First Principles Press
First Principles, Inc. was founded in 1993 to provide historical instruction and information about the truth and current significance of the first principles of America, particularly as they provide the foundation for our institutions emphasizing virtue, honor, and patriotism, self-government, individual responsibility, and independent sovereignty, which begins with accountability of each...
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Washington’s Crossing Re-envisioned
New work correct historical inaccuracies.
By Verena Dobnik
The Courier Journal via The Associated Press
December 26, 2011
NEW YORK – One of America’s most famous images, a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, got much of the story wrong: The American commander wouldn’t have stood triumphantly on a rowboat in daylight, but on a ferry bracing himself against a fierce snowstorm on Christmas night.
Artist Mort Kunstler says he painted a more historically accurate version of Washington crossing the Delaware. The painting goes on display this week in New York.
That’s the historic scene depicted in a new painting that goes on display this week at the New-York Historical Society museum in Manhattan.
“No one in his right mind would have stood up in a rowboat in that weather,” artist Mort Kunstler said. “It would have capsized.”
He told The Associated Press that he’s “not knocking the original” — the well-known 1851 painting by German-born artist Emanuel Leutze, who Kunstler says “was glorifying Washington using what he knew at the time.” But Kunstler said his new piece is aimed at righting the historical mistakes.
Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to mount a surprise attack on Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton on Dec. 26, 1776. The Americans killed 22 Hessians, wounded 98 and captured nearly 900 while losing only three of their own men.
It was a daring feat led by the man who would become the nation’s first president, and boosted the morale of the fledgling American army.
Relying on military experts and historians, plus visits to the river site, Kunstler came up with a list of inaccuracies in Leutze’s painting and set out to correct them in his new work.
The most obvious is that Washington would not have used the earliest stars-and-stripes flag that appears in the Leutze work; it wasn’t adopted until 1777.
Instead of a rowboat, the troops probably boarded a flat-bottomed ferry big and stable enough to carry cannons, plus the horses to pull them, Kunstler said. Such boats were hitched to cables to stabilize them.
The Leutze painting shows the New Jersey shore clearly in the distance. But Kunstler says documents show a nor’easter had swept in that night, bringing freezing rain, hail and snow that would have cut the visibility.
The new painting shows a determined Washington holding onto a cannon, illuminated by a torch as he heads into battle outnumbered and underequipped.
His troops were a ragtag bunch. Instead of military uniforms, they likely wore hunting jackets and wool caps, Kunstler said.
While he was able to verify the weather, time of day and vessel type, the artist said, he based other details like clothing “on probability.”
“I don’t see any reason you can’t make this scene dramatic and exciting — and historically correct,” said Kunstler, an 81-year-old Brooklyn native.
His painting, titled “Washington’s Crossing: McKonkey’s Ferry, Dec. 26, 1776,” debuts today.
Leutze’s painting is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the other side of Central Park. However art lovers must wait a few more weeks before they can compare the two paintings in real life: The Leutze piece is in storage pending the Jan. 16 opening of the new American Wing.
Met spokesman Harold Holzer said Leutze “made the scene as dramatic as he could, and it obviously has had an impact on people.”
Holzer plans to participate in today’s presentation of Kunstler’s painting
Read MorePresident Reagan’s Farewell Address
23rd Anniversary of President Reagan’s Farewell Address
Read MoreThe past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the “shining city upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.
Endowed by their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774-Present
In 2012, the American military’s two founding principles, Exemplary Conduct and Military Prayer, are now nearly gone from practice and memory. However, in 1774, their long history began, including Congressional regulations requiring, 1) Exemplary Conduct and; 2) prayer in the US Armed Forces, which were fully practiced and enforced until the last few decades.
First Principles is publishing a collection of illustrative historic prayers beginning in 1774 and drawn from 67 prayer books, printed and distributed both at private and public expense, then distributed within the military. The collection serves a dual purpose: First it demonstrates the necessity of prayer to America’s military mission. General George Marshall was not alone when he said “morale,” the essential element of achieving military objectives, came from the “religious fervor of the soul” and is ignored at great peril, as soldiers are substantially disarmed when they face the rigor and horror of war with only guns and orders.
Secondly, at a time when prayer is being disregarded and treated more like a ceremonial formality in military and non-military circumstances, this collection of prayers is most useful – besides being educational and historic – in the civilian world. The collection allows anyone of any station or faith, the opportunity to draw from its pages a prayer associated with an historic occasion or prayed by an historic figure. To wit, 70 percent of the prayers found in the 67 historic prayer books were given in or acknowledge Jesus Christ’s name. Coincidentally, this same percentage parallels the number of Americans who identify themselves as Christians.
Today, America’s enemies would likely agree with General Marshall’s assessment of the “soldier’s equipment”, as many of America’s enemies exhibit a high degree of another “religious fervor.” As the voices of presidents and military heroes recorded in this book have continuously maintained, America and her fighting forces must not lose touch with our nation’s understanding of the “Creator” named in the Declaration of Independence, and His broad and great endowment of our “One Nation Under God.” For the military to lose or ignore the “religious fervor of the soul” is done at ‘great peril.” Thus, mindful of this need First Principles presents, “Endowed by Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774-Present.” Coming soon! Below is a prayer from the collection:
Keep Me From Bitterness
Keep me from bitterness. It is so easy
To nurse sharp bitter thoughts each dull dark hour!
Against self-pity, Man of sorrows, defend me,
With Thy deep sweetness and Thy gentle power.
And out of all this hurt of pain and heartbreak
Help me to harvest a new sympathy
For suffering human kind, a wiser pity
For those who lift a heavier cross with Thee…
Amen.
Anonymous
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Prayer Book 1944
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“What Hath God Wrought”
Today in History
On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse demonstrated his telegraph system for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication and was a precursor to modern day, world wide media communication. The telegraph reached the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.
Morse spent several years developing a prototype which he would use in 1843 to convince a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”
The famous Morse Code was invented with the telegraph to eliminate the need for a special telegraph dictionary, and the encoding and decoding of each word transmitted. Instead, letters and numbers were represented by dots and dashes.
By 1866 the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of century, lines were laid on nearly every continent.
Read MoreWisdom to Follow
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