The paintings commemorate General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War.

That action was the first move in a surprise attack and victory against Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey on the morning of December 26.

The original was part of the collection at the Kunsthalle in Bremen, Germany, and was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1942, during World War II.

Emanuel Leutze grew up in America, then returned to Germany as an adult, where he conceived the idea for this painting during the Revolutions of 1848.

After changing ownership several times, it was finally donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by John Stewart Kennedy in 1897.

Then, beginning in 1952, it was exhibited for several years at the United Methodist Church in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from the scene of the painting.

A photograph taken by Mathew Brady in 1864 was found in the New-York Historical Society in 2007 showing the painting in a spectacular eagle crested frame.

The men in the boat represent a cross-section of the American colonies, including one in a Scottish bonnet and another of African descent facing backward next to each other in the front.

A western rifleman is at the bow, two farmers in broad-brimmed hats are near the back (one with a bandaged head), and one at the stern wearing what appears to be Native American clothing to symbolize that all people in the new United States of America were represented.

Washington's stance, intended to depict him in a heroic fashion, would have been very hard to maintain in the choppy conditions of the crossing.

In 1953, the American pop artist Larry Rivers painted Washington Crossing the Delaware, which is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

William H. Powell produced a painting that owes an artistic debt to Leutze's work, depicting Oliver Perry transferring command from one ship to another during the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.