Page 23 - Sojourner Newsletter-Summer 2023 Final

Volume 100, Issue 3 23

CAMP NEWS

THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP CAMP (1776 Militia Chapter #560) Syd Hill
Adjutant & Secretary.

It is probably the most famous painting in American history and as the best-known
painting by the least known artist: It is The Spirit of ’76. It shows two drummers and a
fife player marching with a 13-star U.S. flag, saluting the spirit of the American
Revolution. It ranks with the flag-raising at Iwo Jima during World War II as the most
iconic of American images. You may know it as the centerpiece of our Heroes Medal.
It was originally known as Yankee Doodle because the painter based the scene on
summer picnics in Wellington when veterans from the War of 1812 drank rum all day
and by evening were mock-marching and playing their drums and fifes to the tune of
Yankee Doodle.

The painter, Archibald Willard fought in the Civil War as a member of the 86th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
Before and after the war he worked for the Wellington carriage maker. His career took off when he formed a
partnership with J. F. Ryder who ran a photography and art studio in nearby Cleveland selling humorous
sketches and posters by Willard. In 1875 Ryder encouraged Willard to produce a piece for the Americas
Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Willard began work on his famous painting, moving to Cleveland to
complete the large 8-foot-by-10-foot oil painting. He used people he knew as models. The drummer in the
center was his father, the Rev. Samuel Willard. The fife player on the right was his boyhood friend and fellow
Civil War soldier, Hugh Mosher. The boy on the left was Henry Devereaux, a cadet at a Wellington military
academy. Even the often-overlooked fallen soldier in the foreground was based on a pair of Wellington
residents.

Originally, the piece was meant to be humorous, and the men were portrayed marching in a light-hearted
manner. But in 1875, Willard’s father fell ill, and he died before the painting was completed. Willard adjusted
the painting to have a more somber tone to reflect the dignity, fortitude, and moral heroism of his father. Even
when the painting was displayed at the Philadelphia exhibition in 1876, it was put in a room separate from the
rest of the art exhibits because officials didn’t think it represented serious art. But the painting was wildly
popular. Thousands of people poured into the room to view the painting, with many returning several days in a
row. U.S. President Ulysses Grant arrived late one evening, as Willard repaired a small tear caused by the
jostling crowds. The 18th president was moved by what he saw. After the exhibition, the painting went on
exhibit in Boston, where it was renamed “Spirit of ‘76” and then later was on display in Washington, D.C.

In 1880, Wellington railroad magnate John Devereaux, father of the cadet in the painting, purchased the
artwork for $5,000, a ridiculous amount of money then. Devereaux donated it to his hometown, Marblehead,
Mass., where the giant painting still hangs in the town hall. Spirit of ’76 soon became one of the most copied
paintings in American history, even as art historians derided it as cartoonish and criticized its commercial
popularity. One critic snorted, “The number of people who saw it (on exhibition) is dwarfed by the number
who came to own copies.” There were 28 different originals of the painting in smaller sizes by the artist. Now
you know the story behind the Medallion/Painting. For you, the “Deplorable Dismalites of The Great Dismal
Swamp, 1776 Militia”, that is quite a story behind it to fit in with our rag tag outfit.

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Here is to our next century of Heroes of ‘76 – a Renewal