A cold rain was falling as the officers read out our orders at sunset. We were to attack the Hessians. We would march, in silence, lest noise alert the enemy. Three days rations and sixty cartridges for the fight. We would march five miles to McConkey’s Ferry and there cross the river. By midnight the army would be across. Then a march of nine miles to Trenton and the fight itself, before dawn.

That we could fight, we didn’t doubt. But it can sap a mans will to fight, be bested, and retreat time and time again. No man wanted to be the last one killed in a defeated cause. And unless we could win a battle, how could we hope to win our independence.

Ours was not the first company to set on the road that night, nor were we the last. But imagine marching, in the dark and freezing rain, in a road of mud, churned by the footsteps of hundreds of men before you. Making your way through the night, to fight with men who have never shown mercy to a fallen or captured foe.

The password for tonight, Victory or Death.