A MESSAGE FROM THE TWO DARKEST CHRISTMAS EVES IN OUR HISTORY

For the men who gathered in a snowy forest in eastern Pennsylvania, where they kept their fires so low that they gave no heat, so as not to reveal their position to their opponents, this was the worst Christmas any could remember.

Only six months earlier, they had been a multitude. But now, beaten and defeated, survivors who had managed to escape the last defeat in Brooklyn, there were fewer than 2,000 left. And the majority of them counted the days until the New Year, when their enlistments would be up and they could leave this defeated army honorably, rather than fleeing as cowards and deserters, like those no longer among them had done.

A call was put out to the officers in charge of the men, to gather at the headquarters tent for a meeting. These were men who had been voted into their position by the men they led.

Those closer to the tent had seen a sleigh arrive an hour earlier. Several large boxes had been unloaded from it and taken inside the tent.

The soldiers held their hands over the embers of their fires. Many had no shoes, their feet wrapped in burlap or rags. They left a bloody trail when they walked through the snow.

After what seemed some considerable time, the officers returned and gathered their men, to read them the broadside they had been given at the headquarters.

And this is what they read aloud to the others:

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

There was more, some words more memorable than others, but everyone remembered those first words.

“... All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover...”

“... I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent...”

“... Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered...”

“... Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential control...”

“... I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit...”

“... I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a Tory? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave...”

It ended:

“... This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils - a ravaged country - a depopulated city - habitations without safety, and slavery without hope - our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.”

Among the soldiers who were the first Americans to hear “The American Crisis,” written by Thomas Paine, was Isaac Cleavr, a 25 year old newly ex-Quaker from Germantown, Pennsylvania, who had left the church to joing the Pennsylvania Militia. My sixth great-grandfather.

After the readings, they gathered their arms and went over the line of hills they had been hiding behind and down to the river, where they manned the waiting boats, and they crossed the Delaware at Trenton (and there really was ice as shown in the famous painting). They hid through the night in the forest, shivering in the snow and the cold, while they listened to the Hessian mercenaries, in the Barracks at Trenton, singing Christmas carols and making merry with drink and food.

And on the morning of Christmas, 1776, the Hessians were surprised to awaken in their still drunken stupor, and find themselves surrounded .

The surrender of the Hessians at Trenton Barracks on Christmas Day, 1776, saw the Revolution restored. It wouldn’t be a flame blown out by the merest breeze, as so many had feared.

There would be six more years of struggle as the War of Independence both consumed and created the United States of America. But there was no more fear that it wouldn’t happen, if we held out.

155 years later, on another dark Christmas Eve, 17 days after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor drew the country into the most destructive war in human history, in a manner that led many to worry that the country might not stand to the threat. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the country:

“These are natural—inevitable—questions in every part of the world which is resisting the evil thing. And even as we ask these questions, we know the answer. There is another preparation demanded of this Nation beyond and beside the preparation of weapons and materials of war. There is demanded also of us the preparation of our hearts; the arming of our hearts. And when we make ready our hearts for the labor and the suffering and the ultimate victory which lie ahead, then we observe Christmas Day—with all of its memories and all of its meanings—as we should. Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies - more than any other day or any other symbol. Against enemies who preach the principles of hate and practice them, we set our faith in human love and in God's care for us and all men everywhere.

“It is in that spirit, and with particular thoughtfulness of those, our sons and brothers, who serve in our armed forces on land and sea, near and far - those who serve for us and endure for us that we light our Christmas candles now across the continent from one coast to the other on this Christmas Eve.”

2024 is going to be a year of challenge for all of us, as important and threatening as were 1777 and 1942. But those who came before us have been here before in these times of danger and travail.

And who among us wants to throw away those 248 years of effort, to hand things over to the same people Paine knew:

“Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.”

Of course we won’t.

That’s Another Fine Mess needs your support as a paid subscriber to do what’s going to be necessary in 2024. It’s only $7/month or $70/year, and it really helps.

Comments are for paid subscribers.