The rebellion nearly ended in December 1776, with Washington's army beaten in New York and chased across New Jersey, which the enemy then garrisoned with Hessian troops in Trenton to keep an eye on Washington's dwindling forces across the Delaware. Washington now had fewer than 3000 men, and their enlistments would expire at the end of the year. In this moment of crisis, Washington devised a plan. "There is a natural firmness in some minds," Thomas Paine wrote, "which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude." We discuss what was in that cabinet of fortitude unlocked in December 1776.
