The Story of How George Washington Surprised the British Army, the Hessians, and the World on Christmas 1776

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
They're some of our favorites and our favorite storytelling here
on the crew are stories about American history, and they're
so important. If we don't know who we were, how
do we know who we are? And this next story

(00:31):
is a history story as always, brought to us by
the great folks at Hillsdale College, where you can go
to learn all the things that are good in life
and all the things that are beautiful in life. And
if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to
you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to
Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. In seventeen seventy seven,

(00:53):
George Washington pushed back against General Cornwallace in Princeton, New Jersey,
gaining a small victory for the colonials. Here to bring
you the story is doctor Larry arn President of Hillsdale College.
And here's our own Monty Montgomery, a Hillsdale grat himself,
to help tell the story.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
George Washington was a beautiful man. According to many in
the founding era. Here's doctor Larry p arn president of
Hillsdale College, with more on that, and this all important
man of the revolution.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Abigail Adams, when she met him, she wrote to her husband,
I had been told that he was handsome, but I
did not know the half. So he was very striking.
He was unusually tall for those ages, He's probably six
foot three. And then he was a tremendous Horseman's just
awesome man. He could ride his horse into and through

(01:56):
a battle without using his hands, and that was awesome
because you know, at the Battle of Princeton in seventeen
seventy six, the decoration, independence is gratified, and then of
course everything goes wrong for months. They did take Boston

(02:17):
because Henry Knox went and got the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga,
which Ethan Allen had liberated, dragged him across winter roads,
got him up on a hill, and they now could
shoot down on the British ships, and the British ships
had to leave. But after that everything was disaster. They
went up to New York because the British going up
there now, and New York is a complex place if

(02:39):
you think about it. There's an island, and then there's
populous areas above and below it, left and right of it.
The sea goes all around, and the British have these
big ships, and so at the Battle of New York
and the Battle of Brooklyn, the British just simply completely
out maneuver in Washington.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I mean, it was.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Embarrassing, and he had to run his army down New Jersey.
Escaping with their lives, had to get across a bridge
over to Philadelphia. And if they hadn't made it across
that bridge, and Washington stood by the bridge by the
way and calmly watched as people entered the bridge and
there was order. Well, now you know, it's winter and

(03:19):
he needs to do something because it'd be you know,
we're gonna in our first year, we're gonna have only defeat.
So in Christmas night he crosses the Delaware and attacks Trenton,
and he hoped to wake him up. He had a
main man in his army who organized all the boats
to get everybody over, and of course they were three

(03:41):
hours late. So now it's ten o'clock. Their hope of surprise,
they think, is gone. And now Washington says, we're going
to go on anyway, because if we don't win here,
we're going to be dead by nightfall. Well, they get
there and the Hessian soldiers, and they were from a
German state called Heshia, and those soldiers were the main

(04:04):
export of their country because they were really great soldiers,
and the country would rent them out and get money
to sustain the country. And so those soldiers were very
good soldiers and they were fighting for their own country,
seeing it wasn't like they were just mercenaries fighting for themselves.
And anyway, they'd had a very nice Christmas night and
they were drunk in bed when the Americans got there,

(04:26):
and they took the place, and hardly occasually on the
American side. And then something bad happened. The report comes
that Cornwallis is coming down in relief, and Washington doesn't
think that's a good enough victory. He's got to stop
at Cornwallis, at Princeville, and he takes the forces northi

(04:51):
Ish from Trenton. And when he gets there, the American
troops are in flight, they're running. And in this case,
unlike later at the Battle of Monmouth, Washington didn't say anything,
didn't wave his arms, didn't shout, He just rode his
horse directly through the troops toward the enemy. And Washington

(05:15):
had an adjutant named fitz Williams, and he writes about this,
and he says that when Washington got close to the British,
he didn't have any way to know if anybody was
with him, but they had all turned around and fallen
in line alongside Washington. And Washington got close to the
British and he starts giving the orders to fire, and
they're about seventeen of them, right, and he pulls his

(05:37):
sword out and his horse is just walking steadily, and
there's a great volley, and Washington is shrouded in smoke,
and fitz Williams reports that he covered his eyes with
his cap because he could not bear to see Washington falling.
And then the smoke cleared and there was a great

(05:58):
cheer because he was just still on his horse in
the same postures, still going, and the British they basically
just turned around and round from him. See, so if
you see somebody do something like that, that's a you know,
just the story of it to me is thrilling. Because
Aristotle says that the highest thing we can see is beauty.

(06:20):
The Christian version of that is beatitude seeing God, you
recognize it by sense perception. You just see it and
you know what it is. And that includes moral acts
like great acts of courage. And when people see things
like that, it's printed in them. It makes them better
because they aspire to such things. And that was the

(06:40):
effect of Washington on people.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And a special thanks to Monty, great work as always,
and a special thanks to doctor Larry Arne. What storytelling?
Aristotle says, the highest thing we can see is beauty.
We know it when we see it, and it involves
moral acts and acts of courage, and it moves us
to be better versions of ourselves. The stories of Trenton

(07:09):
and Princeton in the end, stories of America's fearless leader,
George Washington. Here on our American story Folks, if you
love the stories we tell about this great country, and

(07:31):
especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all
of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale. Hillsdale will come to you with their
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu

(07:55):
to learn more.