The ‘Ten Crucial Days,’ Brought to Life 200 Years Later

By Ryan Konarska

“Surprise Attack Routs Hessians.”

“Out of Ruin, a Victory.”

“The High Price of Patriotism.”

These were the headlines that graced the pages of the Trentonian, a newspaper serving Central New Jersey, on July 5, 1976 to mark the Bicentennial. Yet these articles were not chronicling current events in the heart of the Garden State on the 200th anniversary of the republic—they were written by Trentonian reporters as if they were reporting in real time in 1776. The free special issue titled the “Ten Crucial Days” spanned over 100 pages and employed sensationalization and suspension of belief to connect its readership to the integral role of Central New Jersey to the American victory in the Revolutionary War, the founding of the United States, and the spread of democracy across the entire world.¹

What does the “Ten Crucial Days” issue tell us about the nature of commemoration in Central New Jersey? How was the Revolution remembered in the region then and how did this issue intersect with this collective memory? In 1976, Trenton, New Jersey was an industrial town on the decline due to suburbanization and deindustrialization.² The heavily built-up area sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York was a far cry from the small river port on the Delaware that General George Washington’s troops entered on Christmas 1776. While thousands of motorists cross the river on the way to work every morning without incident, two hundred years prior, it was the revolutionary forces who paddled across the icy Delaware to launch a surprise attack that would change the trajectory of the war and the history of world. The Trentonian, a newspaper in Trenton, crafted the “Ten Crucial Days” issue to connect what was now a mundane and declining mid-sized city to the region’s riveting revolutionary past.³

“Ask any schoolchild about the Battle of Trenton and invariably you will be told that it was ‘the turning point of the American Revolution,’” Emil Slaboda, the Editor of the Trentonian, wrote. “And it was,” he adds.⁴ Through editorial statements like these, the vision of the issue is clear: to center the role of Trenton and Central New Jersey in shaping the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The contributions of other parts of the country are not noted—the focus is on the capital of the Garden State and its environs alone, continually reaffirming the chain of events from the Ten Crucial Days to the establishment of the United States.

One way the Trentonian achieves this goal of commemorating and elevating the contributions of Trenton to the war effort is through employing less-than-impartial reporting. Throughout the special issue, the Trentonian uses immersion and dramatization to heighten the role of Trenton in the revolution and immerse readers in the region’s revolutionary history. With lines like “The American army’s sneak attack on Trenton came closer to being foiled by last night’s stormy weather and the turbulent Delaware than by King George’s groggy and confused mercenaries,” the stories in the issue paint the Americans as having impossible odds in the war against the British while simultaneously deriding the British troops as uninformed and unmotivated.⁵ The narrative presented by the special issue is thus contradictory in many ways, but furthers its ultimate goal: making Washington and his men the flawless heroes who secured pivotal victories on Central New Jersey’s hallowed ground.

The level of immersion is heightened through the style of writing employed in the issue and the extensive photographs and illustrations included. Were it not for the modern English used, readers would not know that the articles supposedly written in 1776 were actually penned in the middle of the 20th century. Quotes are employed from generals to provide a sense of real-time reporting, while costumed soldiers pose for modern-day photographs that give the appearance of the existence of cameras in 1776.⁶ The use of choreographed media complements the sensationalist prose of the issue and shows just how important commemoration of these events was to the leadership of the Trentonian—so much so that staged photos of reenactments were included across the hundred pages of “Ten Crucial Days.”

The issue also makes extensive use of geographical markers to spatially position stories in readers’ minds, providing a glossary of changed street and city names at the beginning of the paper to don revolutionary significance to everyday waypoints.⁷ These references allow individuals to feel a connection to the city’s past, from motorists driving to work on Broad Street knowing that the thoroughfare was once called “Queen Street” to Lawrenceville residents learning that their quintessentially American suburb used to bear the undeniably British name “Maidenhead.” The Trentonian includes these reminders almost to say that Washington’s army fought to change these names, connecting one’s local identity to the region’s revolutionary past. This aligns with the sense of triumphalism latent throughout the issue,⁸ with wax poetic of the glorious victories of the revolutionary forces leading readers to almost believe that the surrender of the British themselves had been secured in January 1777 by Washington’s army that could.⁹

The public fervor surrounding Trenton’s role in the bicentennial was extended to the newspaper’s opinion pages as well. On July 19, longtime Trentonian columnist Ann Rinaldi lambasted New Jersey’s firearm control laws, saying they prevented the planned proper re-enactment of the event in December from occurring without a hitch. At the time, New Jersey law required up to three months to obtain a firearm permit, hindering the 2,000 individuals who planned to bring their muskets to the state to re-enact Revolutionary War battles. Rinaldi accused the New Jersey Supreme Court of “trying to put a snag in New Jersey’s bicentennial celebrations” and said she agreed with the Director of the New Jersey Bicentennial Commission Dave Earling in calling the laws “stupid.” Rinaldi closed her column by saying if the laws were not changed, the re-enactment would turn into “the real thing.”¹⁰ This column further demonstrates how important Trenton’s role in the American Revolution was to observers at the time and provides context for the hundred pages of the “Ten Crucial Days” that the Trentonian produced.

To gain a perspective on how the American Revolution is remembered in Trenton today, I spoke with Councilwoman Jennifer Williams of Trenton’s North Ward, which includes Downtown Trenton where many major battles occurred. Williams recalled how the city still holds re-enactments of the First and Second Battles of Trenton every year near the Assumpink Creek, reflecting how this history persists in the public consciousness today. She then recalled an anecdote of an encounter with a person in England, saying “When I visited England and I said that I’m from Trenton, New Jersey, I literally [met] someone at Piccadilly Market say, ‘oh, you guys put a beating on us there.’ They know our history.” Williams continued by emphasizing Trenton’s role in the American Revolution. “Without Trenton, freedom, liberty, independence wouldn’t have gone to other places in the world,” she said. The spirit that gripped the editorial staff of the Trentonian 48 years ago is alive and well in Trenton’s elected officials, with the revolutionary significance of the city sitting at the front of mind for the politicians shaping the city’s future—and what it chooses to remember through its political and journalistic institutions.

The Trentonian’s immersive look at 1776 shows us how commemoration in New Jersey sought to build a sense of pride in the state and region’s residents in their revolutionary past. For a state wedged between what were then the country’s second and third-largest states, New Jersey—and especially the suburban expanse of Central New Jersey—can feel overlooked. Latent throughout this issue is a belief that this lack of attention on New Jersey is unjust, from the very beginning when the Trentonian’s leadership states that “…history books fall far short of telling the complete story of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton.”¹² Through immersing the reader in the events of that crucial winter and lauding the significance of Central New Jersey to the establishment of the most powerful nation the world has known,¹¹ the Trentonian helped the citizens of a declining region living in tough economic times feel a connection to the region’s revolutionary past and the spread of democracy across the globe—that at one point, only 200 years ago, this place helped change the course of world history.

Works Cited

1. “’10 Crucial Days’ Free on Monday,” Trentonian, July 3, 1976.
2. Jennifer Altmann, “History: Trenton in the ’60s,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, July 10, 2019.
3. “Traffic Counts,” Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, 2023.
4. Emil Slaboda, “The Ten Crucial Days,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.
5. “A Hard Road to Victory,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.
6. “Americans’ Night of Decision,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.
7. “Surprise Attack Routs Hessians,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976; “The Story…,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.
8. John Cunningham, “A Royalist Atrocity at Union,” The Revolution in New Jersey, 1975.
9. “Out of Ruin, a Victory,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.
10. Rinaldi, Ann. “Shot Heard Round N.J.” Trentonian, July 19, 1976.
11. “Happy Birthday America!,” The Trentonian,” July 4, 1976.
12. Slaboda, “The Ten Crucial Days,” Trentonian, July 5, 1976.