A Christmas to remember

W. Thomas Smith, Jr.:

Continental Army General George Washington’s celebrated “Crossing of the Delaware” has been dubbed in some military circles, “America’s first special operation.” Though there were certainly many small-unit actions, raids, and Ranger operations during the Colonial Wars – and there was a special Marine landing in Nassau in the early months of the American Revolution – no special mission by America’s first army has been more heralded than that which took place on Christmas night exactly 230 years ago.

Certainly the mission had all the components of a modern special operation (though without all the modern battlefield technologies we take for granted in the 21st century): “A secret expedition” is how John Greenwood, a soldier with the 15th Massachusetts, described it, as quoted in Bruce Chadwick’s The First American Army.

If nothing else, all the elements for potential disaster were with Washington and his men as they crossed the Delaware River from the icy Pennsylvania shoreline to the equally frozen banks of New Jersey, followed by an eight-mile march to the objective – the town of Trenton.

The river – swollen and swift moving – was full of wide, thick sheets of solid ice. And unlike the romanticized portrayal of the operation in the famous painting by Emanuel Leutze (the one with Washington standing in his dramatic, martial pose; his determined face turned toward the far side of the river), the actual crossing was made in the dead of night, in a gale-like wind and a blinding sleet and snowstorm. Odds are, Washington would have been hunkered down in one of the 66-ft-long wooden boats, draped in his cloak, stoically enduring the bitter cold with his soldiers, some of whom were rowing or poling the boats against the ice and the current.

The decision for the crossing and the subsequent raid on Trenton was based on Washington’s belief that he had to do something. Otherwise – as he penned in a private letter – “the game will be pretty near up.”

To the easily disheartened and the cut-and-runners, it might have seemed “the game” was indeed already “up.” After all, many of Washington’s Continental Army were wounded, sick, and demoralized. Recent losses to the British had been severe. Desertion numbers were rising, and enlistment terms were almost up. Reinforcements were poorly trained and ill-equipped. Ammunition was in short supply. The soldiers were not properly outfitted for extreme winter conditions: Clothing was spare. Many men were in rags, some “naked,” according to Washington’s own account. Most had broken shoes or no shoes at all.

The mission itself, though a huge gamble, was tactically simple.

Washington, personally leading a force of just under 2,500 men, would cross the river undetected, march toward Trenton, and attack the enemy garrisoned in the town at dawn.

Two of Washington’s other commanders, Generals John Cadwalader and James Ewing, were also directed to cross: Cadwalader’s force was to cross and attack a second garrison near Bordentown. Ewing’s force was to cross and block the enemy’s escape at Trenton. Both commanders, discouraged by the weather and the river, aborted their own operations. But according to Maurice Matloff’s American Military History (the U.S. Army’s official history), “Driven by Washington’s indomitable will, the main force did cross as planned.”

Speed of movement, surprise, maneuver, violence of action, and the plan’s simplicity were all key. And fortunately, the elements all came together.

...

There is much more about this desperate attempt to save the American Revolution. The US has never faced a bleaker situation. The watch word for the operation was "Victory or Death." Washington and His men gave the country the best Christmas present ever, they saved the revolution and helped create the country. David McCullough's 1776 gives a great narrative on how desperate the situation was. Washington's bold gamble with an Army in taters changed the tide of the war and gave the Americans hope.

At the battle in Trenton a young officer named James Monroe took a shot in the chest but survived and went on to become the fifth President of the US. A young book seller from Boston named Henry Knox was in charge of artillery. Knox had been largely responsible for Washington's victory in Boston when he had slogged across country to retrieve some abandoned cannons at Fort Ticonderoga braving the elements the previous winter to get the back to Boston and up on the Dorchester Heights to drive the British from the city.

When you hear the whining of the Democrats and the anti war left about the situation in Iraq, you need to see history like this to get some perspective.

Paul Greenberg writes about another Christmas to remember when teh Americas were fighting the Battle of the Bulge near Bastogne.

...

According to the German battle plan, Bastogne was to be overrun on the second day of the operation; it never was. General Anthony McAuliffe's one-word response to the German commander's surrender terms would become a classic summation of American defiance: "Nuts!"

...

More than a million men would be drawn into the battle. The Germans would lose an estimated 100,000 irreplaceable troops, counting their killed, wounded and captured; the Americans would suffer some 80,000 casualties, including 19,000 killed - that's a rate of 500 a day - and 23,554 captured.


But the Allied forces held. And the war went on, moving across the Rhine and then into the heartland of the enemy. Against all bitter expectations, the conflict in the European theater would be over in four months.

...

Democrats were different back then. They did not want to quit the war. Now they want to retreat from victory in Iraq after only one-sixth of the casualties of one battle in World War II.