The cold came first.
It crept in as the days shortened, as light surrendered its hold on the land, and as hope—once proclaimed confidently in summer—began to thin. Winter did not arrive all at once. It settled gradually, pressing down on men already bent by defeat.
On frozen New Jersey roads, Continental soldiers without shoes left trails of blood in the snow—crimson against the pale white of a dying year. Breath rose in clouds. Muskets grew heavy with damp. Behind them trudged what remained of George Washington’s army, hollow-eyed and half-starved, retreating not toward victory, but toward an uncertain survival.
By December 1776, the American Revolution was failing.
Independence had been declared only months before, in early July, when the days stretched on, and talk of liberty carried a confidence that felt widespread at the time. Even then, however, the Revolution was unsettled and far from universally embraced.
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