1824 - 1886,David Bell Birney1825 - 1864,and their staffs
Named for the hero of the War of 1812, Winfield Scott Hancock graduated from West Point in 1844, where he met Ulysses S. Grant,
George Brinton McClellan,
John F. Reynolds, James Longstreet, George E. Pickett, and Stonewall Jackson. Hancock fought under
General Winfield Scott
in Mexico, and over the next fifteen years served in many important frontier battles in Florida, Kansas, and Utah. When the Civil War began, McClellan named him brigadier general of the volunteers. Just before the Battle of Gettysburg, Hancock was named commander of the II Army Corps, where General George Meade gave him broad authority, and throughout all four days of fighting, he played a crucial role in the defeat of Lee's forces. Hancock fought under Grant in the battles of Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and in his Memoirs, Grant commended Hancock's "personal courage and his presence with his command in the thickest of the fight, [which] won for him the confidence of [his] troops." At Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, Hancock was supported by General David Bell Birney, who appears in this photograph to Hancock's immediate left. This group portrait was made between November 1863 and October 1864; the precise location is not known.See Colonel Ambrose Burnside, and the Officers of the First Rhode Island Regiment
Mathew Brady Studio
Albumen silver print, 1863 - 1864
12.7 x 20.1 cm ( 5 x 7 7/8 inches)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.