The last naval engagement of the Revolution was fought on March 10 by the American frigate Alliance (thirtysix guns) and three British ships: the frigates Sybil and Alarm and the sloop Tobago. A preliminary peace treaty had been signed in November and hostilities on land had ceased, but word had not spread to all the ships at sea.
The Alliance was commanded by John Barry, an Irishman who settled in Philadelphia around 1760. A prosperous shipowner, he offered his services to the Continental Congress when war broke out and distinguished himself in several battles—he won Washington’s personal congratulations for his “gallantry and address.”
The Alliance was coming home from Cuba, carrying hard currency and escorting a smaller vessel, the Lauzun. A few days out of Havana they encountered the British ships, which tried to separate the Lauzun from her protector. Barry interposed the Alliance and, when hailed by Sybil, is said to have shouted, “This is the United States Ship Alliance, saucy Jack Barry, half Irishman, half Yankee. Who are you?” There is no record of a reply. The Britons opened fire, but Barry held off until the two ships were within pistol range. Then he let loose a well-aimed broadside, badly mauling the British ship. After a hot half-hour’s action, the stricken Sybil limped off to join the Alarm and the Tobago, which, with a reticence uncharacteristic of the Royal Navy, had not joined the fight. The American ships sailed on to Newport, where they anchored on March 20. Three days later they learned that the war was over, and they had won.
Philip Freneau, the “Poet of the American Revolution,” saluted Barry in this ringing stanza:
This is the ship Alliance
From Philadelphia town,
And proudly bids defiance
To England’s king and crown.
A captain on her deck I stand
To guard her banner true,
Half Yankee and half Irishman:
What tyrant’s slave are you?
1883 One Hundred Hears Ago
On March 26 occurred what was not only the most expensive party ever given in America to that date, but one which may still hold the record for conspicuous consumption in a single evening. Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt gave a fancy-dress ball at her new house on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street. It was estimated at the time that she spent at least $250,000 for costumes, flowers, carriages, hairdressers, music, food, and drink. An equivalent sum today would be about $3 million. But after all, as The New York Times observed in a headline, it did mark “the end of Lent. ”
The Times produced some excess of its own. The day after the festivities its report ran to more than ten thousand words, all but a few devoted to the elaborate costumes worn by the great names in attendance. The day before the party a long article speculated on what might be worn: “Miss Marion Langdon will soar as a golden butterfly, while one of her ardent admirers will pursue her as an entomologist.” The most cryptic sentence in this preliminary account was: “Miss Kate Bulkley will congeal into ice.”
On the night of the party, the hostess appeared as a Venetian princess and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt as the Electric Light, in white satin trimmed with diamonds; and there was “a well-known young lady who represented a Cat. The overskirt was made entirely of white cats’ tails sewed on a dark background. The bodice was formed of rows of white cats’ heads and the head-dress was a stiffened white cat’s skin, the head over the forehead of the wearer and the tail pendant behind. ” Throughout the ball, remarked the Times, music wafted from some upper gallery and, “in the words of Emerson, ‘poured on mortals its beautiful disdain.’”
1908 Seventy-five Years Ago
Twenty-five years after Mrs. Vanderbilt’s party—which had become a symbol of wealth and aristocracy—the Bohemians took over. On February 3 there opened at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City an exhibition of “The Eight,” a group consisting of Robert Henri (the master spirit of the occasion), Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William Glackens. Their subject matter was the life they found in the city around them, including tenements, saloons, pool halls, and slums.
As with any movement, a philosophical position was expounded in support of the work and has now become a familiar chapter in art history; what it boiled down to was a uniquely American brand of realism. Luks, Sloan, Glackens, and Shinn all worked as newspaper illustrators and cartoonists, but they, and the rest, had absorbed the lessons of impressionist and postimpressionist painting and were not deluded by any notions of “photographic” transcription. This was not a revolution but a change of course: a few years later The Eight were absorbed into a larger group called the Ashcan school (Holger Cahill and Alfred Barr first used the term in 1934), which included Bellows and Hopper among others.
How was it all received? There was the inevitable conservative reaction, with the phrase “apostles of ugliness” thrown about for a while. But attendance averaged five hundred people a day, and Sloan reported: “We’ve made a success—Davies says an epoch. … Macbeth is pleased as punch.” And none other than Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney bought four of the paintings.
