Cornwallis had joined Grant at Princeton, and with seven or eight thousand men was assembling wagons and transportation, preparing for a dash on Trenton.

Confirmation of this not unexpected news came by a student from the college, who had escaped to Cadwalader and been sent up to General Washington.

The situation of Washington was now critical, but he took prompt measures to relieve it.
Cadwalader from the Crosswicks, and Mifflin from Bordentown, with thirty-six hundred men, were ordered forward at once.

They promptly obeyed orders, and by another desperate night march reached Trenton on the morning of the first day of the year.
There was heavy skirmishing all day on the second.

Cornwallis, advancing in hot haste from Princeton with eight thousand men, was checked, and lost precious time, by a hot rifle fire from the wood on the banks of the Shabbakong Creek, near the road he followed in his advance.