Carver Barracks, Washington DC, 1864 University_Virginia A campaign portrait of the

A campaign portrait of the Great Compromiser at the height of his Whig ascendancy

where every dressed stone had to be hoisted through Pacific swell

when the West was still wide enough to run and nearly done being wild

his shoulder straps speaking the language of a republic that promoted its politicians into uniform

hushed window before Leverrier's mathematics dragged the eighth planet from the dark

Carver Barracks, Washington DC, 1864 University_Virginia A campaign portrait of theCarver Barracks, Washington DC, 1864 a wartime view of the convalescent hospital wards that ringed the capital, where Union soldiers mended within sight of the unfinished Capitol dome. The image carries the quiet ledger keeping of a city turned garrison, its tents and barracks pitched against the long arithmetic of casualty lists. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the