today, we begin a series of #TrentonTuesdays. Every Tuesday for the next few weeks we’ll highlight interesting stories related to the Battles of Trenton and Princeton as we approach the inaugural Emerging Revolutionary War bus tour in November. Today we look at the story of Thomas Paine.

As Washington and his army marched quickly across the state of New Jersey from Fort Lee to Trenton in November and December of 1776, they were joined by a young writer. His name was Thomas Paine, and he was well known as the author of the famous patriot pamphlet “Common Sense” that was published earlier in 1776.

Paine, watching the American army melt away from more that 23,000 men in August of 1776, to less than 5,000 men by December, seemed to be witnessing the destruction of the nascent American nation. During the retreat Paine put quill to parchment to write another pamphlet that he would have published that December, titled “The American Crisis.” With Washington’s army on the verge of dissolution, it was an apt title. He started with a phrase that duly summed up the situation: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

He goes on to exhort Americans to rally for the cause of liberty in spite of the hardships they faced, an exhortation that still evokes a sense of patriotism hundreds of year later. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”