Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (LOIT suh) was born in
Germany. He studied
art in Philadelphia, and in 1859 he moved to New York
to live. He became famous for his paintings of American historical
scenes. The featured painting on this page is the one for which he is
remembered.The painting itself is quite large, 12 feet high and 21 feet
long.
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He painted Washington Crossing the Delaware,
in Germany
and used the Rhine River as his model for the Delaware River. He had
visited America many times and had studied paintings of Washington and
had looked at his uniform in the museum.
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Other famous people crossed the river that night.
Among them were James
Madison and James Monroe. James Monroe is the man in the boat who is
holding the flag. However, that particular design, the Betsy Ross flag
with 13 stars and 13 stripes was actually created six months later
according to the account at American
Revolution.org.
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You will also enjoy reading about the black patriot,
Prince Whipple,
who is pictured here. They say that he was in Baltimore at the time of
the crossing.
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The crossing was made on Christmas night 1776 and
Washington and his men surprised the Hessian and British soldiers.
The battles of Trenton and Princeton, two important battles in the
fight for freedom, followed the landing.
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