Actually

On the morning of December 26, as soon as the army was ready, Washington ordered it split into two columns, one under the command of himself and General Greene, the second under General Sullivan. The Sullivan column would take River Road from Bear Tavern to Trenton while Washington's column would follow Pennington Road, a parallel route that lay a few miles inland from the river.

Meanwhile, the Hessians were held up at Trenton. In the days approaching Christmas they experienced numerous partisan skirmishes around Trenton, and were subjected to frequent gunfire at night, along with repeated false alarms. By Christmas Eve the Hessians were tired and weary. As a storm and heavy snowfall occurred on Christmas night, Colonel Rall assumed there would be no attack of any consequence to worry about. While Rall was in Trenton he and some of his top officers spent Christmas evening at the home of Abraham Hunt, Trenton's postmaster, where Hunt played the role of a Loyalist and placated Rall and his officers with food and plenty of drink into the late hours of the evening and morning, which, by many accounts, compromised Rall's ability to respond to Washington's surprise attack at daybreak.

Washington attacked an unsuspecting Rall and his troops and in little time had scattered and divided them and ultimately won the battle. Only three Americans were killed and six wounded, while 22 Hessians were killed with 98 wounded. During the battle Colonel Rall was mortally wounded, while the Americans captured 1,000 prisoners and seized muskets, powder, and artillery.