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Secondary sourcePainting1868

The Peacemakers

George Peter Alexander Healy · 1868

An 1868 painting depicting Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Porter meeting aboard the River Queen in March 1865 to plan the war's end.

This painting shows Grant among the Union leaders planning the Civil War's end aboard the River Queen in 1865.

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Painting of four men in dark military-style uniforms seated in a cabin with green curtains, a patterned rug, and windows showing a rainbow. A man at left gestures with one hand; a bearded officer sits on a bench; a man in a black suit rests his chin on his hand; a bearded officer in a red chair sits at right.
George P. A. Healy, The Peacemakers, 1868. White House collection.

About this source

What it is

This 1868 painting by George P. A. Healy depicts the March 1865 strategy meeting of President Lincoln, General Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter aboard the steamer River Queen near the end of the Civil War. The surviving smaller version has been in the White House collection since 1947, after the original life-size version was destroyed by fire in 1893.

Why it matters

Healy was not present at the meeting; he based the painting on earlier portraits, photographs, and accounts from Sherman and Porter, who had attended. Porter later described the meeting as one on which the course of the war depended. The painting shows how later art shaped public memory of a private, decisive conversation among the Union's top leaders.

Look closer

  • Since Healy was not at the meeting, what choices did he have to make in imagining the scene?
  • What might the rainbow in the painting symbolize, according to Sherman's account?
  • How might the painting differ from what actually happened in the cabin that day?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ulysses S Grant on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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