“History lives only in the persons who created it…. As we look upon their faces, as we learn the stories of their lives, it will live again before us, and we shall stand as witnesses of its great actions.”
–Rev. E.B. Hillard, The Last Men of the Revolution, p. 24.
The Last Men of the American Revolution were photographed in 1864 by a photographer named Roswell A. Moore. This great photograph comes from the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The portraits of the six veterans remaining from the Revolutionary War were taken for a book entitled The Last Men Of The Revolution: A Photograph of Each From Life, Together With Views of Their Homes, Printed in Colors; Accompanied By Brief Biographical Sketches of the Men,, by Rev. E.B. Hilliard. William Hutchins, Daniel Waldo, Adam Link, Alexander Millener, Lemuel Cook, and Samuel Downing were their names. I’ll wait here while you go check your family tree.
Just think: these centenarians not only participated in formative events in American history, but also were probably born 80 years before photography was even available. And yet we know what the last men of the American Revolution looked like. Isn’t that cool?
Visit Kristi Finefield‘s post about this photograph at the Prints and Photographs Division blog by clicking here.
- Study the faces of the Last Men of the Revolution.
- Explore the American Revolution as it was depicted at the time and as later generations pictured it, including the surrender of Lord Cornwallis.
- See images related to American veterans in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
- The Veterans History Project (VHP) of the Library of Congress collects and preserves images, interviews and papers of American war veterans from World War I through the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. If you are a veteran or know one, consider participating in the project. Explore the VHP online database.
Leave a Reply