Individual Details

Event

At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a member of the Governor's Foot Guards, (comp. 2 organized March 2, 1775). at noon on April 20,1775, when the news of the skirmish at Lexington was recrived at New Haven, Benedict Arnold, the captain of this company, summoned his men and proposed starting immediately for the seat of trouble. Amos was among nearly 40 volunteers who determined to go. Arnold requested the town authorities to furnish his soldiers with ammunition. They refused, and this determined leader marched his men to the house, where the selectmen were in session, formed a line in front and sent word that, if the keys to the powder house were not delivered to him within five minutes, he would order his company to break it open and help themselves. The keys were given up, the powder procured and soon the volunteers were on their march for Cambridge. On the way they were joined by General Putnam who left his plow in the furrow.
Mr Earl, a portrait painter, was in the company, and he and Amos went out to Lexington and Concord as soon as they reached the patriot camp. At these places they made four drawings (or paintings), represting as many views of the opening scenes in the great revoluntionary contest now fully begun. They had the help of eye witnesses to the engagements, and, according to Amos, he sometimes acted as a model for Earl when making the pictures, so that when he wished to represent one of the provincials as loading his gun or crouching behind a stonewall when firing on the enemy, Amos would put himself in such a position.
Amos ingeniously conceived the idea of engraving these scenes on copper for preparing prints, and on returning to New Haven gave a part of the ensuing summer to the task with phenominal success. The New Haven Journal of Dec. 13, 1775, had the following advertisement: " THIS DAY PUBLISHED,
And to be sold at the store of Mr James Lockwood near the College in New Haven Four different Views of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, etc., on the 19th day of April, 1775.
Plate 1. The Battle of Lexington.
Plate 2. A view of the town of Concord wih the ministerial troops destroying the stores.
Plate 3. The Battle of the North Bridge in Concord.
Plate 4. The South part of Lexington where the first detachment were joined by Lord Percy.
The above plates are neatly engraved on Copper, from original paintings taken on the spot. Price six shillings per set for the plain ones or eight shillings colored."
These were the first copper engravings made in America, and, if we except an engraving of the massacre at Boston in 1770, and the landing of the British in Boston in 1774, by Paul Revere, these prints may be considered as the first regular series of historical engravings published on this side of the Atlantic. Aside from marking an epoch in American art these famous engravings are of greatest historical value, in that they are from sketches made on the spot so soon after the day's fighting, with all the assistance to be had from persons present at the engagements. They are 12 by 18 inches in size and truthfully depict the apperance of the surroundings at the time, in which respect they are the historians' sole reliance. Though rather quaint in perspective and execution, they are regarded as the most nearly accurate representations of the actions on that remarkable day which have ever been made.
They appear to have made quite a sensation, particulary "The Battle of Lexington," where eight of the provincials are represented as shot down, with the blood pouring from their wounds - the first American blood shed, the first American life taken, the opening of the great drama of the Revolution! The plates were long since destroyed and but few of the original prints are known to exist. They are very valuable and practically unprocurable. One set is preserved in the Cary Library at Lexington. Several reproductions of them have been made , the latest by Sidney L. Smith for Charles E. Goodspeed of Boston (75 numbered sets are issued at $37.50 each). They are also redrawn in the centennial edition of Jonas Clark's Narrative; in Frank Moor's Ballad History; in Potter's American Monthly, April, 1875; in Antique planatory text by Rev. E. G. Porter as Four Drawings of the Engagement at Lexington and Concord, (Boston). A series in fac simile much reduced in size are given in this part (3) of the The Doolittle History.
As time passed Amos' success increased and he produced a number of different engravings, several on historical subjects. His picture of Washington in the Conn. Magazine Jan., 1801, was after the popular Stuart likeness. He assisted abel Buel in engraving Homan's map of this country. He applied himself industriously to the business of engraving more than half a century. His works are still highly valued. The engraving of the "Battle of Lexington" was the subject of his earliest efforts in this branch of art, and it is not a little singular that his last day's labor with the burin, nearly 60 years later in1832, was in assisting his pupil John W. Barber, the historian, on a reduced copy of the same picture for Barber's History of New Haven.
A writer says of him: "If he has never attained the perfection which the art of engraving has reached in the United States, he has at least the merit of having first without other assiatance than his genius opened this career to American artist." Indeed, he has recently been called "the father of the art (of engraving) in this country." Besides him there were in 1775 only three engravers in the Colonies, namely Paul Revere and Nath'l Hurd of Boston with Smithers of Philadelphia.