Alexander Hamilton Stephens, 11 Feb 1812 - 4 Mar 1883 Search this
Medium:
Chromolithograph on paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 33.5 x 25.7 cm (13 3/16 x 10 1/8")
Mat: 45.7 × 35.6 cm (18 × 14")
Type:
Print
Date:
1882
Exhibition Label:
Born near Crawfordville, Georgia
As vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens held a position that he considered beneath his political talents, and he quickly grew frustrated in the job. In 1863 he tried—unsuccessfully—to negotiate prisoner-of-war exchanges with federal authorities. In February 1865, during a peace negotiation with President Abraham Lincoln—a venture doomed to fail from the start—he prevailed successfully upon Lincoln, an old Whig Party friend, to win the release of his nephew from a Union prison. After the war, Stephens spent five months in a northern prison. Between 1873 and 1882 he served in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected governor of Georgia. Plagued by ill health for most of his adult life, Stephens died at the start of his governorship. This lithograph, which appeared in Puck magazine, depicts the ailing congressman in 1882.