16. Washington wanted to make one more attack during the campaign
In Trenton, Cornwallis easily heard the sound of the guns and was soon on the road to Princeton hoping to yet catch Washington. The latter knew he had to evacuate Princeton, and he wanted to continue the campaign by capturing the garrison at New Brunswick. But he found little support for the idea among his senior officers. They argued the troops were exhausted, having fought on two consecutive days, with no sleep, and a forced march throughout another frigid night. Washington gave in to their counsel, and the Continental army gathered their prisoners and captured supplies and departed Princeton, bound for Somerset Court House. They rested there for one day, and on January 5 moved to Pluckemin, New Jersey. The following day they arrived at Morristown, New Jersey where they established their winter encampment, the first of several winters spent at Morristown over the course of the war.
Cornwallis arrived in Princeton late on January 3. There he received orders from Sir William Howe to abandon most of the New Jersey garrisons and consolidate his forces at New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. Though Howe wrote to London that the battles in New Jersey had been minor affairs, he nonetheless abandoned all of central New Jersey to the Continental Army as a result of them. In Morristown the encampment proved consequential. Washington had the remnants of his army inoculated for smallpox. Local residents were told to take an oath proclaiming their loyalty to the Continental Congress or have their property confiscated. New enlistments were changed to three years, marking the beginnings of a professional army in America. Washington established travel restrictions by civilians, a step to inhibit Loyalist spies. And both sides continued to skirmish throughout the winter, in what became known as the Forage War.