Peace in Union

Installation Information

Thomas Nast, father of the modern version of Santa Claus and the elephant as symbol for the GOP, was a 19th century political cartoonist. Peace in Union, commissioned by Chicago Times Herald and Chicago Evening Post owner Herman Henry Kohlsaat in 1894, depicts the end of the U.S. Civil War with Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865. Upon its completion in 1895, the work was presented as a gift to the citizens of Galena, Illinois, from where Grant as well as eight other Union Generals hailed. The Galena-Jo Daviess County Historical Society holds the original nine-foot high by twelve-foot wide oil painting.