Late in 1779, George Washington, who later became the first President of the US, made his headquarters at Morristown, in New Jersey. Ensuring his army's survival was Washington's first concern. His Continental Army had been at war for six years, and had come close to exhausting its resources.
Joseph Plumb Martin, a soldier, recorded the troops were "absolutely, literally starved". "I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except for a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood."
Washington hoped to use the winter to rest his troops and prepare for a fresh offensive in the spring. Instead, he found himself confronting one more enemy: the merciless cold. He wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette: "The oldest people now living in this Country do not remember so hard a winter."
James Thatcher, a doctor with Washington's army, wrote of "the most tremendous snowstorms ever remembered; no man could endure its violence many minutes without danger to his life."
General Johann De Kalb wrote it was "so cold that the ink freezes on my pen, while I am sitting close to the fire"
New York harbour was frozen over, with ice eight feet deep, as were all the coast's saltwater inlets.
The British used the opportunity to move artillery across the Hudson river. Threatened, Washington responded with a raid on British forces in Staten Island. The raid, carried out by 3,000 men who were transported in sleighs, wasn't a great military success. But it served its purpose, discouraging British forces from moving out of New York for the rest of the spring
The following spring, Washington's troops began their campaign again, winning decisive Connecticut Farms and Springfield, New Jersey.