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Some of you may have already received an email about this, but I wanted to let anyone who’s interested know about a talk I’ll be giving at Historic Summerseat in Morrisville, PA—the site of George Washington’s headquarters from December 8 to 14, 1776—focusing on my second book, The Road to Assunpink Creek. This free event will be on Sunday, November 10 at 1 pm. Seating is limited, and reservations can be made by calling 215-801-0753.

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Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (1816-1868) is America’s best-known historical painting and one of the most renowned works of art in history. Here are some facts about the painter and his artistry that may be of interest to you:

— Leutze was born in Germany but came to America with his family in 1825. They settled in Philadelphia, but after his father’s death in 1831 the youth had to work to support his mother and sister, which he did by selling his portraiture. Recognizing Leutze’s talent, several wealthy benefactors elected to subsidize his artistic education by sending him across the Atlantic to study in his native land, where he enrolled in 1841 in the Dusseldorf Academy, then the preeminent school of art in Europe.

— The artist began work on this, his most celebrated painting in 1849 at his Dusseldorf studio, in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848 that he passionately supported. These included a series of republican revolts against European monarchies, beginning in Sicily and spreading to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire, but which all resulted in failure and repression. Leutze utilized American tourists and art students in Europe as models and assistants in his creative process.

— The original version of this painting was damaged by a fire in Leutze’s studio in late 1850, when it was nearly finished, and subsequently hung in an art museum in Bremen, Germany (the Bremen Kunsthalle), only to fall victim to a bombing raid by the British Royal Air Force on September 5, 1942. This led to historian David Hackett Fischer’s droll observation that the RAF perpetrated Great Britain’s final act of revenge for the American Revolution.

— Leutze created another full-sized copy of the painting (12 by 21 feet), which was shipped to America in 1851, where it was seen by over fifty thousand people in New York before being exhibited in the Rotunda of the National Capitol. During the Civil War, it served to raise funds for the Union cause and the antislavery movement, entirely fitting in light of Leutze’s ardent abolitionist sentiments—which are reflected in the presence of a Black soldier whom he positioned in the boat next to Washington.

— In 1897, private art collector John S. Kennedy, a trustee and vice president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, bought the painting for sixteen thousand dollars and donated it to the museum, where it remained until 1950, when the Met loaned the work out to the Museum of Fine Art in Dallas, Texas. From 1952 to 1970, Leutze’s creation was displayed at Washington Crossing State Park in Pennsylvania—renamed as Washington Crossing Historic Park in 1979—first in the local Methodist Episcopal Church and after the summer of 1959 in the park’s new Memorial Building (now the Visitor Center). By one estimate, two hundred and fifty thousand people visited every year for a decade to view Leutze’s handiwork. In 1969, the Met formally recalled its loan of the painting to the park and brought it back in time for the nation’s Bicentennial to grace the museum’s American Wing. (During its prior residency there, the painting hung in one of the European painting galleries rather than the American Wing, perhaps because it was considered a German, rather than American, work.) The regal canvas and its imposing frame reside there today, at 1000 5th Avenue, inside Central Park, opposite 83rd Street.

— Since the original painting left Washington Crossing, it has been replaced by a series of reproductions that grace the Visitor Center auditorium (the first time the Met ever granted permission for a copy to be made of a painting in its collection). These have included: in 1970, an oil painting by Robert Williams commissioned by Ann Hawkes Hutton, founder and chair of the Washington Crossing Foundation’s board of directors and author of a book about Leutze and his magnum opus; in 1998, a digital copy of the original painting produced by Muralite Murals of St. Paul, Minnesota; and in 2013, a new digital copy created by Forbes Associates of Edgely, Pennsylvania, from a digital image owned by the Met.

— The painting is undoubtedly the most prominent and arguably the least accurate depiction of the legendary Christmas night 1776 Delaware River crossing by Washington’s army. For starters, the river is too wide (it’s the Rhine, not the Delaware), the sky is too light (they crossed at night), the ice is in the form of bluish chunks (Delaware River ice is typically flat and white), the flag is wrong (“Old Glory” was not adopted by Congress as the first flag of the United States until June 14, 1777—which is why June 14 is Flag Day), the boat is too small (about one-third the size of the Durham boats used to carry the American infantry across the river), and Washington looks older than age 44, which he was at the time. (His image is based on a bust by the French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon that was created a decade later and is thought to be the best likeness we have of GW.) It seems safe to assume that the artist’s intent was to execute his canvas in the classical tradition of great historical paintings that seek to leave viewers with a dramatic impression, rather than to portray an event as it might have actually occurred.

— On the other hand, Leutze brilliantly captures the sense of fierce urgency that informed this difficult and hazardous undertaking. His image of the crossing has resonated with generations of viewers worldwide in a way that no other has because he, better than anyone else, conveys the emotions that infused the rebel soldiers and their commander-in-chief at a perilous moment in the quest for American independence, on a night when Washington decided to roll the dice on a last-ditch gamble to save his army and perhaps the revolutionary enterprise. One can clearly discern the courage, determination, desperation, and commitment to a common purpose that drove these weary but resolute warriors across an ice-choked river to their rendezvous with an uncertain fate—a motley assortment of humble citizen-soldiers crowded into Leutze’s tiny craft and all rowing together, metaphorically if not literally. Those feelings are indelibly etched in the faces and postures of these men in such a way as to rivet viewers’ attention and perhaps make them feel as if they’ve been thrust into the boat as well.

— And yes, Washington would have been standing in the boat. In fact, they all would have been (another inaccuracy in the painting). There were no seats in a Durham—or, for that matter, in a ferry boat if that’s what brought him across; and besides, on a night when the bottom of each boat was cold and wet from freezing precipitation, so would a soldier’s bottom have been if he sat in the boat.

So that’s one bottom line, but here’s another: the genius of Emanuel Leutze is dramatically captured in his universally recognized masterwork, which may well be more renowned than the event it celebrates. He forged a majestic billboard for democracy that enduringly proclaims to people from across the globe a spirited vision of freedom and the resolve to achieve it.

Get the picture?

Sources:

David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Barbara S. Groseclose, Emanuel Leutze, 1816-1868: Freedom Is the Only King (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975).

Anne Hawkes Hutton, Portrait of Patriotism (Philadelphia: Chilton Company, 1959).

Peter Osborne, No Far Spot In This Land Is More Immortalized: A History of Pennsylvania’s Washington Crossing Historic Park (Yardley, PA: Yardley Press, 2014).

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As you may recall, my last post included a link to an interview I had about my second book, The Road to Assunpink Creek, with Randolph G. (Randy) Flood, who hosts The Real American Revolution Multimedia Center and Consortium for Civic Education.

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a link to a video recording of my interview with Randy about my next book, Winning the Ten Crucial Days. This interview actually preceded the above, but the video required a few edits that delayed its availability until now.

If you’d like to read more about the new book (including reviewer comments), and/or are thinking about preordering, you can do so at Brookline Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble—or, if you want to support a historic site (sure, you do), the Fort Plain Museum.

Enjoy the rest of your summer – stay safe and healthy.

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Actually, I’m the one flapping lips—but you’re cordially invited to listen in here to a recording of my first public remarks about the book that I’m anticipating Brookline Books will release early next year, Winning the Ten Crucial Days.

This is a talk I gave last night at the First Presbyterian Church in Titusville, NJ (Hopewell Township), as part of Hopewell Valley Heritage Week, in an event sponsored by the Washington Crossing Park Association of New Jersey and the D & R Greenway Land Trust. The other speaker (following yours truly) is Dr. Richard Veit, a registered professional archeologist as well as Associate Dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of anthropology at Monmouth University.

AND let the record reflect that Dr. Veit and myself are both Drew U. alumni, although he graduated a decade after me. (There’s nothing like that to make you feel ancient.)

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Hello All –

I want to talk about where George Washington landed on Christmas night 1776. Today it’s called Washington Crossing State Park (WCSP) in Titusville (Hopewell Township), NJ, and it typically does not get as much publicity as Washington Crossing Historic Park (WCHP) on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The latter is located where the McConkey’s Ferry was and where the Continental Army embarked on that storied occasion. WCHP is where I’ve been hanging out for much of the last decade, notwithstanding my Garden State residence, because of the opportunity it affords me to give guided tours through the Friends of Washington Crossing Park. But for purposes of this post, I am in spirit (as well as fact) a New Jerseyan, and as such would like to share some information with you.

What is Washington Crossing State Park?

WCSP lies opposite its Pennsylvania sister park and is part of the same National Historic Landmark. It is where Washington’s army came ashore after crossing the Delaware River to assault the Hessian brigade occupying Trenton. In addition to its historical significance, the 3,500-acre park is well known for its trails and wildlife habitat. It includes a visitor center and museum that houses an extensive collection of Revolutionary War artifacts on loan from the Swan Historical Foundation, as well as the Johnson Ferry House, an early 18th-century farmhouse and tavern near the river that was probably used by Washington and his officers during the Christmas night crossing. The park is managed by the NJ State Park Service in the Department of Environmental Protection, which has a cooperative relationship with the Washington Crossing Park Association, the volunteer friends group that works to preserve, enhance, and advocate for the park and the history it represents.

I love the Pennsylvania park, but facts are facts – and they include these:

— The Swan Foundation collection of Rev War artifacts at WCSP vastly exceeds anything comparable on the other side of the river.

— Unlike the historic buildings in the lower park at WCHP (most of which date from the 1820’s or 1830’s), the Johnson Ferry House on the New Jersey side was built circa 1740 and so it was THERE when GW’s men stormed into NJ (in more ways than one) on December 25-26, 1776.

— For my money, the movie on the New Jersey side runs circles around the one shown across the river (but is about twice as long, which has something to do with it).

— There is a replica ferry boat adjacent to the Nelson House on the New Jersey side, which is one more ferry boat than you’ll find across the way.

Now, before I lose my job on the Pennsylvania side, let me hasten to add that you won’t find (in my opinion) a more hallowed patch of ground on the North American continent than where the McConkey’s Ferry Inn once stood, and as such it’s a must-see for history nerds and even those with only a casual interest in where America’s First D-Day operation was launched. Plus the early Americana ambience given off by the remnants of the village of Taylorsville on the Pennsylvania side is simply unmatched at WCSP—and then there are those replica Durham boats. (Note to Gettysburg aficionados: I’m not saying WCHP is THE most hallowed ground, so chill.)

But back to New Jersey  .  .  .

What’s Happening at WCSP?

The park expects to break ground sometime this year on a new visitor center and museum expected to open sometime in 2026, but definitely in time for the annual reenactments of the Delaware River crossing that will occur that December and mark the semiquincentennial of American independence. The new structure will be much closer to the river’s edge than the current one; in fact, it will overlook the river and be in close proximity to the Johnson Ferry House. Inside, visitors will be greeted by a new, expanded, and exciting exhibit that is designed to immerse them in the “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign that profoundly altered the course of the war for independence. This is exiting news that should fill local (and maybe not-so-local) history geeks with eager anticipation.

What Else?

Aside from all that, the new visitor center and museum at WCSP will house a significant original work of historical art that will be publicly displayed for the first time in more than a half-century, a priceless mural (an aspect of which appears above) that depicts Washington’s troops crossing the Delaware. Having languished in a dusty basement for 50 years, it was recently unearthed and is being restored by the Washington Crossing Park Association. Once the restoration is complete, this  approximately 15.5-by-10-foot work will be displayed in the  museum. Its creator, George Matthews Harding (1882–1959), was an American muralist and combat artist who worked in both world wars and painted this mural in 1921 for Trenton’s Taylor Opera House, where it hung until the building was razed in 1969.

At the time, the mural was coated with homemade wheat paste and Japanese rice paper, and rolled onto a custom-made cylinder with a view to restoring it for the new WCSP visitor center that was slated for completion by the 1976 bicentennial observance. The cylinder was transported to Ringwood Manor State Park in North Jersey, where it was placed in storage in a basement; however, the visitor center at WCSP was too small for this piece, and it was essentially forgotten for the next five decades.

The Washington Crossing Park Association took on the mission of determining if the mural could be restored for the park’s new museum by 2026 and, with the approval of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, engaged Christyl Cusworth of Cusworth Conservation in Lambertville, NJ, to restore and frame the piece. The association launched a $60,000 fundraising campaign to support this effort with the help of large donations from Americana Corner, NJM Insurance, and private funders, as well as many smaller contributions from members and friends. More information is available here.

Final Words

Feel free to spread the word about what’s coming down the pike at WCSP in the near future.

And remember, Pennsylvania was Washington’s launching pad but New Jersey was where he landed—and where the battles were won. With the possible exception of South Carolina, it’s where more military engagements occurred in the struggle for America’s independence than anywhere else. Not for nothing is it known as the “Crossroads of the Revolution.”

P.S.

I wanted to close with an update on my current literary project. Winning the Ten Crucial Days: The Keys to Victory in George Washington’s Legendary Winter Campaign is now under contract with Brookline Books, an imprint of Casemate Publishers, and projected for release next winter or in the spring of 2025.

I’ve asked several people to review the manuscript, and the first (but hopefully not last) endorsement quote is in:

David Price’s latest book is an engaging account that provides the reader with a truly in-depth understanding of how Washington and his army were able to turn the tide in the winter of 1776-77. For any Revolutionary War buff, this book is a must read.

— THOMAS MADDOCK II, Historical Interpreter, Washington Crossing Historic Park

Thank you, Tom. Glad you enjoyed it.

Happy New Year, everyone.

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For anyone, myself included, who enjoyed the admirable performance of Jeff Daniels as George Washington in the 2002 A&E Television Network movie, “The Crossing” (one of many notable roles in an illustrious career), the commentary provided by Roger S. Williams, cofounder of TenCrucialDays.org and vice chair of the History Committee of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, provides useful context that is worth taking time to read and reflect upon. It’s entitled “Washington’s Televised Rubicon: The Hollywood Artistic License of A&E’s The Crossing,” and you can read it here.

Happy New Year to all!

BTW the annual reenactment of the Christmas night 1776 crossing at Washington Crossing Historic Park two days ago drew a crowd that I’m guessing included at least six thousand people – a nice way to ring out the year and hopefully a harbinger of even greater public enthusiasm for this venerable ritual as we approach the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026.

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Afraid so. (It’s only a minor compulsion; I can deal with it if I want. Really.)

But let me get back to that in a moment. First, I want to acknowledge that, in one sense, tomorrow marks the beginning of the 250th anniversary of America’s struggle for independence. I say that because the so-called Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773 proved to be a milestone on the road to armed insurgency. It caused His Majesty George III to pivot from a more detached stance with respect to the unrest that had ensued from British colonial policy and support punitive measures against his American subjects for resisting royal authority. The King and Parliament responded to the dumping of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor by adopting a series of hardline measures under the rubric of the “Coercive Acts” as they were known in England, and the “Intolerable Acts” as they were called by Americans. These were intended to punish the residents of Boston specifically and Massachusetts generally by closing the port of Boston and abrogating that colony’s right of self-rule. The new policies were to be enforced by an occupying force of British troops under the command of General Thomas Gage as military governor of the colony. These developments paved the way for a war that became increasingly inevitable and erupted less than a year-and-a-half later at Lexington and Concord.

BTW, if you want to read a magnificent analysis of how Britain stumbled into this abyss, check out Nick Bunker’s An Empire on the Edge.

And on that cheery note, let the semiquincentennial begin!

Back to the Book

I wanted to report some progress on the path to a fifth book. It comes courtesy of Brookline Books, an imprint of Casemate Publishers in Havertown, PA, which has agreed to take on this project that I hope will eventuate in a  release next winter. Brookline is a new publishing platform focusing on subject matter that relates to the history of the greater Philadelphia area and the Delaware Valley. While Casemate has traditionally specialized in military history, Brookline’s publishing purview is broader than that; however, its list of upcoming releases does include two “revolting” volumes that should be out sometime next year. These are: Perceptions of Battle: George Washington’s Victory at Monmouth by Jeff Dacus (due in May); and The Loyalist Experience and Aftermath in Revolutionary Philadelphia by Kimberly Nath (coming in August).

The title of my new work is: Winning the Ten Crucial Days: The Keys to Victory in George Washington’s Legendary Winter Campaign. Unlike earlier works on this subject, each of which is, in its own way, a largely chronological account of the Continental Army’s 1776-1777 winter endeavor, this narrative will rely largely on an analytical approach to interpreting what happened. I have tried to focus its discussion around what I believe to be the five crucial factors behind the “Ten Crucial Days”—leadership, geography, weather, artillery, and contingency (or just plain luck). Each of these analytical elements will be accorded its own chapter, and the challenge for yours truly will be to somehow synthesize the somewhat-overlapping subnarratives into a reasonably coherent whole.

This will NOT be a comprehensive account of the TCD campaign (maybe quasi-comprehensive?). David Hackett Fischer in Washington’s Crossing and my friend Larry Kidder in Ten Crucial Days have done that in splendid fashion, so there’s no need to go there. That said, I hope this will make some measurable contribution to assessing the meaning of what occurred during perhaps the ten most extraordinary days in American history. If not, at least it’s helped me keep boredom at bay for several months.

More to follow on this. Meanwhile, best wishes for a very happy holiday season and a healthy and safe 2024.

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My apologies for neglecting the blog of late, but (in my defense) I’ve been pounding the keyboard for sundry other purposes, including an article for the Friends of Washington Crossing Park newsletter that should appear October 1, another piece for the Summer 2023 Swan Historical Foundation newsletter (due out soon), and the item mentioned below. In addition, I’m over 40K words into a manuscript for what I hope will be book no. 5, which would be an extension of said item. (Holy sprained fingers!) There must be an easier way to ward off boredom.

This new article in the Journal of the American Revolution dissects the “Ten Crucial Days” campaign of 1776-1777 by focusing on five key analytical elements: leadership, geography, weather, artillery, and contingency. They obviously overlap, and perhaps this narrative neglects others worthy of consideration; however, it would be hard to argue that each of these did not have a significant influence on the outcome of a legendary winter offensive.

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I know I covered the subject in a prior post (no. 35—published Dec. 4, 2021—to be precise), but I wanted to provide a link to a greatly expanded version of this, which just appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution. The article features some fairly obscure quotes, including ones from both sides, in addition to those with which many or most Rev War aficionados would be familiar by virtue of their being frequently referenced in secondary sources.

Oh yeah, I left out the alleged quote from one Lawrence Peter Berra that was in the earlier post and which I thought was an apposite observation in regard to the lesson to be learned from the “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777, i.e., “It ain’t over till it’s over.” (And Howe.) It seemed somewhat indecorous to include a reference to Yogi in a JAR piece—off-base, you might say. (And I didn’t want to be the Berra of such tidings.)

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Also please note: I know I indicated in the last post that the next one would complement it by outlining the fate of various British and Hessian officers after the Revolutionary War. However, as you can see, I have taken the liberty (this is a Rev War blog, after all) of deferring the post on those officers until next time. Today’s offering is something that’s near and dear to my heart and—given the focus of my second book, The Road to Assunpink Creek—my keyboard.

Giving Revolutionary history a hand and then some is exactly what Thomas Black, a senior at Notre Dame High School in Lawrence Township, NJ—Maidenhead at the time of the War for Independence—recently did. For his Eagle Scout project, Thomas constructed a marker (seen above) to memorialize the delaying action waged by American skirmishers under Colonel Edward Hand against a far larger force of British and Hessian troops advancing from Princeton to Trenton on January 2, 1777—and especially the clash that occurred adjacent to the parking lot at Notre Dame.

The new marker is far more elaborate and informative than the preexisting tiny blue marker by Lawrenceville Road (Route 206) in front of the school. Thomas’s creation stands near Shabakunk Creek, which runs through the campus and was the scene of perhaps the most intense fighting between Hand’s men and His Majesty’s troops, the latter commanded by Lieutenant General Charles Earl Cornwallis. It is quite possible that the efforts of those unsung Patriot combatants saved George Washington’s army from destruction that day by preventing Cornwallis’s formidable column from arriving in Trenton until it was too dark to launch a full-scale assault on the rebel lines positioned behind Assunpink Creek on the southern edge of town.

Thomas’s effort was inspired by his history teacher John McQuarrie, who recently retired after more than two decades at Notre Dame. John (who BTW is a subscriber to this blog) was kind enough to share a link to additional information about this much-needed tribute to the heroic resistance by Edward Hand’s thousand-man detachment, who were outnumbered more than six-to-one by their adversary. Later that day—in the immediate aftermath of Hand’s fighting withdrawal—Washington’s troops held off the enemy thrust at the Battle of Assunpink Creek, or Second Battle of Trenton. The next morning, they counterattacked at Princeton in the capstone engagement of the “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777, which reversed the military momentum previously enjoyed by the Crown’s forces.

So kudos to Thomas and John. They deserve a hand and Hand deserves them. I hope what they’ve done is, well, a sign of the times. (Yes, I know, they worked hand in hand.)

And speaking of same, for anyone who may be interested, I will be discussing the significance of the events referenced above at the annual meeting of the Lawrence Historical Society on February 26 at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch of the Mercer County Library, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ (at the corner of Brunswick Pike and Darrah Lane). The talk will be based on The Road to Assunpink Creek. The meeting, which is open to members and nonmembers, is scheduled to begin at 1 pm. Admission is free but registration is requested—and here’s the link to register. (I hope to bring copies of my four books to the event.)