A glance at the disposition of both armies is invited. All operations in the northern department were practically suspended with Carleton’s withdrawal to Canada. But on the ninth of November, the official returns of that northern army showed a force of seven thousand three hundred and forty-five rank and file, present for duty; with three thousand nine hundred and sixty-one sick, present, and absent. Enlistments were to expire with the year, but weeks were to intervene. Lee’s Grand Division, at North Castle Heights, at date of the loss of Fort Washington, and as late as November, reported “seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-four of effective rank and file, present for duty and on command.” Enlistments here, also, were near their limit; but Lee ultimately crossed into New Jersey with thirty-four hundred effective troops. Washington had the right to expect, and did expect, that this force was available upon call. The division of General Heath, commanding upon the Hudson, with headquarters at Fishkill, numbered, on November twenty-fourth, five thousand four hundred and ten men for duty. Leaving to the governors of New England and New York the responsibility of maintaining their quotas when enlistments should expire, the time had come for American operations in the middle _zone_ of military action. Cornwallis was detached from his immediate command and sent into New Jersey, with a strong force, to attack Washington. The American army abandoned the space between the Hackensack and Passaic rivers; crossed the latter at Aquackonock on the twenty-first of November; burned the bridge after a slight skirmish, and followed the right bank of the Passaic to Newark, reaching that city on the twenty-third. At this point, a muster of the army was ordered by Washington, and five thousand four hundred and ten reported for duty. New Brunswick was reached on the twenty-ninth. Here another skirmish with the army of Cornwallis took place. But Cornwallis halted his command under orders of Howe to “proceed no further than New Brunswick.” Washington moved on to Princeton, and then to Trenton, where he arrived on the third day of December. He immediately gathered from Philadelphia all available boats, and for a stretch of seventy miles cleared both banks of the Delaware River of everything that could float, and took them into his own charge. The reader should appreciate that these movements were not in the original design of the American Commander-in-Chief. He would have made a stand at both Hackensack and New Brunswick, if Lee’s Division, confidently expected, had joined him as ordered; and at least, the enemy’s progress would have been retarded.