For Horatio Gates (1728–1806) Stuart created an idealized military likeness that endowed the Hero of Saratoga with elegance and monumentality. In a tour de force of compositional arrangement, Stuart stacked the general's hands to manifest at once his gentility—the well-groomed fingers and partially open right palm—and his virility—the fist that clutches his sword. Gates reported that he enjoyed sitting for Stuart and bantering, "with glass after glass of the celebrated painter's plentiful Madeira."