Presidents' Day Trivia
Edward Gus
I'll kick off our future Nobel Prize-winning blog with some Presidents' Day Trivia!
Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware is rightfully both famous and inaccurate (the flag didn't exist at the time, the boat is wrong, standing in a boat is stupid, etc.). However, George Washington is not the only famous figure in the painting. Who is the man holding the flag?
That would be future President James Monroe! Monroe had dropped out of the College of William and Mary a year before and joined the Continental Army as a Lieutenant. Monroe was no rear headquarters aide-de-camp; immediately after the crossing he led an assault on Hessian artillery at the Battle of Trenton which resulted in a near-fatal musket ball to the shoulder. Monroe narrowly survived but never saw action again. He is considered the last president to fight in the Revolutionary War.
-Ed