AMBASSADOR HOTEL JOMTIEN

I began this painting as commission from Jim Reger of King George County to pay tribute to a Virginia hero from colonial times-- the Revolutionary War in 1779. Jim and I met to talk through the size of the painting and how it would be placed in his office at the Reger group. He provided an earlier image of an oil painting by Ezra Winter of George Rogers Clark done in the 1930’s for the then new memorial in Vincennes Indiana. I agreed it was a beautiful piece of art and set out to create a sketch with my own view of how a picture if this hero of Virginia would be portrayed.
I saw this story as a divine possibility, God allowed men to do the impossible.
When the war was not going well in the northwest territory, Clark, a savvy Caroline county native with some frontier military experience in Kentucky, got an audience with governor Patrick Henry, a secret meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia. Henry also met secretly with close associates and finally provided Clark with money to form an expedition to the Ohio valley to protect the settlers from Indians but more from the English.. Clark was an excellent choice for the subject of a painting.
The expedition of 170 men traveled 180 miles in an Ohio winter, with water to their shoulders, soaked to the bone, slept by meager fires to recover at night, and maybe have food enough to keep them strong enough to march. Morale was always low, but Clark always had ways of bolstering their resolve. He at times would send men ahead of the group to say that the water was shallower and they were near dry land.
At their arrival to Vincennes Indiana, Clark warned the English controlled town of a battle coming to their fort and for any men to join them. At the amazement of Clark—he had caught the English off guard in their winter’s nest without troops –but with enough explosives to blow up the fort. Over the next night and day, Clark’s force sent destructive fire into the English fort, smashing any hope for the English victory. The English asked for terms of surrender to which Clark told them no terms accepted. The firing from Clark’s men continued, some 50 shots fired to every English attempt to fire.
The next day an Indian party came to the fort and was surrounded by Clark’s men. 17 were killed in the exchange and 2 more were killed and thrown into the river as testament to their resolve. Two American prisoners with them were freed .
In view of these overwhelming events, The English general Hamilton asked for a meeting—hoping Clark would allow them to leave as prisoners. Clark was convinced that the English were evil-doers with their scalping friends --the Indians were to be executed unless they surrendered. Clark responded: “I said that the cries of the widows and the fatherless they had occasioned upon the frontiers now required their blood at my hands and I did not choose to be so timorous as to disobey the absolute command of their authority, which I regarded as next to divine. I said I would rather lose fifty men than to surrender the power properly to execute this piece of business. If he chose to risk the massacre of his garrison for their sakes it was his own affair and I might perhaps take it into my head to send for some of those widows to see it executed.“ Hamilton left the meeting, Clark gave him till the next morning to decide.
The next day the fort was surrendered, very orderly, Hamilton gave Clark his sword. Hamilton wept when he understood how few men Clark had in his force. The days that Clark and his men had come to defend our American interests were well spent, no men had perished in their calling. They had taken the enemy like Joshua marching around Jericho –until the walls came tumbling down—the enemy was defeated.— A triumph by the Divine. God stepped in for our American fathers and gave them victory, this is the spirit of my painting.
I provided Jim Reger the rough sketch, he approved it in its form. The next day I left for Ohio to work with re-enactors from George Rogers Clark Historical Foundation. My wife Sharon , daughter Ellie and friend Allie began the full day trip and stayed in a Days Inn outside of Springfield near the foundation’s office. Rusty Cottrell, the foundation’s president and I met that afternoon and discussed history and potential locations for the photo shoot. We chose Hosterman lake in the GRCHF park as the site to photograph the re-enactors for the next day. We had about 10 re-enactors the next day, I showed them the sketch, they were excited, not having gotten in water with all their gear before. After 300 photos and a long day, With no way to appreciate their efforts, I thanked them all, offered each person a copy of the finished painting in print form and headed back to Virginia.
I immediately created a new sketch with real characters. I was missing some integral poses, I contacted George Washington’s Fredericksburg Foundation to find two more re-enactors. They agreed, we shot them the following Saturday, a

A view looking up West High Street from the Glasgow Road. The old toll house is on the left and the Washington Inn on the right. The white buildings in the centre is a farm. All the buildings are still in place today and the scene is not much changed. The grassed area is the Victoria Park, now renamed as the Peel Park. These views of Kirkintilloch are from the out-of-print 'Kirkintilloch in Old Picture Postcards', by Don Martin.