Learning the lessons of history

Lynne Cheney writes about our past in the NY Times today and reveals lessons applicable to today.

His men were exhausted after the battle, and many of them, their enlistments expired, decided to go home. But many others stayed with Washington as he decided to keep fighting. When he learned that thousands of British and Hessian troops were heading toward Trenton from Princeton, a pretty college town to the north, he deployed his troops along the south side of Assunpink Creek. He also sent a force to the north side of the creek to slow down the advancing enemy. Near evening on Jan. 2, 1777, when these delaying forces had done all they could, they ran for a narrow bridge that crossed the creek - and saw Washington waiting there for them. "I pressed against the shoulder of the general's horse and in contact with the boot of the general," a private remembered years later. "The horse stood as firm as the rider."

Oftentimes the steadfastness of a single leader has won the day for a seemingly inferior army. The greatness of America is that such leaders have always been there when they were needed the most.