Stacy Potts, Rall & Others

The Stacy Potts house inhabited by Richard Henry Lee as President of Congress had earlier been the headquarters of the Hessian commander, Col. Johann Rall, who died there of injuries suffered in the Battle of Trenton. Washington famously visited him on his deathbed. Benson J. Lossing, whose Field Book of the American Revolution was a popular success in 1850, copied “a picture by Flagg, in the possession of Joseph C. Potts. Esq., of Trenton. On the right {original text has ‘left’} is seen Generals Washington and Greene; in the center is Mrs. Potts, and near her stands her husband. On the left Colonel Rall reclines upon a couch, and behind him, supporting his pillow, is his servant. I was informed that the portrait of Rall was painted from a description given by a person who knew him, and who pronounced the likeness good, as he remembered him.”

[Credit: engraving by Benson J. Lossing, 1850]