Most of the men in this dramatic scene engage in a turbulent contest, attempting to keep their boats moving forward against ice and wind. The disarray of soldiers serves as a foil for the tall and stalwart General Washington, who gazes steadily toward the far shore. His concentration and his will seem to provide the very motivating force for the unlikely enterprise.

On Christmas night of 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware River about nine miles above Trenton, New Jersey. There he surprised the Hessian mercenaries, hungover after a night of Christmas revelries. The battle gave Washington his most celebrated victory.

The painting contains a number of historical inaccuracies: the boats are crossing the river in the wrong direction; the ice flows are impossibly large; and there were no horses or artillery in the boats, which are in any case too light for their loads. But the popular success of this painting, which first appeared in America in October of 1851, has little to do with any pretense to historical accuracy. It is due to its monumental registration of a great moment in American historical mythology. Fifty years after Washington’s presidency and before the Civil War, there was no hero equal to Washington in stature. He was a major cult figure, and this is an iconic, mythological painting.