Difference between revisions of "File talk:Washington-deleware.jpg"

Latest revision as of 22:20, April 28, 2007

I have several comments on the caption to this image, which caption reads as follows:

"George Washington, President and Commander and Cheif of the United States Forces, is shown crossing the Deleware River. "

Comments:

1. "... President ..."

The idealized scene depicted in this famous painting (George Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=2&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=1&item=97%2E34) is of Washington crossing the Delaware River prior to the Battle of Trenton, which took place on December 25, 1776 (http://1-14th.com/HistTrentonCross.htm). Washington was not elected President until 13 years later, in 1789 (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/scores.html#1789).

2. "...Commander and Cheif..."

"Chief" is misspelled. Did anyone notice? And the title is "Commander in Chief".

3. "...of the United States Forces..."

"United States" and "Forces" are wrong.

Though the Declaration of Independence (http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html) uses the term "united States of America", there was no "United States" at the time of the Battle of Trenton.

The term did not formally come into effect until the Articles of Confederation (http://www.usconstitution.net/articles.html), which state that: "Article I. The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America." "

Moreover, the force under Washington's command was called the Continental Army. ("The Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army on June 19, 1775." (http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/commission.html))

The title of Commander in Chief as we know it today came into use in 1787, in Article II Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States (http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html): "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States ..."

4. "...crossing the Deleware River. "

"Delaware" is misspelled, both in the caption and in the image file name ("Washington-deleware.jpg") Did anyone notice?

If you want to reply, "Well, everyone knows what we're talking about here", fine. But that makes it worthless as an encyclopedia entry. If you don't want your alternative source of knowledge to be a laughingstock, you'll need to avoid gross errors and obvious, uncorrected, typos.

One more thing: please note that none of my references is to Wikipedia. So don't try that angle.

Thanks for the heads-up! Cracker^talk 19:42, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Other people

I seem to remember reading somewhere that one of the other guys in the painting is someone important. GodlessLiberal 18:18, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

The guy with the flag is Monroe.