¹David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 398.

²Dorothy Twohig, editor, The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, Vol. 7 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 423.

³There are many comprehensive studies of the Trenton campaign that detail Washington’s plans. The best are Fischer (see above); William S. Stryker, The Battles of Trenton and Princeton (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1898) and subsequent editions; Samuel Stelle Smith, The Battle of Trenton(Monmouth Beach, NJ: Philip Freneau Press, 1965); William M. Dwyer, The Day Is Ours! (New York: The Viking Press, 1983); and William L Kidder’s Ten Crucial Days (Lawrenceville, NJ: Knox Press, 2018).

⁴See Fischer, 403, for the best description of distances and routes.

⁵George Athan Billias in General John Glover and his Marblehead Mariners (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1960), 8, says 1,000 feet. The late Harry Kels Swan of New Jersey’s Washington’s Crossing State Park, a long time scholar of the campaign, estimates the river was 850 feet. Conversations with Swan and Richard Paterson.

⁶Paul Taylor, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, email, November 15, 2000

⁷McKonkey’s Ferry is referred to in the historical records as both McKonkey and McConkey, although McKonkey’s appears to be the more used designation during the revolution.

⁸Jack Davis, “Crossing the Delaware—Before Washington,” Hopewell Valley Historical Society Newsletter, Vol. XXV, No. 3, Winter 2007, 484-485.

⁹The best description of the Durham boats is Marion V. Brewington’s “Washington’s Boats at the Delaware Crossing,” American Neptune, Vol. 2, 1942, 167-70. Also very useful are “History of the Durham Boat,” Durham Township Historical Society web site DurhamHistoricalSociety.org/history2.html; and Frank Dale, Delaware Diary, Episodes in the Life of a River (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996), 32-40.

¹⁰Stryker, 129, note 2.

¹¹Dale, 33.

¹²John A. Anderson, “Navigation of the Upper Delaware, A Paper Read before the Bucks County Historical Society,” Doylestown, PA, 1912, 18.

¹³Papers of George Washington, Vol. 7, 450.

¹⁴Ibid, 248.

¹⁵Ibid, 278.

¹⁶Papers of General Nathanael Greene, Vol. 13 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 712. Greene’s order concerning the boats was initially reported by W.W.H. Davis in an 1880 article in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. It then apparently disappeared from historical view for 100 years, resurfacing in 1984, when it was rediscovered purely by accident. While Davis dated the document Dec. 10 (the writing on the document is blurry), the editors of the Papers of Nathanael Greene verified the authenticity of the letter and confirmed the date as Dec 19, which makes more sequential sense.

¹⁷Stryker, 355.

¹⁸Alexander Graydon, Memories of His Own Time, with Reminiscences of the Men and Events of the Revolution (Philadelphia, 1846), 149.

¹⁹Kemble Widmer, “A Severe Ordeal,” unpublished paper, the Swan Historical Foundation, 1995, 11. I wish to thank my friend Clay Craighead of New Jersey’s Washington’s Crossing State Park for years of good conversations, outstanding assistance, and great observations about the crossing and for providing a copy of Kemble Widmer’s paper. Although I do not agree with all of that author’s conclusions, this is one of the finest examinations of the topic available.

²⁰Widmer, 8-11.

²¹US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department, http://mach.usno.mil/cgi-bin/aa_pap.pl.

²²Dr. Donald Olson, astrophysicist, Texas State University, email correspondence, Dec. 2000.

²³Francis S. Drake, Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox: Major General in The American Revolutionary Army (Boston, 1873), 36. This and what follows are from a Dec. 28, 1776, letter from Knox to his wife describing the crossing and subsequent action at Trenton.

²⁴Jared C. Lobdell, editor, “The Revolutionary War Journal of Sergeant Thomas McCarty,” New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings, January 1964, 41.

²⁵Drake, 36.

²⁶Frank Moore, compiler, Diary of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1859), 365.

²⁷Stryker, 362. This is “From Diary of an American Officer on Washington’s Staff.” Dated Dec. 26, 3 a.m, it is somewhat suspect. The description is still accurate.

²⁸John Greenwood, A Young Patriot in the American Revolution: The Wartime Service of John Greenwood 1775-1783 (Westvaco Corporation, 1981), 80. Written by Greenwood in 1809, first published in 1922.

²⁹David M. Ludlum, The New Jersey Weather Book (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983), 206.

³⁰James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own Times, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1816 and reprint 1973), quoted in Dwyer, 231.

³¹Force’s American Archives, series 5, vol. 3, 1401-02; Stryker, 351-58; Charles H. Lesser, editor, The Sinews of Independence: Monthly Strength Reports of the Continental Army (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 43.

³²Drake, 36.

³³Papers of George Washington, Vol. 7, 436.

³⁴Greenwood, 80.

³⁵Papers of George Washington, Vol. 7, 436.

³⁶Wilkinson, 232.

³⁷Howard Fast, The Crossing (New York: Pocket Books, 1971), 135-6.

³⁸Conversations with Clay Craighead, Washington’s Crossing State Park.

³⁹Fischer, 216-7.

⁴⁰Drake, 36.

⁴¹Stryker, 362. Nancy Ceperley is the historian at the Johnson Ferry House.

⁴²Papers of George Washington, Vol. 7, 454, in a Dec. 27, 1776 letter to John Hancock.

⁴³Greenwood, 80-1.

⁴⁴Benjamin Rush, Autobiography, George W. Corner, editor, Princeton, 1948, 124.

⁴⁵George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington, 1859, 250-51. These writings by Washington’s step-grandson and adopted son should be viewed with caution. In a recent email, Ian Saberton, the editor of the Cornwallis Papers was unable to verify this quote from Cornwallis. But he did offer that it was in the style of Cornwallis and sounded right.

Source: Written By William M. Welsch
As Published in Journal Of The American Revolution