Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Voss, Frederick.
2. Christman, Margaret C. S.
3. Barber, James, 1952-

Description

1. xv, 334 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. (some col.); 29 cm.

Summary

1. Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jefferson Davis, John Brown. We know their names and recall the place of each in our nation's history. But do we recognize their faces and those of the dozens of their contemporaries who forged a new and forward-looking America during the Civil War era? Faces of Discord is a look into the real faces of the leading historical figures of this turbulent and transformative time. Compiled from the collections of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, these depictions include those of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, John S. Mosby, George Armstrong Custer, and many others who were painted, sculpted, and photographed by the foremost artists of the day. More than just pictures in a book, these "faces of discord" represent historical portraits of the period, some of which were once owned by the famous sitters themselves and passed down to the Smithsonian by their descendants. The National Portrait Gallery is a fitting repository for these images, in part because the gallery occupies the building that was used as a barracks and hospital for Federal troops during the war and was the site of Lincoln's second inaugural ball. Faces of Discord also tells the stories of the lives behind the faces that changed the course of American history. Selected exclusively from Smithsonian collections and illustrated within Faces of Discord are rarely seen personal possessions and memorabilia associated with many of these historical figures who still command our attention and so vividly animate these pages.

Subject

1. Washington (D.C.) > National Portrait Gallery
2. 1849-1877
3. Portraits, American
4. United States > History > Civil War, 1861-1865 > Biography
5. United States > History > Civil War, 1861-1865 > Portraits
6. United States > History > 1849-1877 > Biography
7. United States > History > 1849-1877 > Pictorial works

Genre/Form

1. Biographies
2. History
3. Pictorial works
4. Portraits

Contents

1. The Civil War era : a selected chronology -- A question of Union -- The impending crisis -- The Union is dissolved! -- Faces of war -- One nation again -- Mathew Brady's war.

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-305) and index.

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain