The first true commander-in-chief of the armed forces to lead the Revolutionary War was not, as many believe, George Washington. It was a man named Artemas Ward.

Simmons, Linda Crocker, "Charles Peale Polk, 1776-1822: a limner and his likenesses," Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1981, no. 17. Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1972. Summary ...