This patriotic postcard featuring a battle of the Revolutionary War was presented to a schoolchild in Lancaster County, PA.

(We met the student, Benjamin Stauffer, in an earlier postcard story about a Christmas bicycle.)

Benjamin was born in 1900, so he was about 9 years old when he was presented this postcard as a prize for school achievement (“five headmarks”).

His teacher Minnie Windolph Lintner was in her twenties when she was teaching Benjamin.

The face of the postcard features a drawing of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, a successful engagement of the Continental Army only a few days after the surprise attack on British troops at Trenton.

The first operation of the New Jersey campaign, commemorated in the famous painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware”, occurred on Christmas Eve of 1776.

Washington crossed the Delaware again in January of 1777 for the dashing maneuvers that led to an American victory at Princeton and to the British evacuation of central New Jersey.

Ironically, the postcard was published by the English firm of Raphael Tuck & Sons, and the postcard was printed in Saxony – the homeland from which some of the British mercenaries captured at Princeton had been recruited.

The postcard was from a series of scenes created especially for the celebration of “Washington’s Birthday”.

The American Flag that frames the depiction of Washington is, of course, an anachronism.