The Civil War

When Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois, for Washington D.C., and his inauguration as president, he was under no illusions about the task that faced him and his administration. In his farewell address to his hometown, he said, he left here with "a task before me greater than that which rested upon George Washington." The new president's hopes of a peaceful reconciliation of the crisis were dashed by the outbreak of war in April 1861. Initially both sides were confident that each would achieve a short, sharp, and painless victory over the other. Both sides were wrong. The Civil War, the first industrial war, ground on for four years. As Lincoln managed the war, he changed the terms on which the war was fought, transforming it into a war that insisted that the Union could only be restored through "a new birth of freedom" for all Americans.

 

             
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageLincoln's First Inaugural, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1861
Unidentified artist
Salted-paper print
  Click to enlarge image Abraham Lincoln, 1861
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print

  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln and George McClellan, 1862 (printed c. 1890)
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1863
Thomas Le Mere at the Mathew Brady Studio
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1863
"Passage Through Baltimore" Adalbert John Volck
Etching
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, November 8, 1863
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, c. 1864
Pierre Morand
Ink and opaque white gouache on paper
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1864
Anthony Berger at the Mathew Brady Studio
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1864
Anthony Berger at the Mathew Brady Studio
Modern albumen print from 1864 wet-plate collodion negative
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1864
Mathew Brady Studio
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1864
Mathew Brady
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Anthony Berger
Albumen silver print
 
 

 

 

         
    Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Lewis E. Walker
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1860
Leonard Volk
Plaster life mask, 1917 cast after 1860 original
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Clark Mills
Plaster, c. 1917 cast after 1865 original
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Henry F. Warren
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham Lincoln, 1865
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageLincoln's Second Inaugural, March 4, 1865
Unidentified artist
  Click to enlarge imageProclamation of Emancipation
William Roberts, after Mathew Brady
Wood engraving with one tint, 1864
 
 

 

 

         
  Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image   Lincoln exhibition image  
  Click to enlarge imageFirst Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation
Alexander Hay Ritchie, after Francis Bicknell Carpenter
Stipple engraving, 1866
  Click to enlarge imageAbraham and Tad Lincoln, February 5, 1865
Alexander Gardner
Albumen silver print
  Click to enlarge imageRichmond, Virginia, April 1865
Lambert Hollis
Ink wash over graphite
 
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