return WINFIELD SCOTT (1786-1866) by Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889) Winfield Scott rose to prominence in the War of 1812 and gained fame in the Mexican War, when he invaded Mexico by sea in 1847 and conquered Mexico City. In 1852 he was the Whig Party's unsuccessful candidate for President. When Robert Walter Weir, a painter of portraits, landscapes, and historical works, painted Scott's portrait in 1855, he was professor of drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point. There are five very similar versions of this image, including one that was commissioned by the superintendent of West Point for the academy, believing that "the features of one who has done so much for his country, and so much to illustrate, before that Country, the value of the Military Academy, should be familiar to every Cadet and had in remembrance by every Graduate." Oil on canvas, circa 1855 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution NPG.95.52 return