The Painter's Chair by Hugh Howard

some miles . . . the Sun had just risen just before we See Prinstown. We proceeded as fast as possible and was within
     a mile of the Town when we were informed that all was quiet. A short time after, the Battn. just ahead of us began a Exceeding
     quick Platoon firing and some Cannon . . . I carried my Platoon to the Top of the Hill & fired, tho’ very unwillingly, for
     I thought the Enemy rather too far off, and then retreated, Loading . . . The 3rd time up, the Enemy began to Retreat. I must
     here give the New England Troops their due. They were the first who regularly formed . . . and stood the fire without regarding
     [the] Balls which whistled their thousand different notes around our heads, and what is very astonishing did little or no
     harm . . .
    We now advanced towards the Town, & halted at about 1.4 of a mile distance till the Artilery came up and our men were collected
     in better order. Amediately on the Artilery firing, a Number [of the enemy] that had formed near the College began to disperse,
     and amediately a Flag was sent, and we huzared Victory. 27
    Peale claimed no great glory for himself, then or later, as he recollected his war experiences in his Autobiography. In retrospect, he described himself as “totally unfit to endure the fatigues of long marches,” before offering an aside that
     aptly sketched his character, humbly referring to himself, as he did throughout his Autobiography , in the third person. “Yet by temperament and by a forethought of providing for the worst that might happen, he endured this
     campaign better than many others whose appearance was more robust. He always carried a piece of dryed Beef and Bisquits in
     his Pocket, and Water in his Canteen, which, he found, was much better than Rum.” 28
    Temperate and sensible, a man of modest expectations, Peale survived the Battle of Princeton. His memories would later serve
     him well on canvas as well as on the printed page.

    I V.
January and February 1779 . . . Mr. Peale’s Painting Room . . . Philadelphia

    THE TIME FOR another painting had come. Washington’s success at Princeton had been galvanizing, but it had been followed by
     two years of military ups and downs. The Americans had lost the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, allowing the British
     to occupy Philadelphia; balancing that disappointment, the Continental Army had defeated the enemy at the Battle of Saratoga
     in October. A brutal winter followed for Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, but spirits lifted when later in 1778 the news
     arrived that the French had joined the war against Britain. Philadelphia was once more in American hands—that summer the British
     had shifted their base of operations to New York City—and optimism was rising on the American side.
    On Monday evening, January 18, 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania approved a resolution calling for a Washington
     portrait. It was to hang in the council’s chamber, an expression of confidence in the new nation’s military prospects and
     a celebration of the country’s central figure. Mr. Peale was just the man to make the portrait of the General, and the painter
     chose the Battle of Princeton as the pivotal moment to portray. It had been won at the expense of veteran British regulars,
     on their terms in an open field, unlike the midnight maneuver at Boston and the surprise attack at Trenton. Peale decided
     to portray the events in a big picture, one of monumental size to suit the subject.
    The canvas, fully eight feet tall and five feet wide, would be the first full-length portrait of the man.
    This time Peale painted a determined Washington. The vague look of the Virginia gentleman was gone, as was the distracted
     character of the 1776 Philadelphia portrait for John Hancock. The man in the new image was large-bodied, his head small, but
     the impression conveyed was of a man very much in possession of himself. His pose wasn’t aggressive but full of