The Enemy Harassed - Washington's New Jersey Campaign of 1777

As few books regarding American history have achieved, Jim Stempel’s The Enemy Harassed brings a previously neglected period of the American Revolution to life.

In late December 1776, the American War of Independence appeared to be on its last legs. General George Washington’s continental forces had been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, the British Army had chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, and enlistments for many of the rank and file would be up by month’s end. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and George Washington responded to this crisis with astonishing audacity. On Christmas night 1776, he recrossed the Delaware as a nor’easter churned up the coast, burying his small detachment under howling sheets of snow and ice. Undaunted, they attacked a Hessian brigade at Trenton, New Jersey, taking the German auxiliaries by complete surprise. Then, only three days later, Washington struck a