John Blake White, in his painting Sergeants Jasper and Newton Rescuing American Prisoners from the British, depicts the daring rescue recorded by Parson Mason Locke Weems. Though stylized and rife with patriotic romanticism, White’s account is less fanciful than most artistic renderings of the event, including a Currier and Ives engraving titled The Rescue. In White’s depiction, the two sergeants stand with the muskets they have snatched from the British. The young father who inspired the rescue holds his son, while his wife sinks to her knees in gratitude. Recounted Weems: “Directing her eyes to Jasper and Newton . . . she ran and fell on her knees before them . . . crying out vehemently, 'Dear angels! dear angels! God bless you! God Almighty bless you for ever!' ” [1]
The Senate, by resolution of February 17, 1899, accepted the painting, Sergeants Jasper and Newton Rescuing American Prisoners from the British. Octavius White, son of the artist, presented this work, along with two other paintings by his father: General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal and Mrs. Motte Directing Generals Marion and Lee to Burn Her Mansion to Dislodge the British. Two years later, Octavius White donated a fourth work by his father, The Battle of Fort Moultrie.
This painting of Sergeants Jasper and Newton, as well as John Blake White’s painting of General Marion and the British officer, were engraved by John Sartain for popular sale. They were widely distributed by the Apollo Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in the United States, a subscription organization better known by its later title, the American Art-Union. For an annual fee, members would receive engravings of selected works as well as the opportunity to win originals through raffle drawings. The association’s choice of the White paintings for distribution gave them a broader, national audience. The same two paintings also appeared on Confederate banknotes issued in 1861 by South Carolina, the home state of John Blake White.
1. Mason Locke Weems and Peter Horry, The Life of General Francis Marion: A Celebrated Partisan Officer in the Revolutionary War against the British and Tories in South Carolina and Georgia (1809; reprint, Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2000), 58.
|