Existing comment:
Elmer Ellsworth:
Like much Civil War portraiture, this painting of Elmer Ellsworth was done posthumously and by an unidentified artist. Still, the likeness of the twenty-four-year-old Zouave commander is quite accurate and is based on a Mathew Brady photograph taken about 1861. The frock coat is of special interest because it is an exact copy of the uniform Ellsworth was wearing that fateful morning. The uniform is now preserved at the New York State Military Museum; the half-dollar-size hole from the shotgun lies roughly between the second and third buttons down, on the left side of the coat. The lighter blue on the cuff is indicative of an infantry officer (cavalrymen wore yellow and artillerymen, red). In a gesture to Ellsworth's patriotism, the artist painted an American flag over his elbow, not the Confederate Stars and Bars that he was carrying when he descended the shadowy stairs of the hotel.
Unidentified artist, after Matthew Brady, after 1861
Anthony P Collins |