He is the first painter who has undertaken to immortalize by his pencil those great actions that gave birth to our nation.
He teaches mankind that it is not rank nor titles, but character alone, which interests posterity.

-Abigail Adams

The greatest ambition of painter John Trumbull
was to record in pictures the principal events of the Revolution. He wanted to convey the values of these men as the common heritage of all Americans. In 1817, Trumbull was chosen to decorate the Rotunda of the new U.S. Capitol building with four life-size versions of his historical paintings. Later, in 1831, Trumbull presented to Yale University his original easel paintings on the American Revolution, along with the miniature portraits he had made of historical personages.