General George Washington led his soldiers to the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in the second phase of the War for Independence, the Mid-Atlantic Region. In the first phase of the war, from spring 1775 to spring 1776, most attention was directed at New England. On April 19, 1775, the first battles of the war were fought at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, after the Americans had been warned of the incoming British by Paul Revere the night before. After their defeat, the British retreated to Boston. On June 17, the Battle of Bunker Hill took place on Breed’s Hill where the Americans were pushed from their positions and retreated. It was considered a British victory due to them being the last army holding the battlefield; however, the …show more content…
The Americans were struggling because the British had finally started to take the war seriously. However, the British had decided to settle down in New Jersey for the winter, and they stationed the Hessians as guards at Trenton. Washington saw this as an opportunity and took it, leading 2,400 troops across the icy Delaware River. Washington planned a three-prong attack, with two other generals transporting troops and supplies across the river with him, but neither of the other two generals carried out the plan. This left General Washington and his troops in terrible weather conditions, with fewer supplies and soldiers than he had anticipated, to march the long nineteen miles to Trenton, New Jersey (Battles of Trenton and Princeton). The weather was not in Washington’s favor, as he ran straight into a winter storm including snow, sleet, rain, and hail. To outsiders, this attack seemed like an irrational decision, but Washington planned this raid strategically. He “... understood that the element of surprise was the only way that he and his army stood a chance of defeating the highly trained Hessian mercenaries,”