am, 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.

IRON VERSUS WOOD
Sinking of the Cumberland by the Merrimac

(_In Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862_)

[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.]

XI.

IRON VERSUS WOOD--SINKING OF THE CUMBERLAND BY THE MERRIMAC.

_In Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862._[N]

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