A pioneer of modern warfare, William Tecumseh Sherman graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1840. He began his Civil War career as a colonel and, under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, became a major general after the Battle of Shiloh. Their success in the Vicksburg and Chattanooga campaigns made them rising stars in the North. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September 1864 was a major blow to the Confederacy and a significant factor in Lincoln's reelection in November. Sherman then implemented his philosophy of psychological warfare and property destruction by having his army march through Georgia to Savannah. The Gallery's portrait, one of three that are virtually identical, was painted after the war, and belonged to Sherman, who commissioned a pendant portrait of his wife from Healy in 1868.

George Peter Alexander Healy (1813-1894)
Oil on canvas, 1866
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Transfer from the National Museum of American Art; gift of P. Tecumseh Sherman, 1935
NPG.65.40

Enlarged image

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