re: Did The Battle of Trenton save America?

In a way it did, the American war effort was at a pretty low point at the end of 1776. Washington had been routed on Long Island and all the way up Manhattan Island and chased across Jersey to PA. The army was melting away and a lot of enlistments were up on 1/1/1777. He needed to do something to keep the army together and that was it. I always tell my students if the war was a football game, this was like being down big early and having to go for it on 4th down on your own side of the field. It's not going to win you the game, but it blunts the momentum of the other team and keeps you alive.

Of course Trenton is iconic because of the painting (which is completely misleading about the crossing), but he also scored a nice victory at Princeton a few days later which was just as important. Washington wasn't a great x's and o's battlefield commander but he was able to keep the army together and alive to fight another day.

The southern theatre does get ignored in the big scheme of things when people discuss the Revolution. Greene and company bleeding the British throughout the South and prolonging the war was great strategy. The people in Britain were getting sick of the war and the longer it went, the less they supported it. There was still some fighting after Yorktown, but of course that was pretty much the final nail as far as the British government and population were concerned.