Washington Crossing the Delaware and American Ideals in One Painting

On Christmas night 1776, in one of his greatest strokes of genius, George Washington crossed the Delaware with the help of daring men and launched a successful surprise attack on British-allied Hessians at Trenton. Decades later, a German immigrant to America depicted this crossing in an artistic masterpiece which not only commemorated history, but illustrated and celebrated everything best about America’s founding ideals of liberty and equality.

German-American artist Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware is idealized — the men would indeed likely have stood up in the boats as he showed, but probably not quite so picturesquely — but that’s because it glorifies Washington and his brave companions. Leutze understood that a nation needs great art to shape its culture and establish its national identity. And Leutze’s painting is not only artistically excellent and visually magnificent; it truly includes a cross-section of Americans, with Revolutionary soldiers of all backgrounds and races.

Regiments in the American Revolutionary Army were integrated, and John Glover’s Marbleheaders who managed to get the Army across the icy river were among the most racially diverse, numbering white, black, and Native American Indian patriots among them. Revolutionary Patriots had come from a number of European countries, including Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. Leutze tried to capture that in his painting.

Leutze’s masterpiece ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware,’ on display at The Met in NY pic.twitter.com/c13ySSgAHI
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) December 28, 2024

George Washington, commander-in-chief and father of our country, and a young James Monroe (later the fifth U.S. president) are at the center in the boat, Monroe with the American flag and Washington looking purposefully toward the shore where the battle will occur (and, contrary to some modern propaganda, the Americans did have to fight hard at Trenton; they did not merely surprise the Hessians in their beds). The boat, in its perilous course across the icy river, contains both officers and enlisted men. Look closer at each of the men in the boat. One of the rowers at the front of the boat is a black man, a second rower wears a Scots checkerboard bonnet, while a third wears the coonskin cap of a frontiersman.

Boats similar to the ones Washington and his men used to cross the Delaware at Christmas 1776. I took the photo at Trenton pic.twitter.com/o8hNQeqwZ8
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) December 28, 2024

Two farmers in broad-brimmed hats are huddled together in the boat’s middle amidst the biting cold (the only casualties of that battle were two who froze to death). Finally, at the stern, evidently operating the rudder, is a man dressed in the moccasins, pants, and hat of a Native American Indian. From Washington the Anglo plantation owner to the frontiersman, from the Scotsman to the African to the native, from the officers to the farmers, Leutze masterfully included a diverse cross-section of American patriotism.

Thus did he illustrate how America should be, how it was founded to be, in one painting — all the men of whatever background working together in unison to accomplish something great.

Too often throughout America’s history, we have failed in those ideals. The leadership of the insidious Democrat Party, in fact, made it from its founding always specifically an anti-constitutional and anti-American party, but members of other parties, including the Republicans, have also prioritized profit or power ahead of patriotism. But now with the victory of the 2024 election, we have a chance to renew and reform America, and to live up to our founding ideals as laid out in the Declaration of Independence and so beautifully depicted by Leutze.

We can raise a new generation of patriots, get involved on the local level, hold our elected officials accountable, and make America again the shining city on the hill that Washington, Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, Hugh Mercer, John Glover, Nathanael Greene, the Marbleheaders, and all the heroes of Trenton envisioned it to be.

Read "The Indispensables" by Patrick K. O’Donnell for more information on the Marbleheaders.