He had now hardly five thousand men, but they were the best, most seasoned, and in many respects the hardiest fighters.

In addition to the usual responsibility of warfare, of feeding his troops, finding quarters for them, and of directing the line of march, he had to cope with wholesale desertions and to make desperate efforts to raise money and to persuade some of those troops, whose term was expiring, to stay on.
His general plan now was to come near enough to the British centre and to watch its movements.

The British had fully twenty-five thousand men who could be centred at a given point.

This centre was now Trenton, and the objective of the British was so plainly Philadelphia that the Continental Congress, after voting to remain in permanence there, fled as quietly as possible to Baltimore.

On December 18th Washington wrote from the camp near the Falls of Trenton to John Augustine Washington: If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up, owing, in great measure, to the insidious acts of the Enemy, and disaffection of the Colonies before mentioned, but principally to the accursed policy of short enlistments, and placing too great a dependence on the militia, the evil consequences of which were foretold fifteen months ago, with a spirit almost Prophetic.