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From a local Jersey paper:

Washington's crossing was turning point

For organizers of this year's annual crossing of the Delaware River, controversy has its benefits.

Monday, December 23, 2002

At the annual rehearsal for the Christmas Day re-enactment on Dec. 8, swarms of television and radio crews and newspaper reporters and photographers were drawn to the park because of the dispute. The hullabaloo provided an opportunity to focus on the story of Washington's Delaware crossing.

Many historians consider the crossing the most critical juncture in American history. On that long ago Christmas night, Washington and 2,400 troops, remnants of the battered Continental Army, crossed the Delaware at what was then McConkey's Ferry to attack Hessian mercenaries serving in the British Army and encamped at Trenton.

After crossing the Delaware, the poorly clad Americans marched down river and surprised the Hessians in an early morning attack on Dec. 26. The Continentals defeated the enemy force without loss of life for the Americans and marched their prisoners back up the river to retire once again behind the safety of the Delaware. The emboldened Washington followed a week later with another river crossing to move against Princeton, where he defeated a British force on Jan. 3, 1777.

Prior to the Christmas crossing, Washington's army was demoralized and would have ceased to exist as enlistments ran out on New Year's Day 1777. Washington's attack on the Hessians was a desperate gamble to rally the Revolutionary cause. It worked, and after the battles of Trenton and Princeton, enlistments increased and Washington, his army, and the Revolution, survived.

Today there are amusing touches to the re-enactment. Coast Guard launches bob in the currents to pluck any hapless re-enactor from the drink.

And Washington and his troops step gingerly from the boats on the New Jersey shore to keep their shoes and uniforms dry.

In 1776, Washington's troops made the passage in a howling northeaster that dumped rain, sleet and snow on the men.

Here is my personal account from Washington Crossing.

It was a cold hard rain yesterday, on top of the prior nights snow and icy slush. Some of the reenactors marched to the reconstructed Durham boats at the dock. Yet the crossing was called off on account of inclement weather, and very few spectators showed up. Where the crowd in recent years has grown to 10 to 15 thousand, this year it only counted in the hundreds.

Washington Crossing is a great place to visit, and the open-in-the-summer kiddie theme park "Sesame Place" is only fifteen minutes away. Six miles north of the Crossing there is a hill commanding the river -- Bowman's Hill, on which a tower was built during the 30's by the CCC. That tower has a mighty fine view and shoould also be visited. The main attraction at the Crossing itself are the park center buildings, one in Jersey that houses the most excellent Swann collection of revolutionary military kits, guns and such, and the one in Pennsylvania with a great reproduction of the famous Leutze painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware".

Both centers have filmstrips describing the events of the Crossing.

On the Pennsylvania side there is an excellent art gallery on General Greene Road which has some very nice original and print art of Washington Crossing and the local area.