Meanwhile Washington, knowing his danger, had turned back across the Delaware with a prisoner for every two of his men.

When, however, he saw what Von Donop had done he returned on the twenty-ninth to Trenton, sent out scouting parties, and roused the country so that in every bit of forest along the road to Princeton there were men, dead shots, to make difficult a British advance to retake Trenton.
The reverse had brought consternation at New York.

Lord Cornwallis was about to embark for England, the bearer of news of overwhelming victory.
Now, instead, he was sent to drive back Washington.

It was no easy task for Cornwallis to reach Trenton, for Washington's scouting parties and a force of six hundred men under Greene were on the road to harass him.

On the evening of the 2d of January, however, he reoccupied Trenton.
This time Washington had not recrossed the Delaware but had retreated southward and was now entrenched on the southern bank of the little river Assanpink, which flows into the Delaware.