 In time, historians would later write of the significance of what happened in Trenton and Princeton. British scholar George Trevelyan observed, it may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world. With the cause of American liberty at its lowest point, with the army on the brink of dissolution, the patriots completely turned events around and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.