Battle of Trenton and Crossing the Delaware Re-enactment

The Battle of Trenton (and of course George Washington crossing the Delaware River) is one of those things I feel like I've always heard of but never really understood. I think I just hadn't ever read or learned about it before, or maybe I've just forgotten. Anyway, it was such an important battle and significant time during the war that I was really hoping we could do something memorable when we learned about it. My boys show great capacity for remembering battle-related stuff, anyway (much better than I do) because they really love it. So I decided we'd have school outside by the stream so we could do a re-enactment.

After reading several books describing the battle, we readied our soldiers. (We only have Civil War Soldier toys, but they sufficed.)

Here are the poor, cold, sick American soldiers standing in the snow. As you can see, some of them have bandages around their bare and bleeding feet. There's George Washington in the back with his powdered wig. :)

The American soldiers got into their boats and started to cross the Delaware. They had to fight through the chunks of ice floating in the river. It took them hours to get everyone across.

The British army, or more specifically their German Hessian mercenaries (who, if there's one thing I remember from my AP US History class in high school, "wanted booty, not duty") were fast asleep, snuggled under their nice blankets. Pretend that one guy with the musket is asleep too. :)

The Hessians are tired because of their raucous Christmas celebrations that day. Oh dear, they've only left one guard on duty, standing by their lovely snow-covered Christmas tree (with a blue spiny star on top)!

The exhausted Americans surround their camp. Taken by surprise, the Hessians surrender after hardly putting up a fight! A stunning victory for the ragtag Americans! And just in time for the new year!