Former Alcove 1 Wall Cases

Painted from life in Washington, D.C., in the closing months of the Civil War, this portrait of Lincoln was commissioned by Horatio G. Wright, a Union Army engineer and general. It was the second time Lincoln had posed for artist George Frederick Wright (no relation to the general). Four years earlier, another portrait sitting in Springfield, Illinois, resulted in Wright’s notable image of a newly elected, unbearded Lincoln. That painting, also part of the William E. Barton collection, hangs on the wall above the credenza just inside the door to your left. 

To oppose Lincoln’s re-election in 1864, the Democratic Party nominated General George B. McClellan, who had been dismissed from his command of the Army of the Potomac by President Lincoln. Taking advantage of war weariness and resentment over emancipation, McClellan and the Democrats campaigned for a prompt end to hostilities and negotiations that might allow slave-holding Southern states to rejoin the Union.

From its plant on Dock Street in Philadelphia, Henry Leisenring’s firm generated a steady stream of printed matter of all types, including certificates, posters, handbills, tickets, vouchers, and ledger books. This broadside was one of a series that Leisenring printed after Lincoln’s assassination, each version of the lithograph bearing the same portrait of Lincoln and a different title such as “We Mourn Our Nation’s Loss” or “Fallen but Enshrined.”