M^5 E 312 .43 .H33 Copy 1 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. FEME'S ORIGINAL WHOLE-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. A PLEA FOR EXACTNESS IN HISTORICAL WRITINGS. BY CHARLES HENRY HART, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. (From tbe Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1890, Vol. I, pages 189-200.) WASHINGTOJST: GOTEBNMENT PEINTINa OFFICE." 1897. VIII.-PEALE'S ORIGINAL WHOLE-LENGTH TORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. A Plea for Exactness in Historical "Writings. By CHARLES HENRY HART, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 189 C0^-N( ^3\l .4-5 .H35 PEALE'S ORIGINAL WHOLE-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF WASHING- TON-A PLEA FOR EXACTNESS IN HISTORICAL WRITINGS. By Charles Henry Hart. These Uuited States of America liave grown old enough to possess a distinct historical art. That this is a fact is being broadly recognized. It is shown in a marked degree by the own- ers of old family portraits. A few years ago their venerated ancestors could look down upon them only through the medium of a Eeynolds, a Kneller, or a Lely without the least regard to chronology or life-long distance between putative painter and sitter. To-day, with perhaps little better respect for time and place, these same ancestors are from the easels of Smibert or Copley, West or Peale, Stuart or Trumbull, while all the former Cosway miniatures are now by Malboue. We may smile at the change, but it leans in the right direction.^ That we may maintain our prerogative to this dignified j^osition and see its importance increase, the questions that will necessarily arise must submit to the same scrutiny, bear the same investigation, and be tested by the same immutable rules of evidence as every other department of historical study. Too much hitherto in this domain has depended upon tradi- tion, that baseless fabric of a dream, which to follow is as the ignis fatuus, leading nowhere and to nothing. Accepted tradi- tion and the blind following of one another, without submitting the statements followed to careful consideration, have caused many respectable writers to lend themselves to the dissemina- tion and perpetuation of error. This very condition in the department of study to which I have paid especial attention, suggested the present paper, wherein I shall correct some often repeated errors, caused either by writers blindly following one another, or by their not giving due weight to the exact meaning of words, they have been led into a confusion-of ideas, resulting in positive statements directly at variance with the facts. If history is to be written with perspicuity and accuracy there are two canons that must be observed. One is, take nothing ' Vi(ie, tlje writer's "Limner of Colonial Days," Harper's Weekly, July 4, 1896. 191 192 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. for granted. Go to the foimtaiu bead. The most careful will sometimes slip, e'en though the cause be the ijrinter's devil. The other is, use exact language. Carefully weigh the mean- ing of words to express the precise sense you wish to convey. Our tongue is sufficiently pliable that words can readily be found to express almost every shade of meaning; and when readers come to know that words are not used haphazard, but are given their due value, they will learn to read with like precision and understand accurately the writer's sense. These reflections have arisen from my ijiability to account for the eminent historians to whom 1 have alluded falling into the grievous error of translating "defaced" into "destroyed," otherwise than by a disregard of Just such rules. Exactness in understanding, as well as in expression, would have avoided the writing out of existence of an important historical picture which I shall have the pleasure of showing is in existence to-day. When a man reads that a thing has been "totally defaced," let him not pass it on as "totally destroyed." Let him recognize that a thing "defaced" may be restored, or if beyond restora- tion, that it may exist for ages in its defaced condition. The Venus of Milo is defaced by the loss of her arms, but the most daring iconoclast would not have the temerity to assert that she was therefore destroyed. And praise be to God, she will last for centuries, thus defaced, i^ot very long ago, in this good State of New York, a monument erected to the romantic Andre was defaced, but no one has claimed that it was destroyed. So in the case under consideration, the picture that was del^iced one hundred and fifteen years ago, instead of being destroyed, as numerous authorities positively state it to have been,^ was restored and to-day exists without an apparent blemish to the superficial observer. " "This picture was afterwards (1781) defaced and totally destroyed."— W. S. Baker's Engraved Portraits i)f Washington, 1880, p. 14. " The Portrait ordered for tlio State was totally destroyed in 1781, by some vandals who broke into the couniil chamber and ruthlessly dcfaeed it beyond the hope of restoration. "— Elizabeth Bryant Johnston's Original Portraits of Washington, 1882, p. 11. "In 1781, some persons unknown broke into the council chamber and defaced and totally destroyed tlie picture."— Scharf and AVestcotfs History of Phihidclphia, 1884, p. 1036. "Which was wantonly destroyed. "—Justin Winsor's Critical History of America, 1888, VoL VII, p.r)65. "The portrait was painted, it was placed in the council chamber and it was destroyed."— W. S. Baker's History of a rare Washington Print, Pa. Mag. Hist. Biog., 1889, Vol. XI 11, p. 261. "This portrait destroyed in September, 1781."— W. S. Baker's Itinerary of General Washington, 1892, p. 150. " It is no longer in existence'— Paul Liecester Ford's Peaje's Full length of Washing- ton, Harper'8 Weekly, May 16, 1^96. PEALE's portrait of WASHINGTON. 193 To Charles Willsou Peale, the Doyen of American painters, was accorded the distinguished honor of painting Washington from hfe more often than any of his contemporaries. He began in May, 1772, with the Virginia colonel, and ended in Sei^tember, 1795, with the first President of the United States. In the interim he had a dozen other sittings, and in the current number of one of our most popular magazines^ I had the privilege of introducing to the public a newly found portrait of Washington, by Peale, in which the commander in chief is delineated wearing his military cocked hat, the only Revolu- tionary portrait of him in which he is so represented. This l^ortrait is of great historic as well as artistic value, for it was paintpd to relieve the tedium of winter quarters at Valley Forge, upon a piece of bed ticking, the only available material to be had in those days that tried men's souls. A close comparative study of this newly found Valley Forge head with Peale's well-known whole-length portrait, having iSTassau Hall in the distance, satisfies me that this Valley Forge ]^icture was his guide for the head in the whole-length painting. The investigation thus instituted was uncommonly rich in re- sults. It developed this vsingle atom of foundation for the often repeated, but apocryphal, story, that the original of these whole length portraits had been painted under a resolve of Congress, was begun at Valley Forge, continued at Monmouth, and fin- ished in Philadelphia, but never delivered by the artist, owing to the failure of Congress to appropriate its stipulated price of $8,090. I say " apocryphal," because Peale's price for a copy of his whole-length portrait of Washington was 30 guineas,^ and Congress never resolved that he should paint one at any price. Owing to these somewhat important facts, the superstructure is without a foundation and with the inevitable collapse. Having thus cleared away the mirage of tradition, I will lelate briefly the true history of the picture. In the midst of the campaign Congiess summoned Wash- ington to Philadelphia for consultation. He arrived on the 22d of December, 1778, and remained until the 2d of the ensuing February. On January 18, 1779, nearly a year after ' McClure's Magazine for December, 1896. 2 Letter from Peale to Governor Harrison, of Virginia, October 30, 1784, Dreer Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. H. Doc. 353- — 13 194 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. Valley Forge aud six moiitlis after Monmfnitli, tlie supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, wbicli was the State government, enacted ' that — Whereas the wisest, freest, and bravest nations, in the most virtnons times, have endeavored to perpetuate the memory of tliose who have ren- dered their country distinguished service, by preserving their rest-mblance in statutes an