Ellsworth Featured in National Portrait Gallery
ELLSWORTH FEATURED IN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Paul J. Loatman, Jr., Ph. D. Mechanicville City Historian April 13, 2011
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., will mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War by presenting four alcove exhibitions-one each year-commemorating that fateful period in our nation’s history. The displays, conducted at the site of a former Union army hospital, will be initiated with an exhibition commemorating “The Death of Ellsworth,” running from April 29, 2011 through March 18, 2012. This presentation will focus on the short life of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, the Union’s first casualty. News of the sudden passing of Abraham Lincoln’s young friend who once lived at the Presidential Mansion shocked the public. After ordering that Ellsworth’s body lie in state in the White House, Lincoln and members of his Cabinet marched behind the caisson carrying the young hero’s body through the streets of the Capital while tens of thousands of mourners watched the doleful procession in silence. The national press reported every detail of the final journey of Ellsworth’s body as it made its way home to its final resting place in Hudson View Cemetery in his hometown of Mechanicville.
Ellsworth’s name became a rallying cry for tens of thousands of young recruits who enlisted in the Union forces, and his sacrifice was recalled in stationery, sheet music, and memorial lithographs throughout the era. His “avenger,” Francis Brownell, who mortally wounded Ellsworth’s assailant, donated many artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution, including the weapons used in the fatal incident that occurred on May 24, 1861. Among the once-prized mementoes included in the upcoming display are “postal covers” depicting Ellsworth’s death; Matthew Brady photographs of the young hero as well as Brownell; the Congressional Medal of Honor subsequently awarded to Brownell for avenging the young hero; and pieces of bloodstained floor covering where Ellsworth fell, along with a fragment of the Confederate flag that the Colonel had removed from the Marshall House in Alexandria, the action that led to his death. The exhibition will also display the shotgun that the innkeeper, Henry Jackson, used to kill Ellsworth, as well as Brownell’s model 1855 percussion rifle he used to cut down the assailant.
Here in Mechanicville, the 150th anniversary of Ellsworth’s death will be commemorated with a re-enactment of his funeral in Hudson View Cemetery on Sunday, May 15th, at 9:00 a.m. Following these ceremonies, the U.S. Postal Service will maintain a “postal station” on site at the Cemetery to issue specially-engraved “Ellsworth stamp cancellations” available only in Mechanicville on this date. Further information regarding all of these activities will be made available in coming weeks, and additional stories regarding Ellsworth’s life and death will appear in subsequent editions.