The Forage War of 1777 Saw George Washington Launch Numerous Hit-and-Run Assaults on the British that Crippled the Army

Summary: In late December 1776, the American War of Independence appeared to<br>be on its last legs. General George Washington’s continental forces had<br>been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, the British Army<br>had chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, and<br>enlistments for many of the rank and file would be up by month’s end.<br>Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and George<br>Washington responded to this crisis with astonishing audacity. On<br>Christmas night 1776, he recrossed the Delaware as a nor’easter<br>churned up the coast, burying his small detachment under howling<br>sheets of snow and ice. Undaunted, they attacked a Hessian brigade at<br>Trenton, New Jersey, taking the German auxiliaries by complete<br>surprise. Then, only three days later, Washington struck again, crossing<br>the Delaware, slipping away from the British at Trenton, and attacking<br>the Redcoats at Princeton—to their utter astonishment. <br>The British, now back on their heels, retreated toward New Brunswick<br>as Washington’s reinvigorated force followed them north into Jersey.<br>Over the next eight months, Washington’s continentals and the state<br>militias of New Jersey would go head-to-head with the British in a<br>multitude of small-scale actions and large-scale battles, eventually<br>forcing the British to flee New Jersey by sea. In this narrative of the American War of Independence, today’s guest Jim Stempel, author of “The Enemy Harassed: Washington's New Jersey Campaign of 1777” brings to life one of the most violent, courageous, yet virtually forgotten periods of the Revolutionary War.