Thomas Buchanan Read

Thomas Buchanan Read 1822–1872

Born Corner Ketch, Pennsylvania

During his lifetime, Thomas Buchanan Read earned international accolades for his poetry, painting, and sculpture. The subject of one of Read’s best-known poems and his most famous painting (now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery) was “Sheridan’s Ride.” Both works celebrated Union Army General Philip Sheridan’s breakneck, twenty-mile gallop through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to rally his troops at the Battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864.

Acquired in 1965, this portrait of Read was the first daguerreotype to enter the museum’s collection.