The battle at Bunker's Hill near Boston, June 17th, 1775
Title
The battle at Bunker's Hill near Boston, June 17th, 1775
Description
Commemorative print after John Trumbull's historical painting based on his eyewitness account of the battle while serving as a commissioned officer during the American Revolution. Dramatically depicts the scene of American Major General Joseph Warren's death proceeding the Americans' retreat from the hill. Amidst a melee of activity, Warren lays dying in the arms of an American militiaman who fends off a bayonet pointed down over his body by an English soldier. British Major John Small restrains the bayonet of his soldier as Americans Captain Thomas Gardner, holding a musket, Major Andrew McClary, and Colonel William Prescott stand guard over their fallen compatriot. Behind Small, British Major John Pitcairn, mortally wounded, is held up by Lieutenant William Pitcairn and to the far right American Lieutenant Thomas Grovesnor stands en guarde shielding an armed African American man usually identified as Peter Salem, credited as the fatal shooter of Pitcairn, but more likely Grovesnor's enslaved man. British Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and Lieutenant Francis Lord Rawdon, flag in hand, continue the charge in the background. Other American soldiers involved in the battle include: Colonel Israel Putnam who gallantly leads the retreat; Rev. Samuel McClintock; Major Willard Moore, as well as an African American soldier, possibly Peter Salem. American Lieutenant Colonel Moses Parker and British Lieutenant Colonel Sir Robert Abercromby lay dying., Title from item., Theodore Sizer's The works of Colonel John Trumbull (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 95., The Library of Congress' An album of American battle art, 1755-1918. (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Printing Office, 1947), 27-30., See Elisa Tamarkin, Anglophilia: deference, devotion, and antebellum America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 137-8 for Peter Salem misidentification., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Muller, was a renown German painter, engraver, and professor, commissioned, following the refusal of the English artist community, to engrave Trumbull's historic painting. Muller completed the painting in 1786 at his mentor Benjamin West's London studio.
Creator
Müller, Johann Gotthard, 1747-1830, engraver
Date
1798
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department **GC - American Revolution [1142.F.4]