Skip to content
Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox / Alonzo Chappel (American, 1828-1887), 'Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox,' circa 1870, oil on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Nancy L. Ross in memory of Patricia Firestone Chatham. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian

Smithsonian features Civil War generals Grant, Lee in exhibition

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson

Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox / Alonzo Chappel (American, 1828-1887), 'Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox,' circa 1870, oil on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Nancy L. Ross in memory of Patricia Firestone Chatham. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian
Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox / Alonzo Chappel (American, 1828-1887), ‘Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox,’ circa 1870, oil on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Nancy L. Ross in memory of Patricia Firestone Chatham. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian
WASHINGTON (AP) – The National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian is continuing a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with a new exhibit focusing on the two generals who led Confederate and Union troops into battle.

The museum opened its latest “One Life” exhibit series last week with a gallery devoted to Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. It will be on view through May 2015.

The show uses images mostly from the National Portrait Gallery collection, including photographs, documentary drawings and artist renderings of important events during the final year of the war. It also includes the death mask of each man’s face. A key painting is Winslow Homer’s “Skirmish in the Wilderness” from Connecticut’s New Britain Museum of American Art.

The Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865.

#   #   #

Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox / Alonzo Chappel (American, 1828-1887), 'Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox,' circa 1870, oil on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Nancy L. Ross in memory of Patricia Firestone Chatham. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian
Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox / Alonzo Chappel (American, 1828-1887), ‘Lee Surrendering to Grant at Appomattox,’ circa 1870, oil on paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Nancy L. Ross in memory of Patricia Firestone Chatham. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian