The Battle of Twenton
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, October 23 2009
Remember when MySpace first became really popular, and the thing to do was to set up profiles for characters from TV shows and movies and the like -- Ari Gold from "Entourage," for example -- and then have them act out their supposed lives on the page? This is kinda like that, but with more history.
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House and historian, has written a book with co-author Bill Forstchen called To Try Men's Souls. The subject is the Battle of Trenton, that turning point in the American Revolution where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776, and then went on to have their way with Hessian soldiers stationed in Trenton. Well, a friend on Capitol Hill passes along word that, in conjunction with the book, Gingrich and team will be staging what is likely the world's first "Twitternactment" this weekend. In other words, we'll get a glimpse of what those fighting men would have tweeted, had they had cell phones and had their fingers not been frozen together by the mindblowing cold:
The “Twitternactment” will begin on Sunday, October 25th, starting at 4:30pm ET. Twitter users can follow General George Washington (@genwashington76), Jonathan Van Dorn, a private in the colonial army (@pvtvandornNJ), and Hessian commander Colonel Johann Rall (@colonelrall), as they simulate the crossing of the Delaware River and the attack on Trenton the following morning in real time.
Rall didn't make it out of the Battle of Trenton alive. Does that mean his Twitter account will get deleted at the end of this?