Washington's Crossing 2016

I've been delinquent in posting, and since the last one, a tumultuous election occurred that provided an opportunity for consideration of what America was in the 18th Century and what it is now.  Leave it at that; one's answer to that question will flow directly from one's current assumptions and presumptions.  One thing that is consistent is the annual reenactment of the crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776.  The event takes on a kind of ritualism.  Still, it's a time for reflection. Credit goes to the reenactors as a cadre of near-clerics who keep alive the momentous nature of this event.  So without further comment, I'll share some of the images of the event today:

The Advance Party Lands

 First Boat Away

 One of Glover's Boatmen

Second Boat Away

 

 Washington's Boat

 The Commander in Chief

 Continental Army on the March

Weather and the Revolution

Many are familiar with the suffering of the Continental troops at Valley Forge; in actuality, the winters spent by the troops in Jockey Hollow were worse.  On Christmas Day, 1776, Washington led his men across the Delaware River near the marker shown below.  We are looking across from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

This was taken on February 16, showing the river frozen over.  Whether a river froze or not was a strategic consideration that affected a defensive posture or the possibility of attack.  On February 18, 1776, Washington wrote the Continental Congress of the possibility of an attack on Boston: "The late freezing Weather having formed some pretty strong Ice from Dorchester point to Boston neck, and from Roxbury to the Common, thereby affording a more expanded and consequently a less dangerous Approach to the Town, I could not help thinking, notwithstanding the Militia were not all come In, and we had little or no Powder to begin our Operation by a regular Cannonade and Bombardment, that a bold and resolute assault upon the Troops in Boston with such Men as we had (for it could not take many Men to guard our own Lines, at a time when the Enemy were attacked in all Quarters) might be crowned with success . . . "

It is always worth remembering in this age of remote control drones, and high tech weaponry, the role of weather in war in general and the Revolution in particular.  This was predominantly a land war, and even at that, mainly fought by foot soldiers, with limited cavalry involvement.  When a river froze, a significant defensive feature was removed and an offensive advantage presented.

Pulaski and Kosciuszko

Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko are honored in a unique park next to the Cooper River near Camden, New Jersey in the Polish American Congress Monument.

We see Kosciuszko in the foreground and Pulaski in the background in this view.  I have posted previously about these two; both are memorialized elsewhere in New Jersey and in other states.  The two of them are also part of the 14 statues comprising the American Revolution Statuary in Washington, DC.

The day I was there was somewhat cold and the park sparsely attended.  The two generals faced the road, their backs to the Cooper River.  Pulaski died at Savannah and Kosckiuszko survived the war, although he was wounded at the Siege of Ninety-Six in South Carolina.  I simply found this one of the more interesting sites memorializing Revolutionary War generals, and in particular, uniting the two Polish generals.  Their paths crossed in South Jersey, with Kosciuuszko engineering the Delaware River defenses and Pulaski seeing action with British Major Patrick Ferguson, though I do not believe they ever fought side by side.

Washington's Crossing Reenactment, December 25, 2013

In temperatures ranging from 17 to 22 degrees, a hardy crowd turned out to watch the even hardier reenactors interpret the most iconic moment in American history, the crossing of the Delaware River by General George Washington on Christmas Day, leading to the successful attack on Trenton on December 26, 1776.

Here is the man himself, in the third of three boats that crossed today:

The river is as impressive in winter, even without the ice, and we get some sense of scale as the first boat makes its way across from Pennsylvania to New Jersey:

They would march along this road, still preserved in Washington Crossing Park in New Jersey, now called Continental Lane.

At the time, they left bloodstains in the snow.  This remains hallowed ground.

The Continental Lane and Contemporary Political Arrogance

Although I have lived in central New Jersey virtually entire life and made many visits to Washington's Crossing State Park, I never actually walked along the Continental Lane, the road on which Washington's troops marched after the Christmas night crossing in 1776.  Here is a view of one segment in the park:

David Hackett Fischer, in his book Washington's Crossing, describes the road as "climb[ing] upward through a dark wood, similar to a sweep of woodland that stands there today." Some 2400 officers and troops crossed to this point; the troops split into two forces under Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, with the former more inland and Sullivan closer to the river as they approached Trenton.

The troops were ill, poorly clothed, hungry.  We know there were soldiers with no shoes whose bleeding feet left paths in the snow.  We know that many who enlisted in the Continental Army were from the bottom of the economic ladder.  We know that many of Washington's soldiers were incapacitated  and could not make the crossing; many others had died before the battle from illness.  And yet, those that remained, made that march on that bitter, sleeting night.

To understand how this country survived the defeats of 1776 and how the war was saved, walk the Continental Lane, particularly on a cold day.  Listen to the sounds of your footsteps and be alone with your thoughts.

Today we have political leaders who treat $1,000,000 with less respect and concern than the rest of us treat a penny.  They fly with entourages around the world; a recently reported stay of the vice-president for one night in London came in at around $500,000.  The lectures and the rhetoric are belied by a political class obsessed with itself, with its power and preservation of same.  We barely finished the 2012 elections when literally the next day we were into the 2014 season and already planning not only 2016 but 2020 and beyond.  Meanwhile, real people in this country are living and dying, struggling to survive and get on.  The rhetoric is not enough.  Do we really remember where we came from?

Every representative and senator should be made to walk the Continental Lane as a requirement to service.  They should be made to feel the same ground beneath their feet that absorbed the blood of real people who made this country happen.  There is no better reality check than that, to restore a sense of proportion and remove the insulation and arrogance that seems now to mark an increasingly out of touch political class.