The subject was the wife of William H. Scott.

One of Rogers' best-known and most highly praised works, Wounded Scout: A Friend in the Swamp depicts a Civil War Union scout who has been shot in the arm while on a mission in Southern territory and is weak from loss of blood. An escaped slave has come to his assistance and is guiding him through the swamp. Rogers had developed a nationwide reputation in just a few years for his small narrative groups depicting Civil War themes, but up to this point they had for the most part been amusing scenes of soldiers among themselves, such as The Camp Fire: Making Friends with the Cook (1936.714), or comforting vignettes of civilian life, such as the scene of flirtation titled The Town Pump (1932.101). Wounded Scout shows a soldier in genuine peril and addresses sensitive questions of race at the forefront of American minds both during and after the war. The sculptor had recently increased the size of his groups, and here he presented a simplified composition of two standing figures who, though small, project a gravity and pathos that belie their size. The soldier is dressed in uniform with a "U.S." insignia clearly visible on his belt and the strap of his cartridge box. He has torn open his sleeve and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his arm, and the veins of his forearm bulge from the constriction as it hangs uselessly at his side. He appears faint as he leans on the shoulder of the black man whom Rogers described as an escaped slave. In a perhaps unprecedented move, Rogers heroized the black man. Though ragged and barefoot, he is tall and muscular. He supports the soldier protectively and looks up with an alert, commanding gaze. A copperhead snake is coiled next to his left foot, which, in Rogers' words, is "raising its head to strike the negro while he is doing this friendly act." The snake was a clear reference to Northern copperheads, politicians who opposed the Union war effort. Rogers released Wounded Scout at a particularly portentous moment in the war; General Ulysses S. Grant had suspended prisoner exchanges just a few months before, and a group of Union soldiers escaped from Libby Prison only weeks earlier. Rogers' depiction of a soldier injured, vulnerable, and, until his rescue, alone, would have struck an emotional chord for those with heightened concerns about their loved ones being captured. The artist sent copies to President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, and in appreciation Lincoln sent his often quoted reply: "I can not pretend to be a judge in such matters; but the Statuette group 'Wounded Scout'-'Friend in the Swamp' is . . . excellent as a piece of art." Rogers' daring depiction of a strong, brave, and capable African American man sparked considerable discussion and revealed American concerns about freed slaves and their role in American society. The abolitionist poet Lydia Marie Child called it "a significant lesson of human brotherhood for all the coming ages." A Brooklyn writer betrayed stubbornly entrenched paternalistic stereotypes, praising how Rogers recognized "in a noble and touching manner, the service of the hitherto despised black race," which he characterized as "faithful, helpful, and uncomplaining." The sculpture was popular for many years after war, and it remained in Rogers' sales catalogue until almost the end of his career. It continued to function not only as an imposing work of art but also an agent of political dialogue during the difficult and contentious years of Reconstruction. In 1868 the New York Evening Mail called it a "powerful argument of the rights of the negro, and has had a wider influence than the most labored speeches of [Senator Charles] Sumner, or [the abolitionist Wendell] Phillips, or [Senator Benjamin] Wade." In 1872 the art critic Benson J. Lossing felt it necessary to elevate the white man by explaining the challenges of scout duty, which was given only to the finest soldiers, and he subtly suggested that the black man could not be credited with courage or intelligence because slaves often helped Union soldiers "more through the natural kindness of his heart than from any partizan [sic] feeling." The Civil War general Joseph R. Hawley summed up its multivalent meanings and emotional force when he declared that "Nothing relating to the war in painting or sculpture" ever surpassed it.

The centennial year can be said to mark the pinnacle of Rogers' success. He exhibited twenty-nine of his groups at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, and his popularity allowed him to open a new showroom on Broadway and Twenty-third Street. Rogers' crowning success of 1876 was Weighing the Baby, one of his best-loved sculptures. A young mother has taken her newborn to the local general store to have it weighed, and the proprietor leans over the scales, removing his glasses in a gesture of disbelief at the high number that the scales indicate. Unbeknownst to either of them, a roguish boy has grabbed the baby's blanket and is pulling the scale down to make it register the incredible weight. Rogers turned to his own growing family for models for this lighthearted domestic episode, namely, his wife, Hattie, their six-year-old son, Charlie, and their newborn son, David. He placed them on a square base that suggests a stage. Small objects such as cans and brushes serve as props to indicate the store setting. The artist cleverly placed his figures so that the mother and the merchant cannot see the mischievous boy's trickery, but the viewer can, as if he or she is an audience member seeing a bit of comic business downstage left. Critics relished retelling the joke in their descriptions of the sculpture, and the suggested narrative was so irresistible that one writer regretted that Rogers could not continue the action and show the boy being discovered and fleeing. However, these theatrical devices stop short of becoming a caricatured vaudeville skit, because Rogers' sincere and affectionate portrayals of his family soften the humor. Weighing the Baby was an immediate hit. Rogers introduced the sculpture for the 1876 holiday season, and his initial stock sold out before Christmas. Responses to the new group in contemporary periodicals show a shift in how the sculptor's works were perceived. Rogers purposely released new sculptures each year in time for the holiday season, and in 1876 they were discussed as much in terms of their suitability as gifts as for their artistic merits. One writer wished "everybody would consider how much better such an artistic work is for an investment than the multitude of trash sold at holiday time." The present-day scholar Melissa Dabakis called this group, "funny, lighthearted, and optimistic . . . emblematic of the imagery demanded by a reform-weary public in Gilded Age America." Reassuring domestic subjects like this one are often considered typical of Rogers' work. Their very popularity, though a mark of the wide-ranging esteem he enjoyed in his time, ultimately worked against Rogers' posthumous reputation by overshadowing the broad scope of his oeuvre.

Board games are a recurring theme in Rogers' work, particularly the game of checkers. In 1855 he modeled a small clay group after the painting The Card Players by the English genre painter Sir David Wilkie. He reprised the theme a few years later, in 1859-60. He returned to the subject once again in 1875, and instead of creating a simple variation on a well-known English theme, he developed a much more sophisticated composition that addresses uniquely American class issues and demonstrates how much he had matured as an artist, both technically and intellectually, in the intervening years. Rogers' 1859-60 Checker Players (1949.276, 1936.717) offers a simple vignette of two rural men, one old and one young, with the younger crowing over his anticipated victory. In this later version, the opponents are pointedly differentiated by class. Rogers' sales catalogue described the two men as "a gentleman who has gone up to the farm with his wife and baby" and "the farmer, who has forced his opponent's pieces into positions where they cannot be moved without being taken." The older player is a well-to-do city dweller, as can be seen by his suit, spats, and fashionable muttonchops. He stoops over the game board and holds a fan at his side, a feminine accessory that slightly compromises his masculinity. The young farmer across from him sits bolt upright, full of energy. He is clean-shaven and simply dressed in shirtsleeves and sturdy boots. He points out his winning position to the gentleman with a hearty laugh. Checkers Up at the Farm struck a chord with Americans; it was Rogers' most popular group next to Coming to the Parson, selling about five thousand plasters. Rogers included it in his contribution to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition; ever the canny marketer, he was no doubt aware that a subject embracing rural America would prove highly popular with the many millions who descended on Philadelphia's Fairmount Park from all parts of the country. Written responses to the group reflect its appeal to the general public. Critics relished telling the tale of the simple farmer besting the sophisticated urbanite with native unspoiled intelligence, describing the men's garb and behavior in detail. During this period class differences grew ever more marked, and populations were increasingly concentrated in cities. In addition, concerns were building about the effects of cloistered, sedentary, office life on the modern man's masculinity. Rogers' vignette offered an affirmation of native Yankee intelligence and the virtues of country life in the person of the clever, virile farmer. Rogers' new 1875 composition is considerably more complex than the one he presented fifteen years before. The mastery of texture and detail, human anatomy and expression that he developed in the intervening years is remarkable. He also added two figures in the form of the city gentleman's wife and baby. The artist's wife, Hattie, posed as the attractive, well-dressed woman who watches the game with interest and holds their baby, who plays at trying to kick the checkers off the game board. At first glance they seem superfluous, but Rogers explained in his sales catalogue that they were on a family visit. Perhaps his intention was to soften his critique of class differences by making the urban man more sympathetic through his fatherly role. Though press notices rarely pointed it out, the city gentleman takes his defeat with an expression of good humor. His easy and benevolent acknowledgment of his country opponent's virtues allowed both urban and rural Americans to share the joke.

The subject of this portrait was the youngest of eleven children of Robert Dodge (1779-1825) and Eliza Pollock (Fowler) Dodge (1783-1863) of Bayside, Long Island. His father was a member of the New York Fire Dept. and a sachem of the Tammany Society. Robert Dodge was the author of "Tristram Dodge and His Descendants in America," and was a life member of the Society.

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. In this group Rogers touched on nineteenth-century Americans' enjoyment of puzzles and tricks. He conveyed the narrative through a dynamic pyramidal composition that spirals downward from the magician, to his audience of an older man with a boy on his knee (likely modeled after Rogers' son Charlie), to the prestidigitator's sleepy assistant (modeled after his daughter Katherine). The debonair magician has taken the older man's hat and brought forth a number of objects from it, including the gun, the wig, and the loaf of bread on his table, and he is producing his pièce de résistance, a rabbit. Rogers portrayed him as a dubious and even devilish character: the sign on his cabinet advertises him as "Mons Cheatum, the great magician," and his hair forms two curls that resemble horns. Rogers had used this device to deliver a much more serious message about the evils of slavery when he included such curls on the auctioneer in The Slave Auction of 1859, and the faces, hair, and dress of the magician and the auctioneer strongly resemble one another. Each also stands behind a rostrum with a sign explaining his enterprise. It is surprising that Rogers would borrow from such a somber subject for this lighthearted satire, but the character here lacks any malevolent intent; he simply seeks to astonish and entertain-and make a few dollars. The older man wears an expression of incredulity, holding his kerchief to his head as he puzzles over how the objects could have materialized from his hat. The boy on his knee smiles in unmitigated delight. Contemporary writers understood that the man, though a rural type, was not foolishly taken in. Rather, he was trying to figure out how the trick was accomplished. Rogers may have been thinking of the master of such trickery, the showman P. T. Barnum, whose traveling circus presented such wonders to the public as the Fee Jee mermaid. A few years before Barnum had convinced Rogers to include his sculptures in Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair (to the artist's later dismay). Recent scholars have pointed out that Americans flocked to Barnum's shows, not with a sense of credulity, but with skepticism, and their enjoyment was derived, not from determining whether what he claimed was true, but rather how he was able to present the marvels so convincingly. In the same spirit, the boy in Rogers' sculpture may express wonderment at the magician's feat, but the man is intent on working out the mechanics behind it. The viewer's eye continues down and around the composition to the magician's assistant. Knowing the trick, she is so unimpressed that she has fallen asleep out of boredom. Rogers' sculptures were usually meant to be enjoyed from all sides and sometimes included extra details that reinforced the narrative provided by the front view. In this case, Rogers continued the compositional spiral around to the back of the sculpture to reveal an important element of the story. Behind the table a hand protrudes from between the folds of the covering ready to hand a dove to the magician. Rogers slyly revealed the trick in such a subtle way that many viewers, used to being able to grasp his stories quickly, may not have even noticed it. In fact, it appears that contemporary writers did not notice the hand, with the possible exception of one who advised that the group "will repay repeated examination and close scrutiny." Rogers, usually so forthright in telling his stories, here indulged in a bit of mischief himself, challenging his viewers to play along with the magician with the reward of discovering his trick, if they were alert and persistent.

Isaac Drummond received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1879 and went on to become a noted chemist specializing in colors and dyes. His interest in the arts led to his election to the board of directors of the New York School of Applied Design for Women in 1906. In addition, he was a member of the Council of the National Sculpture Society from its founding in 1893. This portrait bust was a gift to the Society from his nephew.