Narrator: Thomas Paine, who had been with Washington's army as it retreated across New Jersey, had just published a new essay meant to restore sagging morale called "The American Crisis."

By the time Washington's army got underway on Christmas, patriots up and down the river had read and been inspired by it.

Voice: These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

[Paine] Narrator: A freezing rain began to fall at dusk as the Americans clambered into the ferry boats and cargo vessels that made up Washington's hastily assembled fleet.

[Horse nickers] The river was fast-running and filled with swirling, jagged pieces of floe ice.

Somehow, Colonel John Glover and his Massachusetts sailors from Marblehead, the same men who had rescued Washington's army after the Battle of Long Island and stopped the British advance following Kips Bay, now managed to get all 2,400 men, some 50 horses, and 18 field pieces across safely.

John Greenwood was among the first to step ashore.

Voice: We had to wait for the rest to cross, so we began to pull down the fences and make fires to warm ourselves, for the storm came on so fast that it rained, hailed, and snowed and froze and blew a hurricane, so much so, when I turned my face toward the fire, my back was a-freezing.

By turning round and round, I kept myself from perishing.

[Greenwood] Narrator: Washington hoped that the landing would be completed by midnight so that his men could reach Trenton before dawn, but the last boat did not scrape ashore till 3:00 in the morning.

And though Washington did not know it yet, ice had prevented the two other forces from getting across the river.

If Trenton were to be taken, it would be up to Washington's force alone.

As he and his men finally started toward the town, the driving snow, fierce cold, and hardship of hauling 18 guns along a frozen, rutted road slowed the advance.

Voice: When we halted in the road, I sat down on a stump of a tree and was so benumbed with cold, I wanted to go to sleep.

And if I had, unnoticed, I should have been frozen to death without knowing it, but, as good luck always attended me, Sergeant Madden came to me and aroused me up and made me walk about.

[Greenwood] Narrator: Two other soldiers did fall asleep and froze to death.

At a crossroads, the column split in two.

Washington went with Nathanael Greene and turned left for the Pennington Road.

John Sullivan and his men, including John Greenwood, continued to the right along the River Road.

Each column reached its assigned position outside the still-dozing town just before 8:00.

[Men shouting] Nathanael Greene's men began the attack, charging out of the snow-filled woods.

"The storm continued with great violence," one officer recalled, "but was in our backs and consequently in the faces of the enemy."

[Gunfire] Man: Fire, men!

Fire!

Narrator: Hessian pickets spotted them through the snow, opened fire, then fell back as remaining townspeople watched in terror.

Voice: In the gray dawn came the beating of drums and the sound of firing.

The Hessian soldiers quartered in our house hastily decamped.

All was uproar and confusion.

Martha Reed.

♪ Narrator: The German soldiers formed up as best they could, prepared to fight, but Henry Knox had positioned cannon and howitzers at the upper end of King and Queen Streets that ran through the heart of the town, and when the German commander Johann Rall mounted his horse and ordered his men to charge into them, Knox remembered, "these [guns], in the twinkling of an eye, cleared the streets."

Some Hessians scattered.

Brief, fierce firefights followed.

Voice: My mother and we children hid in the cellar to escape the shots that fell about the house.

Our next-door neighbor was killed on his doorstep, and a bullet struck the blacksmith as he was in the act of closing himself in his cellar, and many other townspeople were injured by chance shots.

[Martha Reed] [Gunshot] Narrator: As Nathanael Greene's column drove through town from the north, John Sullivan's column moved in from the south.

Voice: They made a full fire right at us, but I did not see that they killed anyone.

Orders were given to charge bayonets and rush on.

As we came within pistol shot, they fired again point blank at us.

We dodged, and they did not hit a man.

Before they had time to load again, we were within 3 feet of them.

They broke in an instant and ran like so many frightened devils.

[Greenwood] Narrator: Colonel Rall was shot from his horse, mortally wounded.

Voice: Finally, they were driven through the town into an orchard beyond.

The poor fellows saw themselves completely surrounded.

Henry Knox.

♪ Narrator: It was all over in less than 45 minutes.

♪ 22 Hessians lay dead or dying in the snow.

83 more were wounded.

900 were captured.

Just 2 Americans had died-- those frozen before the battle began, and only 5 were wounded, including an artilleryman from Virginia named James Monroe, whose life was saved when a local doctor managed to stop the bleeding.