Free The Painter's Chair by Hugh Howard Page B

for Massachusetts on a strange errand, having been reborn as the most conspicuous man in America. He was
     the figurehead chosen to lead an ad hoc army into an undeclared war on behalf of a country that did not yet exist.

    ONE YEAR LATER, Charles Willson Peale sought to render Washington on canvas again. This time his task was to record a reluctant
     general who, through a concatenation of happenstance, personal style, and physical prowess, had begun his very long run, ongoing
     to this day, as America’s first and most essential symbol. Peale began a new portrait of Washington on May 29, 1776, one day
     shy of four years after his departure from Mount Vernon.
    George Washington’s place in the world had continued its radical transformation. No longer was he a provincial aristocrat
     who, according to his own diaries, had grown soft while devoting his time to playing cards, foxhunting, and surveying his
     plantations. The man before Charles Willson Peale had emerged as a figure of national and even international note— and a victorious military commander.
    The first important military victory of the war had occurred less than three months earlier. A brilliant military stratagem
     devised by Washington and his youthful artillery commander, Colonel Henry Knox, had stunned the British forces then occupying
     Boston. Moving on the night of March 3 under a “moon shining in its full luster,” as Washington described it, his troops positioned
     cannons atop Dorchester Heights, turning captured British artillery pieces on their owners (undetected by the British, Knox
     and his men in the preceding weeks had dragged fifty-nine cannon and mortars some three hundred snowy miles from Fort Ticonderoga,
     New York). The British awoke on March 4 to the daunting realization that the guns pointed at them from the bluff above meant
     that defending the town and their ships at anchor was virtually impossible. Ten days later, a great flotilla nine miles long
     headed out to sea as the British military forces evacuated Boston, taking with them more than a thousand Tory sympathizers.
    Though Washington surely experienced a mixture of exultation, relief, and amazement at this turn of events, he managed, as
     usual, to keep his feelings to himself. To those around him, his countenance remained unreadable as he watched the sails disappear
     at the horizon like a distant clothesline hung with ladies’ handkerchiefs. The General had promptly marched his army to New
     York, wondering whether the British Navy would get there first. Fortunately for the colonials, the British military commander,
     Lord Howe, had set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, enabling Washington’s troops to ready for another siege. This time their
     positions were reversed, as the Americans, not the British, held a city surrounded by water.
    Yet now Washington was in Philadelphia, a three-day ride distant from his troops, who, accustomed to his everyday presence,
     watched nervously for the arrival of British ships in New York harbor; they knew very well indeed that they were betwixt battles.
     Continental Congress President John Hancock had summoned the General, desiring a report on the big victory at Boston. Washington’s
     visit had also seemed to Hancock an auspicious moment to record him on canvas for his personal collection, so he had summoned
     Mr. Peale, too.
    John Hancock was far from being a fond relation (recall that Martha commissioned the previous portrait in 1772). His order
     to Peale to make a three-quarter-length portrait of the General and another of his wife was a conspicuous public gesture.
     Hancock’s motives were uncertain (some wondered, Does he still desire a military commission for himself? ), but at the very least, Hancock wished to compliment the man in whom the entire nation had placed its trust.
    In obeying the congressional summons, Washington spent fifteen busy days away from his army. Only with difficulty did he fit
     Mr. Peale into his