Oh, what a shame it was that Congress and the people let them--the men who were enduring so much and fighting so bravely for the liberty of both--bear such hardships!" "It was, indeed," sighed Grandma Elsie; "it always gives me a heartache to think of those poor fellows marching through the darkness and that dreadful storm of snow, sleet, and bitter wind and only half clothed.
Just think of it! a continuous march of fifteen miles through darkness, over such a road, the storm directly in their faces.

They reached their destination stiff with cold, yet rushed at once upon the foe, fighting bravely for freedom for themselves and their children.

'Victory or death,' was the watchword Washington had given them." "Were they from all the States, mamma ?" asked Walter.
"They were principally Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New England troops," she answered.

"Grant, the British commander in New Jersey, knew of the destitution of our troops but felt no fear that they would really venture to attack him; persuading himself that they would not cross the river because the floating ice would make it a difficult, if not impossible, thing for them to return.
"'Besides,' he wrote on the 21st, 'Washington's men have neither shoes nor stockings nor blankets, are almost naked, and dying of cold and want of food.'" "And didn't Rall say the Americans wouldn't dare to come against him ?" asked Walter.
"Yes; his reply to a warning of danger of being attacked was, 'Let them come; what need of intrenchments! We will at them with the bayonet!'" "And when they did come he was killed ?" "Yes, mortally wounded; taken by his aids and servant to his quarters at the house of a Quaker named Stacey Potts; and there Washington and Greene visited him just before leaving Trenton." "They knew he was dying, mamma ?" "Yes, and, as Lossing tells us, Washington offered such consolation as a soldier and Christian can bestow." "It was very kind, and I hope Rall appreciated it." "It would seem that he did, as the historian tells us it soothed the agonies of the expiring hero.".