Washington's Crossing Part II
A talk by Lee Vincent, Groton-Ledyard Rotary Club, May 18th, 2004
Washington’s Crossing, 2004, by David Hackett Fischer
In the first episode I told how in November of 1776, Washington and his army barely escaped annihilation in Brooklyn and Manhattan, fled all the way south through New Jersey, and in the middle of December they fell exhausted just across the wild Delaware River in Pennsylvania, while their pursuers, two regiments of Hessians and a great many British regulars, relaxed among the well stocked farms of southern New Jersey. While Washington and his soldiers were in desperate situations in many ways, still they were in their home land, where they were supported by most of the civilians who were anywhere near the actual fighting.
As their pursuers marched further south, however, their food supply became ever more problematical. I have spoken of the great agricultural abundance of New Jersey, which was a highly cultivated garden state indeed, by the 1770s. Snipers and raiders among the New Jersey residents, from lone operators to large uprisings of militiamen, were killing or wounding every stray Hessian or Redcoat they could see. Whereas, apart from the absence of boots, the Americans were adequately fed and supplied. The Americans’ success in making the invaders pay a high price in blood for each daily excursion to round up provisions is what Professor Fischer has named The Forage Wars. The Forage War never rose to the level of strategy, and barely any part of it could even be called tactical. But it was a great and important matter that united the determination of the people, and it was the equivalent of a separate combat force of both civilian and military persons. And this severe harassment was a way for aggrieved civilians to play – an active part -- in the struggle.
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