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 its former glory,

the British Army had chased them across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania,

and enlistments for many of the rank and file were set to expire at 8 years end.

Things were desperate, so Washington responded to this crisis with a raid on a

Hessian camp on Christmas Day across an icy river. He crossed the Delaware as a

noreaster turned up on the coast, bearing his attachment under sheets of snow and ice.

They attacked the Hessian brigade in the early morning hours,

taking the German auxiliaries by complete surprise. Only three days later,

Washington struck again, crossing the Delaware, barely escaping for the British

Attrent and attacking the raidcoats at Princeton completely bewildering them and making them

ask themselves, wait, can the Colonials actually witness war?

Now the next three months of the war are usually skipped over, and historians of the

Revolutionary War go to the battle of Saratoga, but this period, called the Forge War,

is crucially important to the forging of the continental army.

Today's guest is Jim Semple, author of the enemy harassed, Washington's New Jersey campaign

of 1777, and a British alive one of them most violent, but overlooked periods of the war.

Washington's continentals, the state malicious, went head to head with the British,

in the series of small-scale actions in large-scale battles, eventually forcing the British to

flee to New Jersey by sea. It's bush-wacking, small-scale hit and runs,

but the number of actions that whittled down the British forces actually cost more lives

in the New York campaign and turned a bunch of inexperienced junior officers into competent

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