George Washington had known a good deal of military adversity in his life. At the very outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754, he was sent into the wilderness to drive the French from the Ohio Valley. Finding the French already well established at Fort Duquesne, he built his own Fort Necessity. Washington won a small engagement with a party of French soldiers. A larger French force cut him off in Fort Necessity and eventually compelled his surrender.

A year later, Washington was present when French and Indians ambushed and destroyed General Edward Braddock's army. Washington fought bravely; two horses were shot from under him and four bullets ripped through his coat. Following the battle, he rallied the survivors and led them home. He later spent years of largely thankless service commanding Virginia's provincial troops.

Washington bore his string of defeats in 1776 with dignity and courage. He made mistakes but always managed to escape when British maneuvers threatened his forces with destruction. Keeping his army together was Washington's highest priority. He realized that the Continental army represented the spirit of the revolution; as long as it was in existence the war could not be lost. Hence Washington's continuing frustration with Congress's reliance on militiamen and short-term enlistees. His army was often in greater danger of dissolving from the expiration of his soldiers' terms of service than from the operations of the British. On December 18, facing the imminent departure of most of his troops, Washington wrote his brother, “If every nerve is not strained to recruit a new Army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up.” He never lost his combativeness and was seen rallying beaten soldiers amid flying bullets like the young man he had been two decades earlier. He had no intention of giving up.

Washington was much more interested in attacking. Many of his errors in New York had resulted from misdirected aggressiveness. During the retreat across New Jersey, his officers often found him pondering ways to strike back at the enemy. Washington had been tempered by defeat, but he was anything but beaten. In December, the dispersal of British troops across New Jersey opened up tempting targets for a Christmas offensive.

The decentralization of authority in the United States caused Washington many problems. It could also frustrate the designs of the British; almost impossible to govern, the United States was also almost impossible to defeat. Short of annihilating Washington's army, there was no way to strike a decisive blow against such a polity. Once the shock of the loss of New York City and New Jersey was absorbed, various jurisdictions took steps to meet the crisis. Congress in September had authorized the recruitment of a large new contingent of Continental troops, signed up for the duration of the war or three years. Not many of these men would reach Washington in time for his winter campaign, but they were joining the colors in surprising numbers.

Washington's army was reinforced by the arrival of John Sullivan and the remainder of Charles Lee's force. A contingent of 600 Continentals arrived from the north. A force of 2,000 Pennsylvania militia joined the army, and another 1,000 came from Philadelphia alone. Across the Delaware River, militia from New Jersey and New York harried the enemy and only awaited the appearance of an army to do more. Washington had learned that an American army could melt away with dismaying rapidity; in the America of the revolutionary period, an army could be built up almost as quickly.