150th Commemoration of the Civil War: the Death of Ellsworth August 15, 2011

This exhibition recounts the death of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth in Alexandria, VA. Ellsworth, a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, was the first Union officer to be killed in the four-year-long struggle. Throughout the Civil War his name, face and heroism was recalled in stationery, sheet music and memorial lithographs. Francis E. Brownell, the soldier who mortally avenged Ellsworth's assailant, bequeathed several artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution, including the weapons used in the incident and Brownell's Congressional Medal of Honor. The exhibition will bring together a select grouping of once-prized mementoes, including portraits of Ellsworth and Lincoln, as well as Alonzo Chappel's historic painting, 'The Death of Ellsworth.'