Washington's Crossing
A talk by Lee Vincent, Groton-Ledyard Rotary Club, April 27, 2004
Continued From Page1..................
So what do we know about the story of crossing the Delaware and winning a surprise battle? It was mostly about a daybreak raid on Christmas morning, right? Drunken Hessian contract soldiers were caught in their underwear, right. It was done with a few boatloads of soldiers, right? Just some light infantry?
Well, the world has been living in a deep erroneous zone for 227 years. The misinformation about this campaign is perhaps even worse than what has persisted about Paul Revere’s rides. And you, Rotarians, are going to be among the first to know the real story.
Fortunately, as was the case of Paul Revere’s rides, and even more so here, there are hundreds – hundreds – of first hand accounts that were written down and preserved. And thus, we have a new book, published 2004, by David Hackett Fischer who, with myself as intermediary, brought you a two part lecture on Paul Revere’s rides for Patriots’ Day last year.
How did our rebel army get into such a desperate state? For that matter, how desperate were we?