亲,请登录 | 免费注册 | 联系客服

客服QQ:18520648
微信账号:shouxicom
电话:0086-10-62669610

| 手机首席

关注首席官方微信号
掌握最新最全钱币动态

联合创办 CICE/HKCS 系列钱币展销会

联合创办 CICE/HKCS 系列钱币展销会

首席收藏网 > 数据中心 > Stack's Bowers and Ponterio > SBP2019年11月巴尔地摩#3-John Adams集藏

Lot:2060 1781 (i.e. after 1839) Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal. Betts-593, Julian MI-7. Bronze. Copy dies by

上一件 进入专场 下一件

世界钱币

USD 2000

SBP2019年11月巴尔地摩#3-John Adams集藏

2019-11-15 05:00:00

2019-11-15 06:00:00

USD 2400

SBP

成交

1781 (i.e. after 1839) Daniel Morgan at Cowpens medal. Betts-593, Julian MI-7. Bronze. Copy dies by Barre. Philadelphia Mint. 56.2 mm, 1282.0 grains. 5.1 - 5.2 mm thick. Choice Mint State.Plain square edge. Nicely reflective medium brown with pale blue and gold highlights in the lustrous fields. The surfaces are essentially immaculate but for a little area of surface verdigris at GA of MORGAN. The rims have been gently filed at the time of production, reducing a wire rim into an even rounded rim. Evidence of multiple strikes is seen in the obverse legend. Later die state, after the die injury between the steps of the obverse rim near 10:00. A supremely attractive example whose patina is light enough to let lively field reflectivity shine.<p><strong>The Battle of Cowpens</strong><p><strong>The Action:</strong><p>The day after Christmas 1779, Sir Henry Clinton and General Charles Cornwallis left British-occupied New York with more than 8,000 men. Their destination was Charleston, South Carolina, and upon their arrival the focus of the Revolutionary War became the struggle to win the hearts, minds, and battlefields of the Carolinas. Clinton and Cornwallis laid siege to Charleston beginning in April 1780, and the following month they controlled the city. Their army made its way to the middle of South Carolina and encamped near the town of Camden, where Horatio Gates, the newly appointed commander of the Southern Department, encountered Cornwallis force in August 1780. Gates was soundly defeated, his force decimated, his reputation essentially destroyed. Cornwallis and his forces, including reviled Banastre Tarleton, captured the tiny hamlet of Charlotte soon thereafter, then made their way back to winter camp in central South Carolina, in the town of Winnsborough.<p>Following Gates relief from command, General George Washington dispatched a member of his "military family" to the Southern Department: Nathanael Greene. Greenes strategy revolved not around direct large-scale confrontation, but fleeting contact and costly chases, meant to expose the British and their Loyalist partisans to guerrilla attacks and keep their divided forces far from supply lines. The October 1780 American victory at Kings Mountain, along the North Carolina / South Carolina border, bolstered the Patriot cause in the Upcountry. Greene had made his winter camp in Cheraw, in the eastern Pee Dee region of South Carolina, but a portion of his troops under General Daniel Morgan continued to move through the backcountry. Cornwallis dispatched Tarleton to give chase with a force of just over 1,000 men, mostly British regulars.<p>Morgan chose the place he would permit Tarleton to meet his men: at the Cowpens, a pasture near the North Carolina state line close to modern Spartanburg. Morgan, known for his team of crack riflemen, decided to capitalize upon the British stereotype that American militiamen would quickly retreat. He ordered his militia to do just that, then move to the rear, reform, and wait for Continental regulars to break through the British line.<p>Holding the rear high ground, his plan worked like a charm, finished off by an infantry line held together by Col. John Eager Howards leadership and a cavalry charge led by Col. William Washington as the denouement. Morgan described his defeat of Tarleton as "a devil of a whipping." Congress agreed, and selected him to receive a gold medal, while both Howard and Washington were awarded silver medals. Only Cowpens and the 1779 reduction of Stony Point were recognized with three medals. <p>After the victory at Cowpens, Greene and Morgan reunited and moved north, meeting Cornwallis at Guilford Court House in March 1781. With his force badly weakened after the battle, Cornwallis marched for Wilmington, on the North Carolina coast, to regroup. His next, and final, stop would be Yorktown.<p><strong>The Resolution:</strong><p><em>The United States in Congress assembled, considering it as a tribute due to distinguished merit to give a public approbation of the conduct of Brigadier General Morgan, and of the officers and men under his command, on the 17th day of January last; when with eighty cavalry, and two hundred and thirty-seven infantry of the troops of the United States, and five hundred and fifty-three militia from the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, he obtained a complete and important victory over a select and well appointed detachment of more than eleven hundred British troops, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton; do therefore resolve,</em><p><em>That the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled, be given to Brigadier General Morgan, and the officers and men under his command, for their fortitude and good conduct, displayed in the action at the Cowpens, in the State of South Carolina, on the 17th of January last:</em><p><em>That a Medal of Gold be presented to Brigr Genl Morgan representing on one side the action aforesaid particularising his numbers, the numbers of the enemy, the numbers of killed, wounded and prisoners and his trophies with the inscription patria virtusis [undecipherable], and on the other side his bust with his name and this inscription: Ipse agmen the figure of the General on horseback leading on his troops in pursuit of the flying enemy, with this motto in the Exergue Fortus Fortuna Juvat Virtus Unita Valet.</em><p><p><em>That a medal of gold be presented to Brigadier General Morgan, and a medal of silver to Lieutenant Colonel W. Washington, of the cavalry, and one of silver to Lieutenant Colonel Howard, of the infantry of the United States; severally with emblems and mottos descriptive of the conduct of those officers respectively on that memorable day:</em><p><em>That a sword be presented to Colonel Pickens, of the militia, in testimony of his spirited decisive and magnanimous conduct in the action before mentioned:</em><p><em>Resolved, that a sword be presented to Lieutenant Colonel Howard of the infantry, and one also to Lieutenant Colonel Washington of Recommitted. the Cavalry of the federal army each, that their names may be transmitted honourably to posterity renowned for public virtue and as testimonies of the high sense entertained by Congress of their martial accomplishments.</em><p><em>That Major Edward Giles, aid-de-camp of Brigadier General Morgan, have the brevet commission of a major; and that Baron de Glasbeech, who served with Brigadier General Morgan as a volunteer, have the brevet commission of captain in the army of the United States; in consideration of their merit and services.</em><p><em>Ordered, That the commanding officer in the southern department, communicate these resolutions in general orders.</em><p><em>- Continental Congress Resolution of March 9, 1781</em><p><strong>Daniel Morgan at Cowpens</strong><p><strong>The Acquisition:</strong><p>When Benjamin Franklin left Paris having only completed the medal for De Fleury, it fell to Robert Morris to write to Franklins replacement, David Humphreys, in June 1784 with a list of medals for which he would be responsible. A little less than a year later, Humphreys wrote back to Congress with an update. "Some time after my arrival here," Humphreys wrote in March 1785, "I received the enclosed letter from [Robert Morris], accompanied with a list of medals, etc., and a description of those intended for General Morgan and Colonels Washington and Howard." And then the excuses began. "Upon the receipt of these documents I did not delay to make the proper inquiries from the characters who were the best skilled in the subjects of this nature … Being informed at the same time that the description of the medals for General Morgan, etc., was not in the style and manner such medals were usually executed, I took the liberty of suspending the execution of them, until I could learn whether it is the pleasure of Congress to have them performed exactly in the manner prescribed."<p>Humphreys seems to have back-burnered Morgan and the other Cowpens medals rather permanently after that. He finished the medals for Horatio Gates and Nathanael Greene before departing Paris. The rest fell to Humphreys replacement, Thomas Jefferson.<p>When Thomas Jefferson took the baton from David Humphreys, all three of the Cowpens medals were handed off, along with General Washingtons gold medal, without so much as an agreement with an engraver. Humphreys wrote to Jefferson in April 1786 to let him know that these four medals would be entirely his responsibility "because the designs for them have not been in readiness for execution until the present time. Nor can that for Genl. Morgan be commenced without farther information of the numbers killed, prisoners &c in the action to be perpetuated. These documents I will endeavor to get the Secretary at war to forward immediately."<p>Jefferson pulled a Humphreys. He procrastinated. Augustin Dupre, Paris most esteemed medallic engraver of the era, delivered the finished Nathanael Greene medal to Jefferson on February 13, 1787. It had been nearly a year after Jefferson took on the Comitia Americana project, but precious little had been accomplished in the interval. Following his meeting with Dupre, Jefferson would forget about the project for another full year. Finally, in January 1789, Jefferson picked up his quill and wrote to Dupre: "Mr. Jefferson having received orders concerning medals to be struck would like to talk about them with M. Dupre, if he will please do him the honor to call on him to-morrow morning before eleven oclock." After taking the best part of three years off, Jefferson was suddenly in a rush. It must have thrilled the Frenchman to no end.<p>On February 13, 1789, Jefferson sent Dupre the approved designs and inscriptions for the John Paul Jones and Daniel Morgan medals. Dupre made quick work of the Morgan medal, arguably his masterpiece. He finished it before the Jones medal and Jefferson carried Morgans gold medal home with him in September 1789.<p><strong>The Presentation:</strong><p>Daniel Morgan started to wonder where his medal was sooner than most recipients and began asking questions soon after the war was over. He wrote to one of Virginias delegates to the Continental Congress, John F. Mercer, and to Secretary of War General Benjamin Lincoln, in February 1783.<p><em>The Honorable Congress after the action at Cowpens thought proper to vote me a Medal for my conduct in that affair, and as such an acknowledgement of my countrys approbation could not but be flattering to the mind of a soldier I have made frequent application to get, and have been as frequently disappointed. Gen. Lincoln once informed me that nothing prevented its being sent to me but the low situation of finances, and I should have it as soon as there was money to be had to defray the Expense. Now sir, I not only wish you to expedite the making of it, but that you may also pay some attention to the manner in which it may be done, and with devices properly emblematical of the affair. I have so good an opinion of your taste and general knowledge as to wish to submit the matter entirely to your discretion, the expense cannot be considerable, and I flatter myself the Financier on a proper application would advance a sum sufficient to defray it, especially to gratify the inclinations of a man whose principal aim it has been to obtain his Countrys applause to his conduct.</em><p>Mercer wrote back in April 1783. <p><em>The change in our circumstances which the late pacification has made will now permit the Secretary of War to carry into immediate execution a Resolve of Congress directing him to furnish the medals voted to those whose Distinguished Merit has drawn that mark of applause and gratitude from their Country during the late War. You may depend on my attention to yours, and if I have any talent at Design (which by the way I doubt extremely) it shall be aided by the assistance of those whose imagination I esteem as elegant as correct, and I hope will eventually produce what ought to equal your expectation from the hands you have committed it to, if it does not meet your approbation.</em><p>Morgan waited patiently for seven more years. On March 25, 1790, the same day Washington sent medals off to the heroes of Stony Point and Morgans fellow veterans of Cowpens, he finally sent Morgan his own gold medal.<p><em>Sir:</em><p><em>You will receive with this a Medal struck by order of the late Congress in commemoration of your much approved conduct in the battle of Cowpens, and presented to you as a mark of the high sence which your Country entertains of your services on that occasion.</em><p><em>This Medal was put into my hands by Mr. Jefferson, and it is with singular pleasure that I now transmit it to you.</em><p><em>I am Sir, with very great esteem, your most obedt servt,</em><p><em>George Washington</em><p><strong>The Daniel Morgan at Cowpens Medal:</strong><p><strong>Obverse:</strong> The traditional reverse was considered the ob.verse by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres and by Jefferson himself. Alas, we hew to numismatic tradition. With flags and cannons - the traditional trophies of war - at left, the goddess America in her traditional garb and holding her traditional shield crowns Morgan, at right, with a laurel wreath. Morgan bows slightly, his sword grounded, with the rural scene of battle seen behind him. Beneath the exergue are the words COMITIA AMERICANA. Around the periphery: DANIELI MORGAN DUCI EXERCITUS or "Daniel Morgan, head of the army."<p><strong>Reverse:</strong> Perhaps the most impressive and evocative battle scene in the realm of American medallic art, at least until the Mexican-American War masterworks of Charles Cushing Wright. Morgan, in the saddle and pointing forward with his sword, leads his soldiers from right to left. The Cowpens flag flies behind him at the front of his troops, who carry their muskets with bayonets fixed. A native ally stabs a fallen British cavalryman in the lower left, while other British troops, one mounted, scramble. A British flag and smoke rise from the left. The legend above VICTORIA LIBERTATIS VINDEX means "Victory is Libertys defender." In the exergue, FVGATIS CAPTIS AVT CAESIS AD COWPENS HOSTIBVS XVII. JAN. MDCCLXXXI means "The enemy chased, captured, or killed at the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781." In the lower exergue, Dupre signs DUPRE INV ET F or "Dupre conceived and made it."<p><p><p>From the John W. Adams Collection. Acquired from Stack’s Bowers’ ANA sale of August 2013, lot 1025.

价格参考 Price Guide