Washington's Retreat Through Hackensack

By late November 1776, the American Revolution appeared to be collapsing. What had begun with soaring declarations of independence and bold defiance of the British Crown just months earlier now looked like a doomed experiment in self-governance. The Continental Army, battered by a string of devastating losses in New York, was in full retreat across New Jersey, and on November 21, 1776, the ragged remnants of that army passed through the small town of Hackensack in one of the war's most demoralizing episodes.

The crisis had been building for months. After the British victory at the Battle of Long Island in August, General George Washington had been forced to evacuate his troops from Brooklyn, then from Manhattan, and then from a series of increasingly untenable positions in the northern reaches of New York. Fort Washington, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, fell to the British on November 16, resulting in the capture of nearly three thousand Continental soldiers — a catastrophic loss of manpower and morale. Just days later, on November 20, British forces under Lord Cornwallis crossed the Hudson and advanced on Fort Lee, the American post perched on the Palisades of New Jersey. Washington, recognizing that Fort Lee could not be held, ordered an emergency evacuation. The garrison abandoned the fort so hastily that tents, cannons, entrenching tools, and hundreds of barrels of provisions were left behind for the British to seize.

From Fort Lee, Washington led his dwindling army southward. The troops crossed the Hackensack River at New Bridge Landing, a strategically important crossing point, and marched into the town of Hackensack itself. What the residents of that community witnessed was not an army in any inspiring sense of the word. The soldiers were exhausted, hungry, and poorly clothed. Many lacked shoes. Equipment was scarce, discipline was fraying, and the entire force moved with the unmistakable urgency of men being chased. Thomas Paine, the political pamphleteer whose earlier work "Common Sense" had helped ignite revolutionary fervor across the colonies, was present among the retreating soldiers. The despair and suffering he observed during this march through New Jersey would later inspire him to write "The American Crisis," the famous essay that opened with the immortal words: "These are the times that try men's souls."

For the people of Hackensack, the retreat was a deeply unsettling spectacle. Among those who watched was Reverend Dirck Romeyn, a local minister and patriot sympathizer who witnessed the disintegrating army pass through town before he himself was forced to flee ahead of the approaching British occupation. Romeyn's flight was emblematic of the impossible choices facing patriot-leaning civilians: stay and face retribution from the British, or abandon home and livelihood for an uncertain future. The retreat also touched the lives of those who had no choice in the matter at all. Enslaved people like Sam of Hackensack experienced the upheaval of war within the already brutal confines of bondage, their fates tied to the decisions of enslavers and the chaos of armies moving through their community. The Revolution's promises of liberty remained bitterly abstract for people like Sam, even as the language of freedom echoed through patriot rhetoric.

The sight of Washington's broken army streaming through Hackensack's streets shattered whatever confidence remained in the patriot cause for many Bergen County residents. Desertions spiked dramatically, and local militia members — the citizen-soldiers who were supposed to form the backbone of resistance — simply went home. Some residents began hedging their bets, preparing to make peace with British authority. The armed force that had given tangible substance to the Continental Congress's claims of sovereignty was visibly disintegrating, and pragmatic civilians could see no reason to stake their futures on a losing cause.

And yet, the story did not end in Hackensack. Washington continued his retreat south through New Jersey, crossing the Delaware River into Pennsylvania in early December. There, in one of the most remarkable reversals in military history, he recrossed the Delaware on the night of December 25, 1776, and struck the Hessian garrison at Trenton, winning a surprise victory that revived the patriot cause from what had seemed like certain death. The despair of the retreat through Hackensack made the triumph at Trenton all the more extraordinary. The darkest moment of the Revolution had passed directly through this small New Jersey town, and understanding that darkness is essential to appreciating how improbable American independence truly was.