Oil on canvas; 96.5 x 121.9 cm (38 x 48 in). Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Jonathan Trumbull Jr. (1740—1809) was the older brother of John Trumbull. A politician like his father, he was the second Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
But what set [Baron von] Steuben apart from his contemporaries was his schooling under Frederick the Great, Prince Henry, and a dozen other general officers. He had learned from the best soldiers in the world how to gather and assess intelligence, how to read and exploit terrain, how to plan marches, camps, battles and entire campaigns. He gleaned more from his seventeen years in the Prussian military than most professional soldiers would in a lifetime. In the Seven Years’ War alone, he built up a record of professional education that none of his future comrades in the Continental Army — Horatio Gates, Charles Lee, the Baron Johann de Kalb, and Lafayette included — could match.