December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
UNKNOWN ARTIST. "GENERAL JOHN P. BOYD." Watercolor on paper 2 5/8 x 2 1/8 inches (view) under eglomise inside original, carved and gilded frame. John Parker Boyd (1764-1830) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts and began his military as an ensign in 1786 but with reduction of his regiment after the suppression of Shay's Rebellion, his unit was disbanded and he was again a civilian. Determined to pursue a military career, Boyd employment as a soldier of fortune in India and by 1789, was in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. After two years, he accepted an appointment with the Nizam's enemies, the Mahratha Confederation, which was allied with the East India Company. By 1793, Body was in command of a brigade of Indian regulars which later distinguished itself on the right of the line (position of honor) at the battle of Kharza in 1795. In June 1796 he accepted a position with the Peshwa of Mahratha as command of a corps, but left India by 1798. Returning to the United States, Boyd was commissioned a colonel in the US Army on 4 OCT 1808 and given command of the 4th US Infantry Regiment. The 4th was then being raised in the New England states and a preponderance of the men recruited into its ranks were unemployed sailors ashore, the a result of the ill-conceived Embargo Act then in place. Boyd's military experience, coupled with men used the hard life and discipline aboard ship, soon turned the 4th Infantry into a crack regiment. In 1811, Boyd and his men were sent west in anticipation of conflict with Tecumseh's Indian confederacy. Dring the campaign that ended with an American victory at Tippecanoe, Boyd served as a brigade commander and second-in-command to William Henry Harrison, with acting rank of brigadier general. Boyd returned to the East and was promoted to brigadier general a month after the outbreak of the War of 1812. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Fort George and then served as commander of that captured post. His command was part of the ill-fated Wilkinson campaign against Montreal in fall of 1813 and was later made Wilkinson's scapegoat for the defeat at Chrysler's Farm. He was then appointed commander of the Third Military District, headquartered in Boston and so no further active service. He left the army at the close of the war and pursued various business ventures until being appointed Naval Officer of the Port of Boston by President Jackson in 1829, dying there a year later. PROVENANCE: Boyd was unmarried and this profile (the only life portrait currently known of him), was in the hands of his friend, William Willis of Portland, Maine in the mid-19th century when visited by Benson Lossing, who sketched it and included it as an engraving on p. 194 of his "Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812" (1868); acquired in 2022. CONDITION: very good overall, the watercolor drawing still bright on lightly toned paper (not examined out of the frame, which still retains its original paper backing on the reverse); a 1 x 1/4 inch piece of gilded gesso is missing from the outer edge of the frame in the upper LH corner.