The owners of the "Armstrong" made repeated efforts to obtain redress for the loss of their ship, but it was not until the year 1897 (about the time that Mr. Moran finished this painting) that some money was received, and, strange to say, paid over to the widow of the owner, Mr. Havens, the old lady then being ninety-eight years of age.
It may be interesting to recall that it was Captain Reid who, about the year 1817, designed the present flag of the United States, which for a time had been altered to fifteen stripes to designate the number of States to which the country had increased. On the suggestion of Captain Reid the number was again reduced to thirteen, and the addition of the States designated by the number of stars in the blue field. This was adopted by Act of Congress on April 4, 1818, and the first flag that was flung to the breeze, under the new law, was made by Mrs. Reid, the wife of the gallant Captain, the stars in the blue field being arranged at that time in the shape of a constellation constituting one great star.
Besides the glory which Captain Reid achieved through his wonderful exploit at Fayal—all the more wonderful
if it is remembered that he and his men were volunteer seamen, untrained in the regular navy of the United States—he had rendered his country a service far greater even than this feat of arms. It so happened that the ships of Commodore Lloyd were bound for the Gulf of Mexico to assist in the attack upon New Orleans; but by reason of the injury and demoralization inflicted on them by Captain Reid they were delayed long enough to prevent their co-operating with the British General, Sir Edward Packenham, in an earlier attack upon New Orleans, as originally contemplated, when General Jackson was not prepared to meet and defeat the enemy; the consequence of which might have been the loss to the United States of the entire Province of Louisiana, which had only a decade before been acquired from France.
Captain Reid was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on August 25, 1783, and died at the venerable age of seventy-eight at New York on January 28, 1861, on the very eve of our great Civil War, having enjoyed many honors, among them an appointment as Warden of the Port of New York.
Not only on account of the extraordinary character of the fight itself, but also on account of its indirect consequences, in assisting to bring the War of 1812 to a close, is this painting of the greatest interest. It measures full up to the excellence of the other numbers of the series, notwithstanding the immediate subject was not one which presented the most graphic material for the brush of the painter. Mr. Moran chose the most thrilling incident of the fight in depicting the firing of the brig on the approaching row-boats of the enemy. This he has accomplished with consummate skill. He has herein, as in all his other battle scenes on the water, avoided the portrayal of carnage and destruction of human life in lurid colors as is the custom with most painters. He has left these abhorrent scenes to the imagination, and has thereby
rendered his pictures, while suggesting all the dreadful accompaniments of warfare, chaste, and free from scenes which are revolting to the feelings.
The picture is perfect in itself, in its representation of the position of the "Armstrong," swayed, as it evidently is, through the powerful blasts from its own twenty-four pounder—the fire of the rifles from the men in the British row-boats—the buildings on the shore in the background on the left, with the suggestion of the hills on which the town is built and the British ships in the offing on the right—with the rising moon in the distance—and the shores of Fayal dimly defined upon the horizon, extending, as they do in fact, with their two widening arms around the harbor.