duty to adopt these measures, or to
advise thus freely. A character to lose, an estate to forfeit, the
inestimable blessings of liberty at stake, and a life devoted, must be
my excuse." Even now across the century these words come with a grave
solemnity to our ears, and we can feel as he felt when he alone saw
that he stood on the brink of a great crisis. It is an awful thing to
know that the life of a nation is at stake, and this thought throbs in
his words, measured and quiet as usual, but deeply fraught with much
meaning to him and to the world.

By Christmas all was ready, and when the Christian world was rejoicing
and feasting, and the British officers in New York and in the New
Jersey towns were reveling and laughing, Washington prepared to
strike. His whole force, broken into various detachments, was less
than six thousand men. To each division was assigned, with provident
forethought, its exact part. Nothing was overlooked, nothing omitted;
and then every division commander failed, for good reason or bad, to
do his duty. Gates was to march from Bristol with two thousand
men, Ewing was to cross at Trenton, Putnam was to come up from
Philadelphia, Griffin was to make a diversion against Donop. When
the moment came, Gates, disapproving the scheme, was on his way
to Congress, and Wilkinson, with his message, found his way to
headquarters by following the bloody tracks of the barefooted
soldiers. Griffin abandoned New Jersey and fled before Donop. Putnam
would not even attempt to leave Philadelphia, and Ewing made no effort
to cross at Trenton. Cadwalader, indeed, came down from Bristol,
but after looking at the river and the floating ice, gave it up as
desperate.

But there was one man who did not hesitate nor give up, nor halt on
account of floating ice. With twenty-four hundred hardy veterans,
Washington crossed the Delaware. The night was bitter cold and the
passage difficult. When they landed, and began their march of nine
miles to Trenton, a fierce storm of sleet drove in their faces.
Sullivan; marching by the river, sent word that the arms of his men
were wet. "Then tell your general," said Washington, "to use the
bayonet, for the town must be taken." In broad daylight they came to
the town. Washington, at the front and on the right of the line, swept
down the Pennington road, and as he drove in the pickets he heard the
shouts of Sullivan's men, as, with Stark leading the van, they charged
in from the rive