It is said that every army prepares for the last war. Meaning, armies always learn from their past mistakes and ensure that those mistakes don’t happen in the next war. A corollary to the maxim would be that it would be unwise to employ the same tactic against the same enemy more than once. The enemy would be prepared against it and would be anticipating the employment of such a tactic.
The American colonies revolted against British rule after Britain imposed taxes on the colonies without giving them representation in the British Parliament. After parleys failed, the colonies gathered an army of citizens, most of them untrained, to fight for independence, with George Washington as its commander. The army was able to defeat the highly trained and experienced British army and form an independent nation, thanks mainly to Washington’s brilliant military tactics and his willingness to take risks.
In August 1776, after being defeated in the Battle of Long Island near New York, Washington retreated with his army to the Brooklyn Heights near the East River. The pursuing British army surrounded the hills from three sides. The fourth side was the river. The British camped near the hill, laying a virtual siege, believing that Washington's army would surrender when they ran out of food and water.
However, Washington secretly organised hundreds of boats and ferried his soldiers across the river in small groups during the night. This went on for several nights, without the British getting any wiser. To prevent noise from the wheels of their carts and wagons, they stuffed rags around the axles. To make it appear that they were still in the hilltop camp, they kept the campfires burning all night.
Thus, over a few nights, he moved 9,000 soldiers from Brooklyn to Manhattan Island. When the British finally decided to attack, they climbed the hill and discovered that the enemy had gone.
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In December 1777, a large contingent of the British army, led by their commander Johann Rall, was encamped at Trenton on the banks of the Delaware River. Washington's army was on the other side. Rall intended to cross the Delaware River once it had frozen in the extreme cold and attack Washington's army. However, before the river froze, Washington secretly crossed the river using boats one night and attacked and defeated the British troops.
The interesting part is that Washington used the same tactic to cross the Delaware as he had used earlier to cross the East River - stuffing rags between the wagon wheels to reduce noise, and keeping campfires burning all night to give the impression that the army was still in camp. The crossing of the Delaware proved to be a turning point in the American War of Independence.
Washington, who captured enemy soldiers and escaped back across the Delaware River, returned to Trenton within a week and defeated a larger British army at Trenton and Princeton. Thus, he crossed the Delaware River three times and the East River once, every time employing the same camouflage tactic.