Washington Crossing the Delaware

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Washington Crossing the Delaware

Washington Crossing the Delaware is the title of three 1851 oil-on-canvas paintings by the German-American artist Emanuel Leutze.

The paintings commemorate General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. That action was the first move in a surprise attack and victory against Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey on the morning of December 26.

The original was part of the collection at the Kunsthalle in Bremen, Germany, and was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1942, during World War II. Leutze painted two more versions, one of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The other was in the West Wing reception area of the White House in Washington, D.C., but in March 2015, was purchased and put on display at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota. In April 2022 Christie's announced that the smaller painting would be sold at auction the following month, for a pre-sale estimate of $15 to $20 million. It sold for $43 million.

History

Emanuel Leutze grew up in America, then returned to Germany as an adult, where he conceived the idea for this painting during the Revolutions of 1848. Hoping to encourage Europe's liberal reformers through the example of the American Revolution, and using American tourists and art students as models and assistants, among them Worthington Whittredge and Andreas Achenbach, Leutze finished the first painting in 1850. Just after it was completed, the first version was damaged by fire in his studio, subsequently restored, and acquired by the Kunsthalle Bremen. On September 5, 1942, during World War II, it was destroyed in a bombing raid by the Allied forces.

The second painting, a full-sized replica of the first, was begun in 1850 and placed on exhibition in New York in October 1851. More than 50,000 people viewed it. The painting was originally bought by Marshall O. Roberts for $10,000 (at the time, an enormous sum. Approximately $350,000 in 2021). After changing ownership several times, it was finally donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by John Stewart Kennedy in 1897. Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth, Leutze's companion piece to Washington Crossing the Delaware is displayed in the Heyns (East) Reading Room of Doe Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

The painting was lent at least twice in its history. In the early 1950s, it was part of an exhibition in Dallas, Texas. Then, beginning in 1952, it was exhibited for several years at the United Methodist Church in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from the scene of the painting. Today, it is on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In January 2002, the painting was defaced when a former Metropolitan Museum of Art guard glued a picture of the September 11 attacks to it. No major damage was caused to the painting.

The simple frame that had been with the painting for over 90 years turned out not to be the original frame that Leutze designed. A photograph taken by Mathew Brady in 1864 was found in the New York Historical Society in 2007 showing the painting in a spectacular eagle-crested frame. The 12 ft x 21 ft carved replica frame was created using this photo by Eli Wilner & Company in New York City. The carved eagle-topped crest alone is 14 ft wide.

The third version of the painting, a smaller-scale version of the original, hung in the White House receiving room from 1979 to 2014. The painting was acquired by Mary Burrichter and Bob Kierlin, founders of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota, and put on display as the centerpiece of the museum's American collection.

Composition

The painting is notable for its artistic composition. General Washington is emphasized by an unnaturally bright sky, while his face catches the upcoming sun. The colors consist of mostly dark tones, as is to be expected at dawn, but there are red highlights repeated throughout the painting. A foreshortening perspective and the distant boats all lend depth to the painting and emphasize the boat carrying Washington.

The people in the boat represent a cross-section of the American colonies, including a man in a Scottish bonnet and a man of African descent facing backward next to each other in the front, western riflemen at the bow and stern, two farmers in broad-brimmed hats near the back (one with bandaged head). There is also a man at the back of the boat wearing what appears to be Native American clothing to represent the idea that all people in the new United States of America were represented as present in the boat along with Washington on his way to victory and success.

According to the 1853 exhibition catalog, the man standing next to Washington and holding the flag is Lieutenant James Monroe, future President of the United States, and the man leaning over the side is General Nathanael Greene. Also, General Edward Hand is shown seated and holding his hat within the vessel.

Historical inaccuracies

The flag depicted is an early version of the flag of the United States (the "Stars and Stripes"), the design of which did not exist at the time of Washington's crossing. The flag's design was first specified in the June 14, 1777, Flag Resolution of the Second Continental Congress, and flew for the first time on September 3, 1777 well after Washington's crossing in 1776. A more historically accurate flag would have been the Grand Union Flag, hoisted by Washington on January 1, 1776, at Somerville, Massachusetts, as the standard of the Continental Army and the first national flag.

Washington's stance, obviously intended to depict him in a heroic fashion, would have been very hard to maintain in the stormy conditions of the crossing. Considering that he is standing in a rowboat, such a stance would have risked capsizing the boat. However, historian David Hackett Fischer has argued that everyone would have been standing up to avoid the icy water at the bottom of the boat, while the actual Durham boats used were much larger having a flat bottom, higher sides, a broad beam (width) of some eight feet and a draft of 24–30 inches.

Influence

"Washington Crossing the Delaware" is a 1936 sonnet by David Shulman. It refers to the scene in the painting and is a 14-line rhyming sonnet of which every line is an anagram of the title.

In 1953, the American pop artist Larry Rivers painted Washington Crossing the Delaware, which is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting has also inspired copies by Roy Lichtenstein (an abstract expressionist variant painted c. 1951) and Robert Colescott (a parody titled George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware painted in 1975). Grant Wood makes direct use of Leutze's painting in his own Daughters of Revolution. The painting is a direct jab at the D.A.R., scrutinizing what Wood interpreted as their unfounded elitism.

William H. Powell produced a painting that owes an artistic debt to Leutze's work, depicting Oliver Perry transferring command from one ship to another during the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The original painting now hangs in the Ohio Statehouse, and Powell later created a larger, more light-toned rendering of the same subject which hangs in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. In both of Powell's works, Perry is shown standing in a small boat rowed by several men in uniform. The Washington painting shows the direction of travel from right to left, and the Perry image shows a reverse direction of motion, but the two compositions are otherwise similar. Both paintings feature one occupant of the boat with a bandaged head.

George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River

George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, was the first move in a surprise attack organized by George Washington against Hessian forces (German auxiliaries aiding the British) in Trenton, New Jersey, on the morning of December 26. Planned in partial secrecy, Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware River in a logistically challenging and dangerous operation.

Other planned crossings in support of the operation were either called off or ineffective, but this did not prevent Washington from surprising and defeating the troops of Johann Rall quartered in Trenton. After fighting there, the army crossed the river again back to Pennsylvania, this time laden with prisoners and military stores that were taken as a result of the battle.

Washington's army then crossed the river a third time at the end of the year, under conditions made more difficult by the uncertain thickness of the ice on the river. They defeated British reinforcements under Lord Cornwallis at Trenton on January 2, 1777, and were also triumphant over his rear guard at Princeton the next day before retreating to winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey. As a celebrated early turn in the ultimately victorious Revolutionary War, the unincorporated communities of Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, and Washington Crossing, New Jersey, are today named in honor of the event.

Background

While 1776 had started well for the American cause with the evacuation of British troops from Boston in March, the defense of New York City had gone quite poorly. British General William Howe had landed troops on Long Island in August and had pushed George Washington's Continental Army completely out of New York by mid-November when he captured the remaining troops in Manhattan.

The main British troops returned to New York for the winter season. They left mainly Hessian troops in New Jersey. These troops were under the command of Colonel Rall and Colonel Von Donop. They were ordered to small outposts in and around Trenton. Howe then sent troops under the command of Charles Cornwallis across the Hudson River into New Jersey and chased Washington across New Jersey.

Washington's army was shrinking because of expiring enlistments and desertions and suffered from poor morale because of the defeats in the New York area. Most of Washington's army crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania north of Trenton, New Jersey, and destroyed or moved to the western shore all boats for miles in both directions. Cornwallis (under Howe's command), rather than attempting to immediately chase Washington further, established a chain of outposts from New Brunswick to Burlington, including one at Bordentown and one at Trenton, and ordered his troops into winter quarters. The British were happy to end the campaign season when they were ordered to winter quarters. This was a time for the generals to regroup, re-supply, and strategize for the upcoming campaign season the following spring.

Washington's army

Washington encamped the army near McConkey's Ferry, not far from the crossing site. While Washington at first took quarters across the river from Trenton, he moved his headquarters on December 15 to the home of William Keith so he could remain closer to his forces. When Washington's army first arrived at McConkey's Ferry, he had four to six thousand men, although 1,700 soldiers were unfit for duty and needed hospital care. In the retreat across New Jersey, Washington had lost precious supplies and also lost contact with two important divisions of his army.

General Horatio Gates was in the Hudson River Valley, and General Charles Lee was in western New Jersey with 2,000 men. Washington had ordered both generals to join him, but Gates was delayed by heavy snows en route, and Lee, who did not have a high opinion of Washington, delayed following repeated orders, preferring to remain on the British flank near Morristown, New Jersey.

Other problems affected the quantity and quality of his forces. Many of his men's enlistments were due to expire at the end of the year, and many soldiers were inclined to leave the army when their commissions ended. Several deserted before their enlistments were completed. The pending loss of forces, the series of lost battles, the loss of New York, and the flight of the Army along with many New Yorkers and the Second Continental Congress to Philadelphia, left many in doubt about the prospects of winning the war. But Washington persisted. He successfully procured supplies and dispatched men to recruit new members of the militia, which was successful partially because of British and Hessian soldiers' drunken behavior while in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The losses at Fort Lee and Washington placed a heavy toll on the Patriots. When they evacuated their forts, they were forced to leave behind critical supplies and munitions. Many troops had been killed or taken prisoner, and the morale of the remaining troops was low. Few believed that they could win the war and gain independence.

Publication of The American Crisis

But the morale of the Patriot forces was boosted on December 19 when a new pamphlet titled The American Crisis written by Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, was published.

• These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Within a day of its publication in Philadelphia, General Washington ordered it to be read to all of his troops. It encouraged the soldiers and improved the tolerance of their difficult conditions.

Reinforcements arrive

On December 20, General Lee's division of 2,000 troops arrived in Washington's camp under the command of General John Sullivan. General Lee had been captured by the British on December 12, when he ventured too far outside the protection of his troops in search of more comfortable lodgings (or, according to rumors, a possible assignation). Later that same day, General Gates' division arrived in camp, reduced to 600 whose enlistments had ended, and by the need to keep the northern frontier secure. Soon after, another 1,000 militiamen from Philadelphia under Colonel John Cadwalader joined Washington.

With these reinforcements and smaller numbers of local volunteers who joined his forces, Washington's forces now totaled about 6,000 troops fit for duty. This total was then reduced by a large portion because some forces were detailed to guard the ferries at Dunk's Ferry (currently bordered by Neshaminy State Park in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, and New Hope, Pennsylvania). Another group was sent to protect supplies at Newtown, Pennsylvania, and to guard the sick and wounded who had to remain behind when the army crossed the Delaware River. This left Washington with about 2,400 men able to take offensive action against the Hessian and British troops in central New Jersey.

This improvement in morale was aided by the arrival of some provisions, including much-needed blankets, on December 24.

Planning the attack

General Washington had been considering some sort of bold move since arriving in Pennsylvania. With the arrival of Sullivan's and Gates' forces and the influx of militia companies, he felt the time was finally right for some sort of action. He first considered an attack on the southernmost British positions near Mount Holly, where a militia force had gathered. He sent his adjutant, Joseph Reed, to meet with Samuel Griffin, the militia commander. Reed arrived in Mount Holly on December 22, and found Griffin to be ill and his men in relatively poor condition, but willing to make some sort of diversion. (This they did with the Battle of Iron Works Hill the next day, drawing the Hessians at Bordentown far enough south that they would be unable to come to the assistance of the Trenton garrison.) The intelligence gathered by Reed and others led Washington to abandon the idea of attacking at Mount Holly, preferring instead to target the Trenton garrison. He announced this decision to his staff on December 23, saying the attack would take place just before daybreak on December 26.

Washington's final plan was for three crossings, with his troops, the largest contingent, to lead the attack on Trenton. A second column under Cadwalader was to cross at Dunk's Ferry and create a diversion to the south. The third column under Brigadier General James Ewing was to cross at Trenton Ferry and hold the bridge across the Assunpink Creek, just south of Trenton, in order to prevent the enemy's escape by that route. Once Trenton was secure, the combined army would move against the British posts in Princeton and New Brunswick. A planned fourth crossing, by men provided by General Israel Putnam to assist Cadwalader, was nixed after Putnam indicated he did not have enough men fit for the operation.

Preparations for the attack began on December 23. On December 24, the boats used to bring the army across the Delaware from New Jersey were brought down from Malta Island near New Hope. They were hidden behind Taylor Island at McConkey's Ferry, Washington's planned crossing site; security was tightened at the crossing. A final planning meeting took place that day, with all of the general officers present. General orders were issued by Washington on December 25 outlining plans for the operation.

Watercraft

A wide variety of watercraft were assembled for the crossing, primarily through the work of militiamen from the surrounding counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the assistance of the Pennsylvania Navy.

Captain Daniel Bray, along with Captain Jacob Gearhart and Captain Jacob Ten Eyck, was chosen by Washington to take charge of the boats used in the crossing, supervising the transport of infantry, cavalry, and cannon. In addition to the large ferry vessels (which were big enough to carry large coaches, and likely served for carrying horses and artillery during the crossing), a large number of Durham boats were used to transport soldiers across the river. These boats were designed to carry heavy loads from the Durham Iron Works, featured high sides and a shallow draft, and could be poled across the river.

The boats were operated by experienced watermen. Most prominent among them were the men of John Glover's Marblehead Regiment, a company of experienced seamen from Marblehead, Massachusetts. These men were joined by seamen, dockworkers, and shipbuilders from Philadelphia, as well as local ferry operators and boatsmen who knew the river well, most notably Kirby Francis Kane, of Rhode Island.

Crossing

On the morning of December 25, Washington ordered his army to prepare three days' food and issued orders that every soldier is outfitted with fresh flints for their muskets. He was also somewhat worried by intelligence reports that the British were planning their own crossing once the Delaware was frozen over. At 4 pm Washington's army turned out for its evening parade, where the troops were issued ammunition, and even the officers and musicians were ordered to carry muskets. They were told that they were departing on a secret mission. Marching eight abreast in close formations and ordered to be as quiet as possible, they left the camp for McConkey's Ferry. Washington's plan required the crossing to begin as soon as it was dark enough to conceal their movements on the river, but most of the troops did not reach the crossing point until about 6 pm, about ninety minutes after sunset. The weather got progressively worse, turning from drizzle to rain to sleet and snow. "It blew a hurricane," recalled one soldier.

Washington had given charge of the crossing logistics to his chief of artillery, Henry Knox. In addition to the crossing of large numbers of troops (most of whom could not swim), he had to safely transport horses and eighteen pieces of artillery over the river. Knox wrote that the crossing was accomplished "with almost infinite difficulty", and that its most significant danger was floating ice in the river. One observer noted that the whole operation might well have failed "but for the stentorian lungs of Colonel Knox". The unusually cold weather of the 1770s and the icy river were likely related to the Little Ice Age.

Washington was among the first of the troops to cross, going with Virginia troops led by General Adam Stephen. These troops formed a sentry line around the landing area in New Jersey, with strict instructions that no one was to pass through. The password was "Victory or Death". The rest of the army crossed without significant incident, although a few men, including Delaware's Colonel John Haslet, fell into the water.

The amount of ice on the river prevented the artillery from finishing the crossing until 3 am on December 26. The troops were ready to march around 4 am.

The two other crossings fared less well. The treacherous weather and ice jams on the river stopped General Ewing from even attempting a crossing below Trenton. Colonel Cadwalader crossed a significant portion of his men to New Jersey, but when he found that he could not get his artillery across the river he recalled his men from New Jersey. When he received word about Washington's victory, he crossed his men over again but retreated when he found out that Washington had not stayed in New Jersey.

Attack

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.

Return to Pennsylvania

Following the battle, Washington had to execute a second crossing that was in some ways more difficult than the first. In the aftermath of the battle, the Hessian supplies had been plundered, and, in spite of Washington's explicit orders for its destruction, casks of captured rum were opened, so some of the celebrating troops got drunk, probably contributing to the larger number of troops that had to be pulled from the icy waters on the return crossing. They also had to transport large numbers of prisoners across the river while keeping them under guard. One American acting as a guard on one of the crossings observed that the Hessians, who were standing in knee-deep ice water, were "so cold that their underjaws quivered like an aspen leaf."

The victory had a marked effect on the troops' morale. Soldiers celebrated the victory, Washington's role as a leader was secured, and Congress gained renewed enthusiasm for the war.

Third crossing

In a war council on December 27, Washington learned that all of the British and Hessian forces had withdrawn as far north as Princeton, something Cadwalader had learned when his militia company crossed the river that morning. In his letter, Cadwalader proposed that the British could be driven entirely from the area, magnifying the victory. After much debate, the council decided on action and planned a third crossing for December 29. On December 28 it snowed, but the weather cleared that night and it became bitter cold.

As this effort involved most of the army, eight crossing points were used. At some of the crossing points, the ice had frozen two to three inches (4 to 7 cm) thick and was capable of supporting soldiers, who crossed the ice on foot. At other crossings, the conditions were so bad that the attempts were abandoned for the day. It was New Year's Eve before the army and all of its baggage were back in New Jersey. This was somewhat fortunate, as the enlistment period of John Glover's regiment (along with a significant number of others) was expiring at the end of the year, and many of these men, including most of Glover's, wanted to go home, where a lucrative privateering trade awaited them. Only by offering a bounty to be paid immediately from Congressional coffers in Philadelphia did a significant number of men agree to stay with the army for another six weeks.

Washington then adopted a fortified position just south of the Assunpink Creek, across the creek from Trenton. In this position, he beat back one assault on January 2, 1777, which he followed up with a decisive victory at Princeton the next day. In the following days, the British withdrew to New Brunswick, and the Continental Army entered winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey.

Legacy

At the time of the crossing, Washington's army included a significant number of people who played important roles in the formation and early days of the United States of America. These included future President James Monroe, future Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton (a future Secretary of the Treasury), and Arthur St. Clair, who later served as President of the Continental Congress and Governor of the Northwest Territory.

Both sides of the Delaware River where the crossing took place have been preserved, in an area designated as Washington's Crossing National Historic Landmark. In this district, Washington Crossing Historic Park in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, preserves the area in Pennsylvania, and Washington Crossing State Park in Washington Crossing, New Jersey preserves the area in New Jersey. The two areas are connected by the Washington Crossing Bridge.

In 1851, the artist Emmanuel Leutze created the painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, an idealized and inspirational portrayal of the crossing. Fictional portrayals in films of the crossing have also been made, with perhaps the most notable recent one being The Crossing, a 2000 television movie starring Jeff Daniels as George Washington.

An image of Washington Crossing the Delaware has also appeared on the 1999 New Jersey State Quarter and on the reverse of the 2021 Quarter.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with its mission to bring art and art education to the American people. The museum's permanent collection consists of works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings, and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes, and accessories, as well as antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from 1st-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries.

The Fifth Avenue building opened on March 30, 1880. In 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the museum attracted 1,958,000 visitors, ranking fourth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.

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