Washington’s Crossing – David Hackett Fischer, 2004 ★★★★★

America Rolls the Dice

History books that revel in detail can be turn-offs for casual readers. But not always. Washington’s Crossing transforms footnotes into adventures, and academic disagreements into entertaining theater. People say history is fun, but they are rarely proven as right as here.

In the early days of the American Revolution, the war could have gone in any direction. David Hackett Fischer details the travails of the Continental Army in 1776, from its defeat on Long Island to its rebirth in New Jersey by launching a risky attack across the Delaware River.

Today we may think of 1776 as Year Zero of a grand adventure, a rosy dawn of hope and common purpose, whatever came after. But Fischer points out the contemporary outlook was very glum:

Everyone agreed that it was a perilous moment when things had gone deeply wrong for the American War of Independence. It was also a pivotal moment when great issues of the Revolution were hanging in the balance. Most of all it was a moment of decision, when hard choices had to be made.

Fischer’s story is that of a courageous but overextended leader managing to overcome a series of military defeats as well as his own comrades.

The Battle of Long Island saw Washington's forces decisively defeated against a better-trained foe. "In one thing only they failed," a British aide observed of his troops. "[They] could not run as fast as their Foe."
Illustration by John Fawkes from https://www.britishbattles.com/war-of-the-revolution-1775-to-1783/battle-of-long-island/

The next-highest-ranked general, Charles Lee, went so far as to decline an order to join his forces to Washington’s, claiming to be otherwise engaged. Another top commander, Horatio Gates, went to Philadelphia, “seeking to persuade Congress to overrule Washington’s plan of operations, and perhaps hoping to replace him.”

Washington won by never relinquishing the initiative. This was the plan when he took the remnants of his army to cross an icy river and make a surprise attack on an elite force of Hessian (German) troops at Trenton.

Fischer quotes an aide to Washington urging him on:

“The scattered divided state of the enemy affords us a fair opportunity of trying what our men will do when called to an offensive attack…. Our affairs are hasting fast to ruin if we do not retrieve them by some happy event. Delay is now equal to a total defeat.”

Washington's command style encouraged counsel from his fellow officers. But this approach had drawbacks. "The old army saying that 'no battle plan survives contact with the enemy' is only half correct," Fischer writes. "Most plans do not survive contact with one's friends.
Image from https://www.facebook.com/princeton.battlefield.society

The British were indeed divided, their forces spread across New York and New Jersey attempting to subdue the countryside and quash the rebellion. The Americans they had encountered thus far on the battlefield had not impressed them much. Specifically, they had a reputation for being unnerved whenever the Redcoats fixed bayonets.

When the Hessian commander at Trenton, Johann Rall, was warned about fortifying his encampment, the response was typically Teutonic:

“Scheiszer bey Scheisz! Let them come…We will go at them with the bayonet.”

Fischer dispels myths around the battle. Hessian troops were not caught drunkenly celebrating Christmas when Washington’s forces attacked them. Rather, they were exhausted from sporadic militia attacks but maintained a high alert. Even if there had been fortifications, Fischer claims it would have done them little good.

Hessian troops were widely hated by Americans for their indiscriminate treatment of people and property they encountered on the march. Fischer suggests this had an effect on turning otherwise neutral civilians into Patriot supporters.
Image from https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/video/hessians-german-soldiers-in-the-american-revolutionary-war/

The Americans lacked for some things, but not others. For example, they brought more artillery to battle. What they really lacked was manpower. Washington had lost over 90% of his army since the British landed on Long Island in the summer of 1776; his attacking force at Trenton that December consisted of just 2,400 men.

In his prior book about the American Revolution, Paul Revere’s Ride, Fischer noted how long before becoming a midnight rider, Revere carried the campaign for liberty by promoted the Boston Massacre in a popular engraving. This time, moral support came from a Scotsman named Thomas Paine whose essay The American Crisis reminded readers “the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Paine’s essay appeared in late 1776, quickly making the rounds in Rebel centers like Philadelphia. Fischer describes it as instilling “an optimistic fatalism” on patriots who read it. “Never was finer lads at a retreat than we are,” he quotes one of Washington’s aides. “No fun for us that I can see; however, I cannot but think we shall drub the dogs.”

The opening page of Thomas Paine's first installment of The American Crisis. As Fischer describes it, Washington's soldiers read this at camp and chanted the opening lines as they marched: "Thanks in part to Thomas Paine, it became a time when many Americans resolved to act, in ways that made a difference in the world."
Image from https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/12/considering-history-thomas-paines-the-crisis-and-finding-hope-in-the-depths-of-winter/

The book actually begins with Washington on Long Island, watching British forces invest Staten Island. Other histories tend to have at Washington for his handling of this part of the war; even David McCullough’s generally positive 1776 calls out Washington for losing 2,000 troops on Manhattan Island.

As Fischer tells it, Washington’s issues came more from truculent troops who were in the habit of letting him down before finally melting away altogether. Even more formidable Patriot leaders like Israel Putnam were hard to manage. Fischer seems to concur when Washington laments:

“No man perhaps since the first Institution of Armies ever commanded one under more difficult Circumstances than I have done. To enumerate the particulars would fill a volume – many of my difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that in order to conceal them from the enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, indeed from my own Army.”

On the British side, the commanders were torn by contrary impulses of Whiggish sympathy for the Rebels and allegiance to their king. The Howe brothers, who commanded the army and navy respectively, sought at first to minimize casualties, preferring to outmaneuver their enemy and offer pardons where possible. This annoyed the German troops attached to the Howes who saw them as too lackadaisical.

British Major General James Grant may not have cut quite the toad-like figure as the above caricature presents, but Fischer describes him as lazy and arrogant, and responsible for much of the disarray found among his troops.
Image from http://www.spanglefish.com/scotsawafraestrathspeyandaround/index.asp?pageid=718019

They had a point. Fischer notes a strange despond seemed to hover over the British Army commander:

There was something deeply melancholy about the frantic gaiety night after night at Sir William Howe’s gambling table, while officers and men he cared deeply about were dying on his orders. Perhaps he was obsessed with the strange outcome of that greater game of chance in war itself, where so many worthy comrades risked everything and lost, while he survived.

The Germans, or Hessians, as they mostly came from the province of Hesse-Cassel, earned a reputation for cruelty. As their homeland often saw war brought directly onto civilian populations, they were more inclined to loot from homes they passed, with little attention paid to whether the occupants were enemies or not.

About their commander, Colonel Carl Emilius von Donop, Fischer notes an unapproachably aristocratic bearing. “Behind a surface of civility, he was brutal and very cruel. He ordered his men to take no American prisoners and threatened to have them severely beaten if they did so.” Others, like the brave and egalitarian Rall, were easier to admire.

Johann Rall, mortally wounded, is depicted surrendering to Washington at Trenton in this John Trumbull painting. Colonel Rall had warned his superiors of the threat of attack, only to be derided by Grant for his concerns.
Image from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/hessians-auxiliaries

Washington was also a commander who won his troops’ respect, often leading from the front. One soldier recalls his gratitude at the sight of his general on a white horse while battle raged around him. As a rearguard detachment pulled back across the Assunpink Creek before the second battle of Trenton, they were greeted warmly by Washington:

Most privates in this little army were very near George Washington in the course of the battle. Many spoke with him. They felt that they were one with him and were inspired by his example. It was a complicated feeling that they had for him: not only trust and loyalty but also confidence and complete approval.

Did Washington take his famous boat ride standing on the prow, as famously depicted by German artist Emmanuel Leutze in the painting used for the book’s cover? Fischer notes he may have sat for a time on an empty beehive, though his vessel’s bottom would have been full of icy water and an uncomfortable place to rest for long.

The Leutze painting, repurposed for postage stamps. Fischer notes the painter chose to emphasize the diversity of Washington's command, including a black man just in front of Washington's knee and other soldiers who wear the different uniforms of their home states.
Image from https://info.mysticstamp.com/washington-crosses-the-delaware_tdih/

Fischer makes splendid use of illustrations to help ground his ever-shifting narrative. More importantly, he develops a clear narrative around the thesis that Washington in the early days of the Revolutionary War was less a genius than animated by a clear understanding the war would be lost or won depending on his taking the initiative:

It was urgently important for military leaders in a free society not merely to act but to give the appearance of action. They were expected to produce results, and to do so in a continuing way. George Washington was keenly aware of this expectation and planned campaigns with public opinion in mind.

This is something often overlooked, that as the war was just getting started there were plenty of ways to lose it. Washington’s gift was in the way he understood the call to action and marshalled his forces to make the most of his chances when they came. History often paints him as a master of strategic withdrawal, losing more set-piece battles than he won; Fischer here shows him to be effective on the attack.

After repulsing a British counterattack at Trenton, Washington surprised his foe by a night march on Princeton, which he captured the next day. "The thoughts of British commanders were no longer on attacking but being attacked," Fischer writes.
Image from https://www.thoughtco.com/battle-of-princeton-2360652

At the same time, Washington’s Crossing is very colorful, with a lively way of capturing individual moments along the journey and relishing the personalities which made up that unique time and place.

There is even a spicy afterbook section where Fischer looks at the various ways historians of different eras have treated Washington’s comeback at Trenton, noting how their varying takes on what happened colors their perspective and in turn has influenced the ways we view that turning point today. Washington’s Crossing channels multiple paths in offering an authoritative take on how independence was won.