On the southern wall of the Faculty Room in Nassau Hall hangs the 1784 portrait “George Washington at the Battle of Princeton” painted by Charles Willson Peale. Popular legend maintains that the gilded frame holding this portrait once contained a painting of King George II before a cannonball fired from Alexander Hamilton’s battery during the Battle of Princeton decapitated the King as it crashed through one of the windows of Nassau Hall. Peale, himself a soldier during the war, fought for the Pennsylvania militia at both the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. His artwork during and after the revolution “put a face” on the war.
