Washington Beyond the Delaware

It was now suspected that the British would move on Philadelphia. Washington, with his army led by himself and reduced to less than four thousand men, marched toward the Delaware to impede the progress of the invader as much as possible. His force decreased at almost every step. The patriotism of New Jersey seemed to be paralyzed by the presence of a British army on the soil. Hundreds of republicans--even men who had been active in the patriot cause--signed a pledge of fidelity to the British crown. During the twelve days that Washington was making his way to the Delaware, so closely pursued by Cornwallis that the rear-guard of the Americans often heard the music of the van-guard of the royal troops, he was chilled by the seeming indifference of the people. He halted at points as long as possible, for Lee to join him and so give him strength to make a stand against his pursuers; but that officer, assuming that his was an independent command, paid no attention to the order of his superior. He was then evidently playing a desperate game of treason. Daily messages to him, urging him to push forward with his troops, did not affect him. He lingered long on the Hudson, until many of his soldiers had left him and gone home; and he tried to induce Heath to weaken his force in the Highlands by assigning for duty under Lee, two thousand of his men. Failing in this, he moved slowly as far in the rear of Washington as possible; and finally (eleven days after the chief had reached the Delaware), he took lodgings at Baskingridge in East Jersey, three miles from his camp, and nearer the enemy. There, on the morning of the 13th of December, he suffered himself to be captured by a small British scout.

Lee had habitually treated Washington with superciliousness; and in letters to Gates and others, who would applaud his utterances, he would speak with contempt of the commander-in-chief as "not a heaven-born genius," and words of like import. He had just finished a letter to Gates when the scout appeared, in which he wrote most falsely: "A certain great man is most damnably deficient He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties; if I stay in this province, I risk myself and army; and if I do not stay, the province is lost forever," and so on. This letter was not folded when the scout came and summoned Lee to surrender. He went out unarmed, bareheaded, in slippers, without a coat, in a blanket cloak, his shirt-collar open and his linen much soiled, and gave himself up. In this plight he was hurried on horseback to the camp of Cornwallis, and was afterward sent to New York. Sullivan, who was next in command, took charge of the troops and pushed on to the Delaware. Had Lee obeyed the orders of Washington, Cornwallis could not have penetrated New Jersey further than Newark, for the disobedient officer had four thousand troops under his command when he crossed the Hudson, and might have joined Washington with them in less than three days.

On the evening of the 1st of December, Washington fled from New Brunswick after destroying a part of the bridge over the Raritan there, and engaging in a contest with cannon with his pursuers. It was understood that Howe, who was about to send a part of his army to take possession of Rhode Island, had instructed Cornwallis not to pursue further than the Raritan. So Washington left Lord Stirling at Princeton with twelve hundred men, and with the remainder of his little army (the New Jersey and Maryland brigades had just left him), pushed on to the Delaware, at Trenton. Having sent his baggage, stores, and sick across the river into Pennsylvania, he turned back to oppose the further progress of Cornwallis, when, on the morning of the 6th, he met Stirling flying before a greatly superior force. Howe had sent troops under General Clinton to Rhode Island, borne by the ships of Sir Peter Parker, and with a considerable force had now joined Cornwallis; making an army four thousand strong. With these they were pressing on toward the Delaware. Washington was compelled to turn back and seek safety, with his little army, beyond the river. He crossed that stream on the 8th, and before the arrival of the British on its banks, he had seized or destroyed every boat on its waters and those of its tributaries, along a line of seventy miles.