 This
engraving is one of the earliest of Ulysses S. Grant.
It was engraved and published in 1864, shortly after his
promotion to Lieutenant General and promotion on March
9, 1864 by President Lincoln to the command of all Union
Armies.
The engraving is extraordinary in may ways. It is
very scarce, being the only example that I have been
able to locate in any published collections, to include
the holdings of the Smithsonian National Portrait
Gallery and the New York Public Library. It is not a
bookplate, but a larger sized engraving made to market
as a portrait on its own merits. It is one of the
most youthful images of Grant, and one of extremely high
quality stipple engraving that gives the print a
photographic, life-like quality. Grant's full
dress uniform is magnificent and unusual; typically we
see Grant in photos and engravings in his field uniform
with shoulder epaulettes. Here we see him with his
braided shoulder boards, embroidered collar, dress
buttons and eagle buckled belt. The two sheets of
paper on the table next to Grant read Donelson, a
reference to Grant's victory at Fort Donelson on
February 16, 1862, and Vicksburg, Grant's greatest
victory early in the war on July 4, 1863, for which
Grant was promoted to Major General.
At the time of this
engraving Grant was just 42 years old. He was now
solely responsible for commanding the entire Union Army
with the objective of defeating General Robert E. Lee
and the Confederacy to preserve the Union. The
gravity of the situation and the weight of the great
tasks ahead are clearly visible in his eyes. This
is not victorious General Grant of the post-war era,
this is newly promoted General Grant in a time when his
personal fate, and the fate of the Union, was still
unknown. |
