White Mountains, New Hampshire, General Stark at Bennington, circa 1850

This is an original antique steel engraving, uncolored, lettered below the view "WHITE MOUNTAINS, NEW HAMPSHIRE." A wooded valley opens toward a range of mountains, with a pale, pointed summit catching the light at the left under a dark, stormy sky. A road leads back through the trees, where a horseman rides away. In the foreground two men, one with a gun over his shoulder, stand with a dog among boulders and a stream, one pointing toward the hills. Sheep graze at the left beside a tall tree, and a broken dead tree leans across the right.

The uncaptioned emblem above the view shows a woman kneeling beside a fallen man, one arm raised toward the sky. Two uncaptioned vignettes sit in the upper side borders: at left riflemen fire from behind a tree with a skirmish beyond, and at right a soldier with a pack and musket stands over a seated soldier holding a cup, Native American men seated beside them. Below at left, a vignette lettered "GENERAL STARK DEFEATS COLONEL BAUM AT BENNINGTON. 1777." shows mounted officers and infantry advancing over fallen men and a fallen horse. At right, "MURDER OF MISS M'REA." shows two Native American men seizing a young woman in a woodland, one raising a weapon. No artist or engraver credit is lettered under the view. The imprint at the foot reads "J. & F. TALLIS, LONDON & NEW YORK."

The plate belongs to the History of the United States of America, edited by John Howard Hinton (1791 to 1873), the English Baptist minister and author, and published by J. and F. Tallis about 1850. J. and F. Tallis were London publishers of illustrated works sold in parts around the middle of the nineteenth century, and the plates of this edition set a central steel engraved view inside an engraved ornamental border with small lettered vignettes of episodes from American history. Both vignettes refer to the Saratoga campaign of 1777, the right one to Jane McCrea, a young woman killed that summer.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.