Sale 2486, Part I - The Harold Holzer Collection of Lincolniana, September 27, 2018

53 c   (PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS.) Reinhart, Charles S.; artist. [A Council in the Cabin of the Miami.] Pencil on paper with a few highlights in white, 13 3 / 4 x 16 1 / 4 inches, signed “Reinhart” at lower left; mount remnants on verso and margins. Np, [1878] [2,000/3,000] This original piece of illustration art depicts Lincoln as Commander in Chief taking control of the faltering Peninsular Campaign. As the Confederates slowly retreated toward a better defensive position near Richmond, McClellan seemed reluctant to press the advantage. Lincoln arrived at the front on 6 May 1862, and directed an attack on Norfolk from the revenue cutter Miami. It was the only time during the war when Lincoln took personal command of the troops. This 1878 drawing imagines the scene. Lincoln stands pointing at a chart on the table with (left to right) General Egbert Viele, Secretary of the Treasury Chase, and Secretary of War Stanton. The illustrator Charles Stanley Reinhardt (1844-1896) was commissioned to provide the drawing by Scribner’s New Monthly Magazine to accompany General Viele’s reminiscences of the war; the resulting engraving ran under the title “A Council in the Cabin of the Miami” in the October 1878 issue. It was later used in William O. Stoddard’s 1896 “Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life,” page 210.