Description

PUBLICATION DETAILS:  9” w x 10”h on 11” w x 16”h sheet. This is an engraving published in Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. V. – No. 255.  New York, Saturday, November 16, 1861.Members of the cabinet are identified in the lower margin. Text above image is continued verso.
 
BACKGROUND: BACKGROUND: Winfield Scott was born in 1786 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia.  In 1846 President James K. Polk and 60-year-old General Winfield Scott came up with a new campaign to end the Mexican War.  It involved an amphibious landing on the Gulf of Mexico at Vera Cruz followed by a quick thrust at Mexico City. In preparation for the Siege of Veracruz, Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in the history of the United States. Some 12,000 soldiers offloaded supplies, weapons and horses near the walled city.   Included in the invading force were Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  Their success at Vera Cruz opened the way for conquest of Mexico City, and Winfield Scott became an American national hero. 
 
SCOTT. Winfield Scott was Union General-in-Chief at the beginning of the Civil War.  But the 75-year-old Scott knew he was unable to go into battle himself.  He was too large to mount or ride his horse.  He offered the command of the US Army to Colonel Robert E. Lee, but Lee declined and instead, resigned from the US Army to serve the Confederacy.  On November 1, 1861, after another Union battlefield defeat, Lincoln accepted General Scott’s standing offer to resign. Thirty-five-year-old George Brinton McClellan (1826-1885) succeeded Scott the same day. 
 
 CONDITION: Lightly toned (direct from scanner July 2024). Very good.
 
Z9P003