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Major General Artemas Ward
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[ This description is from the project: Revolutionary-era Art and Artifacts ]
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.