29. Inaccurate Facts About Washington Crossing the Delaware
It is understandable that Leutze’s painting is historically inaccurate. For one thing, it was intended as a dramatic work of art, with all the artistic license that goes with that. For another thing, Leutze painted it seventy five years after the event: as much time separated him from the event depicted, as separates us from the Allied invasion of Sicily or the Battle of Kursk. On top of all that, Leutze did not paint Washington Crossing the Delaware anywhere close to the site of the event, but in Germany.
The first inaccuracy – and it is far from the greatest – is the flag. Leutze’s work depicts an early version of the Stars and Stripes – a design that did not exist in 1776 when the Patriot forces crossed the Delaware. The flag depicted was designed six months later, in June of 1777, and flew for the first time in September of that year. The flag that Washington and his men would have used in 1776 would have been the Grand Union Flag – basically today’s US flag, but with a British Union Jack instead of the stars. The most inaccurate bit about the painting though, as seen below, is its depiction of the very crossing.
