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| -Land of the Free |
| 62nd re-enactment of George Washington and his troop's Delaware River crossing |
| 2014-12-26 |
| TITUSVILLE, N.J. — George Washington made his Christmas Day trip across the Delaware River — with considerably better weather than the first time. Re-enactors playing Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River in the 62nd re-enactment of his daring Christmas 1776 crossing of the river — the trek that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War — between Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, and Titusville, New Jersey, on Thursday afternoon. As opposed to the severe weather, including snow and freezing temperatures, that Washington and his troops faced in 1776, the re-enactment was done under mostly sunny skies and 50-degree temperatures. "This is an iconic event, and for lots of people it's part of their Christmas tradition to see this happen and to honor these early Americans," Joseph Capone, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of Washington Crossing Park, told Trenton's The Times newspaper. Hundreds of people lined both sides of the river to watch as re-enactors used four replica Durham boats like the ones Washington's troops used. The actor playing Washington, John Godzieba, boarded the final boat, and a cannon blasted as he reached the other side. Godzieba's three-year term as Washington ends this year. During the original crossing, boats ferried 2,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 18 cannons across the river. Washington's troops marched 8 miles downriver before battling Hessian mercenaries in the streets of Trenton. Thirty Hessians were killed, and two Continental soldiers froze to death on the march, but none died in battle. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #5 The story (Washington's Crossing, David Hackett Fischer) is full of twists and turns, of contingent moments when events seemed likely to move in one direction but then swung in another; when leaders made key choices between two or more alternatives. The storm on December 25-26 delayed the crossing so long that Washington almost called off the whole operations. But the same storm masked the Americans' approach to Trenton and curtailed the normal alert patrolling of the Hessians (Fisher disposes of the old canard that the Hessians were sleeping off a Christmas drunk). A hard freeze on the night of January 2-3 made passable the road taken by the Americans from Trenton to Princeton that had been knee deep in mud the previous day. Many other contingencies large and small await the reader of this dramatic story. Excerpt from Editor's (James M. McPherson) Notes Fischer, excerpt about the painting: "The painting is familiar to us in a general way, but when we look again its details take us by surprise. Washington's small boat is crowded with thirteen men. Their dress tells us that they are soldiers from many parts of America, and each of them has a story that is revealed by a few strokes of the artist's brush. One man wears the short tarpaulin jacked of a New England seaman; we look again and discover that he is of African descent. Another is a recent Scottish immigrant, still wearing his Balmoral bonnet. A Third is an androgynous figure in a loose red shirt, maybe a woman in man's clothing, pulling an oar. The book is simply amazing. IMHO it reads like an action movie, but at the end I realized I had learned a ton. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-12-26 15:41 |
| #4 |
| Posted by: tu3031 2014-12-26 11:50 |
| #3 "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." Gen. James Mattis (Ret.) - USMC |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2014-12-26 11:24 |
| #2 Somewhere in the reptilian part of every good 'Murican's brain is a plan for a brutal counter attack, out of a howling snow storm on a feast day, killing the enemy while they sleep. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-12-26 04:39 |
| #1 And With GOD, by GOD, For GOD, brought GOD the finest Present EVER. |
| Posted by: newc 2014-12-26 00:17 |