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A Brief Summary Of Washington's Crossing By David Hackett Fischer

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In 1776, one of the most popular and well known founding fathers led the fight for independence in the royal colonies. In David Hackett Fischer’s book, “Washington’s Crossing”, he describes the troubles and even the unknowns of Washington’s experiences during the Revolutionary War. Fischer goes into detail about the first approach of the British as their massive naval fleet surrounds the state of New York all the way up to the point when the British became the defensive force rather than the offensive. “Washington’s Crossing” illustrates how the American Revolution wasn’t just pure success as at the beginning of the war, the Americans took many losses that almost completely crushed the revolution entirely. However, eventually the tides would …show more content…

He was a professor for fifty-five years before he retired. While Fischer was still a professor, he taught in the history department with courses ranging from The American Revolution to World War II. He is most well known for writing Washington’s Crossing. He has won multiple awards for the book as well including the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2005 and the Irving Kristol Award in 2006. Fischer starts “Washington’s Crossing” by stating the initial challenges and failures that the American’s and Washington in particular had to face at the time. After the British were pushed from Boston, many believed that they had won the war and that was the end of the revolution. However, Washington knew that it wasn’t over and that there was more to come and that it wasn’t going to be a simple …show more content…

Fischer states that the remaining soldiers were made up of groups of state militias. As the Americans are becoming more and more discouraged, Thomas Paine writes another article called “The American Crisis”. Fischer claims that this article put the spirit back into many Americans and some went up in arms once again. As the cold winter months approached, Washington had a plan. On Christmas night, December 25, 1776; Washington would move his troops across the Delaware River. As dawn approached, he and his army would attack Trenton with all the force that they had at the time. The author stated that Washington had thought the battle was already lost because they would lose the element of surprise as the weather slowed them down which was pushing them into the daylight. According to Fischer, Washington and his army arrived to Trenton at around seven-thirty in the morning. They succeeded in using the element of surprise and the weather helped the colonial army and they took Trenton. Once Trenton was taken, The British planned an immediate counter to the Americans and planned to take Trenton back. Thus the battle for the bridge at Assunpink Creek, also known as the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, started. However, the Americans once again were successful against the British and Hessians. General Washington further marched his army towards Princeton but still wanted to

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