Major General Artemas Ward
To order an image, navigate to the full
display and click "request this image"
on the blue toolbar.
This portrait of Revolutionary War general Artemas Ward (1727-1800), commissioned by Ward's grandson Nahum Wood circa 1830-1840, is by Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Sully copied an original portrait painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1794-1795 but Sully's portrait depicts General Ward in his military uniform.
Artemas Ward was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, in 1727. He graduated from Harvard in 1748. He served as a colonel in the French and Indian Wars and also a general and commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts troops in 1775, until George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army. He was the chief justice of the Worcester Cunty Court of Common Pleas, a member of the Massachusetts provincial congress, the Continental Congress, the U.S. Congress, and the Massachusettts legislature. He died in 1800.