There is no such thing as Christmas for American servicemen and women. They are on duty this day as well as all the other days of the year. Ditto for the first responders and hospital nurses.
The first American Christmas where such an effort was recorded was Christmas 1776.
The high point of the year was the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then the late summer and fall saw George Washington have to retreat his small army from New York and across New Jersey into Pennsylvania, above Philadelphia, the nation’s capital. Many men had deserted, and others who had enlisted for a year were about to leave. Many of Washington’s men were without boots or shoes in the winter snow, and they were underfed and underarmed. Washington feared the revolution was about to fail. So he planned a daring raid that might put a little spark in his men and get them to continue the struggle.
There was a small force of about 1500 Hessian soldiers under the command of Colonel Johann Rall from Hesse in Germany in winter quarters in Trenton, New Jersey, about 10 miles away and across the Delaware River from Washington’s men. This meant the Germans occupied the town. These British-hired German mercenaries were well supplied with food, uniforms, and weaponry. Washington figured maybe he could beat that force with a predawn attack in the wee hours of December 26, while the Germans were sleeping off a Christmas celebration, and take their supplies.
Battle of Trenton by Charles McBarron
Soldiers who were fishermen and bargemen rowed about 2400 Americans across the Delaware River from Pennsylvania the late night of December 25 and into the wee hours of December 26, 1776. Ferryboat men moved horses and cannon across. The freezing rain, snow, and ice in the river were bad enough that Washington couldn’t take another 3000 men he wanted for the mission. The weather also slowed down the men enough to prevent them from being able to make a pre-dawn attack on Trenton; they would have to attack the Germans in daylight. And their powder would be wet. And even though the Hessians had celebrated Christmas, they were disciplined and well-led and were fully capable of fighting the next day. Hessian commander Rall expected some sort of attack and prepared for it.
However, Washington and his men executed their raid skillfully enough to mortally wound Rall and his highest-ranking subordinates, kill 20 or so Hessian soldiers, wound another 80 or so, and force the surrender of 900 more Hessians they surrounded. Fewer than 10 Americans died in the battle; one young officer who nearly bled to death from a musket ball wound was future president James Monroe. Several other Americans died of exhaustion after the battle. The Americans captured 1000 muskets, stores of musket balls and gunpowder, and several cannons. They also captured several tons of flour and meat, and many shoes, boots, uniforms, and blankets.
Ten days later, Washington and his units, reinforced to about 6000 men, tried the same sort of attack against a British force at Princeton, New Jersey. This time his opponents looked to be 8000 British soldiers under the command of General Charles Cornwallis and another 1200 British solders under the command of Lt. Colonel Charles Mawhood.
One of Don Troiani’s masterpieces showing the Continental Army on the move
Mawhoods’ men, marching to join Cornwallis’ force, encountered a small American outfit under the command of Colonel Hugh Mercer in the early morning hours of January 3, 1777. Mawhood’s British troops overran the Americans and bayoneted Colonel Hugh Mercer to death because he chose to try to fight his way free instead of surrender to them. Other American militiamen approaching the British were skittish and on the verge of flight when Washington himself arrived with some Continentals (better trained regular soldiers.)
Washington gave orders to form for an attack and led the men personally, narrowly avoiding death as British soldiers missed him at point-blank range. The Americans turned on Mawhood’s men, and drove them back west to Princeton, away from Cornwallis’ army coming from the east. Mawhood evacuated Princeton, and Washington’s men took the town. Washington’s men captured and took away rations, weapons, boots, shoes, uniforms, and other supplies, along with British cannons they had taken in the battle.
The Americans killed 100 British, wounded 70, and captured about 300. They lost, besides Colonel Mercer, about 40 men. Another 40 or so Americans were wounded.
Washington then took his soldiers north into Morristown, New Jersey, where they went into winter quarters. Many of Washington’s men thinking of leaving re-enlisted, and the men and other men across the American Seaboard began to believe maybe the British could be beat.
Washington’s successes led the British to commit more men to destroy the American Revolution. General William Howe decided to take Philadelphia, America’s capital. It was easy to supply by sea and the city and countryside had many Tories – people loyal to Britain and not America. In the summer of 1777, Howe took 15,000 men to the upper reaches of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and marched them northeast to Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, the British decided to separate New England from the rest of America by taking the Hudson Valley. They already controlled the New York City area after driving Washington and his men out in 1776. They planned to send men north from New York City and south from British-held Quebec and Ontario.
General John Burgoyne led 8000 troops down from Montreal toward Albany, and Colonel Barry St. Leger led 1000 more Brits and an equal number of Iroquois warriors toward Albany after he and his men crossed Lake Ontario into western New York. Howe was supposed to provide some support to a push from New York City, but Washington and his men would keep Howe’s men fully occupied around Philadelphia.
The British did not push hard from New York City. Meanwhile, the Continental Congress sent General Horatio Gates, a retired British officer and Virginia plantation owner in American service, to take charge of affairs in upstate New York after the British retook Fort Ticonderoga in Vermont. The Iroquois murdered an American girl (who ironically was the sweetheart of a Tory officer), and this caused a number of Americans in New York to join the American cause. (Back then, we didn’t run, we turned vigilante.) The Americans stopped St. Leger’s smaller force of Brits and Iroquois, then attacked Burgoyne’s larger force at north of Albany after delaying and harassing them for weeks.
Colonel John Starks and his Americans beat a number of Burgoyne’s British and Hessians near Bennington, Vermont, in August 1777. This weakened the invaders. Casualties were high and most of the Iroquois left the British cause.
The Americans beat Burgoyne’s men soundly in and around Saratoga, New York, north of Albany, in October of 1777, and surrounded the British and Hessians. Burgoyne had to surrender later in the month. When news of Burgoyne’s surrender reached Europe, it led France’s King Louis XVI to make a military alliance with the United States and give us aid in the years to come.
Gates claimed credit for the victory. But it was actually General Benedict Arnold, the future traitor, who led our men to victory (and was seriously wounded whole leading the attack).
Washington and the Continental Army meanwhile had to contend with General Howe’s superior army. Washington and the Americans lost battles at Brandywine and Germantown, near Philadelphia, and were unable to prevent Howe and his men from marching into Philadelphia. The Continental Congress fled from Philly to York, PA, a largely German community west of the Susquehanna River and about 50 miles north of Baltimore.
Washington, like in 1776 with New York City, believed it was more important to save his army than save a city. He didn’t leave the Philadelphia area but decided to encamp his 11,000 men for the winter in Valley Forge, a tabletop 25 miles or so northwest of Philadelphia, to keep an eye on the British.
Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge
Washington’s men spent the winter trying to survive. They foraged from some not-too-friendly farmers for food. They paid pro-American farmers and protected them from British looting parties, and looted pro-British farmers.
While Howe’s men were comfortable in Philadelphia, Washington’s men trained in the snow. In that era, a key skill men had to have was to switch from a vertical column of men marching on a road or a trail into three horizontal skirmish lines. Because it was hard to load and fire a musket, the men had to form a front line where the men fired a volley then retreated back two lines, a second line of men ready to run up and fire a volley, and a third line of men loading their muskets so they could fire.
Men, after shooting gaps in the enemy, also had to be able to fix bayonets and charge the enemy in a disciplined rush so they could stab them to death or club them to death and break them. Until Valley Forge, our men were not on the same skill level as the British regulars. We had won our victories by outnumbering the Redcoats and using hit-and-run tactics, like what Washington had done at Trenton and Princeton a year earlier.
Washington had a German officer named Baron Von Steuben drill his men to fight in the European style so they could stand up to the British. Von Steuben “demoted” himself to “drill sergeant” to work the men so they would learn their soldier skills properly. His command of English was poor, so he had an American sergeant curse the troops in American English when he was dissatisfied with their performance. Bit by bit the Americans who remained at Valley Forge grew in ability.
Back to York, PA. Gates was the new darling of the Continental Congress because he won over Burgoyne, who had many fewer men. Washington, meanwhile had been unable to beat Howe and his men, and the congressmen weren’t awed with the few features York, PA offered as a capital-in-retreat. Congressmen holed up in a wattle-walled tavern in York (this was before the invention of Philly cheesesteaks), and drank and planned. They also conducted the nation’s business across the street in the county courthouse, which they borrowed for sessions. Some of them were also foolish enough to consider making Gates the top general.
Gates by merest coincidence had traveled from upstate New York to York, PA to court favor with the congressmen, and try to take Washington’s job as commander of the Continental Army. Gates quartered in a warm townhouse in York over the winter of 1777-1778 while Washington was out with his men at Valley Forge. Washington was where a commander should be, leading his men personally and setting good example.
Washington worried about the fate of his men; 2500 of them died during the winter at Valley Forge. Washington prayed for guidance and courage and success for himself and his men. The Patriots who the winter didn’t kill emerged in the spring of 1778 stronger. Washington’s men would never again lose a major battle to the British.
Washington and his men, aided by capable French soldiers, would eventually besiege General Cornwallis and his British army at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, and when a French fleet temporarily kept British Navy ships from resupplying Cornwallis’ men, Cornwallis had to surrender his men. This for all practical purposes ended the war in America’s favor.
Gates, meanwhile, got command of an American force in the South. The British routed his men at Camden, South Carolina in the summer of 1780, and Gates rode away from his men so quickly that three days later he was 170 miles north of them. The Continental Congress replaced Gates with Nathanael Greene, one of Washington’s trusted subordinates. Greene would wear down the British in the South and cause British forces to march north to Virginia for the ultimate trap Washington and the Continental Army and the French would spring on them at Yorktown.
* * * * * * * * * *
On Christmas Day of 2012, after Mass, I got out to Washington’s Crossing, PA on the Delaware River to see a re-enactment of the crossing of the Delaware. The re-enactors, volunteers, and park people did a wonderful job with the re-enactment. Since it runs every year, you can do likewise one of these Christmases.
The re-enactors didn’t put any horses into the ore boats, but they put cannons in.
They even re-enacted Washington arresting the party General Gates sent up from Philly. Washington suspected they were spies or people involved in trying to get him relieved and dispersing his men before their enlistments were up. Washington and the other key figures were miked so we could hear their conversations in dealing with the “conspiracy.”
The officers didn’t need mikes for their shouted commands. However, a young woman in Continental Army gear, narrated the following actions for we the spectators.
It was also easy to see because we the spectators were higher up on the river bank than the re-enactors were. Local police stopped traffic on the little perforated iron car bridge across to the Jersey shore and people stood on the bridge to get a great view and a nice headwind at about 35 degrees air temp and high humidity.
The re-enactors test-rowed a boat across two hours before the show. Current was strong, and they would have wound up far downriver of the bridge coming back, so for safety and logistical reasons, they decided not to cross fully for the main event. Spectators on the Jersey side were going to be a little miffed. But then, Jersey people are used to disappointment.
For the show, the re-enactors went halfway across the Delaware (which at the crossing is about 600 feet and running fast, but with no ice that day) and came back for safety reasons. Washington had many more oarsmen to paddle the boats and benefited from a slower current in 1776. Since less land was paved then, there was less runoff to the river than there is now.
The man who played Washington was big and stern and carried himself like an officer and planter used to being obeyed. Only oddity was he had a slight Joisey accent.
His hair was brownish red, which puzzled people who see him as white-haired. I told them GW was in his 40s when the Crossing happened. He didn’t have the white hair and puffy face with wrinkles look a la Hillary Clinton until he was president.
My voice carries well, so this observation provoked a good deal of mirth in the crowd.
A lot of pretty and unattached 20-something girls were at this event, braving the weather in boots and skinny jeans or tights. Good-looking damsels also show up at other re-enactments. If you young guys are looking for gals with patriotism, re-enactments of history are actually pretty good places to meet them.
Likewise to the young ladies. A re-enactment is a place to be seen, and to get in the way of young bucks who have some love for the country. Girls who wear period wear or who just show up looking pretty will get noticed.
Who said Sherlock doesn’t look out for you?
At any rate, remember, from the shepherds at Bethlehem to Washington and his men at Trenton, to our men and women in the military, and to our men and women who are first responders and hospital nurses, there are dedicated people who don’t take holidays so we can.
God bless you all. Blessed Christmas and Hanukkah to all men and women of good will. And God and Michael the Archangel be with our military people and our first responders who look out for us.
SHERLOCK JUSTICE
WE CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BE YOUR OWN DETECTIVE.
