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argued to show the men in Congress that the colonies could not longer remain subject to England. They must be independent, he said. And though George Washing

ton's name is not signed to the famous Declaration, he had as much to do with it as had many men who really did sign it.

But when the Declaration of Independence had been signed, it meant that it must be backed up by deeds. So, though the battle of Brooklyn was a defeat followed by a retreat, and though the world said that the colonies could never secure their independence, Washington never weakened, but kept on struggling and striving, though defeats and retreats followed one another until any but the most determined leader would have been discouraged and felt like giving in.

Washington retreated from Brooklyn to New York, and when the British followed him there, he retreated across the Harlem into Westchester County. Still pressed by Howe, he retreated across the Hudson into New Jersey, and finally across the Delaware into Pennsylvania, with Howe still fol lowing him up. It was almost like a game of checkers, was it not?

His army now consisted of but three thousand men. His soldiers were ragged, his equipment poor, his situation desperate. The winter was a hard one, and so nearly lost seemed the cause of the colonies, that new soldiers could not be induced to serve in the army; all this time, too, the enemies of Washington - for there were leading men in Congress and out of it who said all kinds of hard things about him, and tried to have him set aside in favor of some

general whom, they declared, was more of a fighter — were active against him.

And still Washington kept silent. He was biding his time. In New York, Lord Howe said that the end was near at hand, and that the rebels would give up the fight before New Year's Day, if he did not capture them before that time. And then, when no one expected it, Washington acted. He had determined upon a bold move. This was nothing more nor less than an attack upon the Hessian lines at Trenton.

He made all his preparations secretly, cautiously and carefully. He was to cross the Delaware from the Pennsylvania side and, if possible, take the Hessians by surprise. Other soldiers were to march to his assistance from Philadelphia and from Bristol, and cut off all hope of escape. And the river was to be crossed on Christmas night.

It was anything but a merry Christmas when, with twenty-five hundred picked men, Washington came to the banks of the Delaware and tried to set his small army across. The river was filled with great cakes of floating ice; it was so cold that two of the soldiers were frozen to death, and, before morning came, the air was filled with icy and cutting sleet. It seemed the very worst time to attempt such an enterprise as Washington had determined upon. So bitter was the night, indeed, that the other generals who had been ordered to march to his support gave it up, because they did not see how they could cross the icy Delaware.

But Washington crossed the Delaware. And at eight o'clock the next morning his ragged, half-frozen soldiers attacked the village of Trenton, in which the Hessians were stationed. He drove in their pickets, surrounded their camp,

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fought them through the town, killed their commanding officer, and captured nearly all of them, though some five hundred or so managed to get away.

Then with his thousand prisoners, Washington re-crossed the Delaware, and the long spell of failure was broken. The brilliant deed he had done paralyzed the over-confident British, put new life into the suffering cause of liberty and so inspired the colonies that, where men had been unwilling

to risk their lives for a failing cause, they were now ready to join one which seemed to promise success. Washington had saved the Revolution. From the fight at Trenton dated the steady march toward victory.

That sharp and successful fight, too, showed how great a general was Washing

[graphic]

ton. The retreat from
Brooklyn had been one

proof of this; but that
was a retreat. The
The cap-
ture of the Hessians at
Trenton showed him to
be a leader who could at-
tempt the most daring
move, and, once at-
tempted, could push it
through to the end,
though everything
seemed against him.

The great German soldier-king whom history calls Frederick the Great, when he heard

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

(Painted by James Peale, when Washington was Commander-inChief of the army: now in Independence Hall.

how, with a few ragged regiments (so footsore, indeed, that their march could be tracked in the snow by the blood from their unprotected feet), Washington had defeated and captured the European soldiers whose business was fighting

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