This landscape is by Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, an artist who captured American Civil War battle scenes for publications such as Harper's Weekly and the Illustrated London News. Thompson composed both engraved illustrations and paintings. This particular painting depicts the October 20, 1861 cannon fire across the Potomac River near Ball's Bluff and Leesburg in Virginia and Harrison Island and Edwards Ferry in Maryland that was a precursor to the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21st.

This painting by George Peter Alexander Healy depicts a meeting late in the Civil War. In the cabin of the steamer The River Queen are seated (from left to right) Major General William T. Sherman, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, President Abraham Lincoln, and Rear Admiral David D. Porter. The meeting took place in March 1865 on the James River in City Point, Virginia, less than a week before the fall of Petersburg, Virginia. According to Porter, the discussion flowed mostly between Lincoln and Sherman, which is reflected in all four subjects' body languages. Sherman previously sat for a portrait by Healy and commissioned the artist to paint the meeting, providing him with first-hand accounts by himself and Porter as well as a diagram of the cabin. Born in Boston, Massachussetts, Healy was a popular portrait painter who sketched and painted Lincoln multiple times during his presidency.

This portrait by Edward Troye is of John Hartwell Cocke II, who built Bremo Plantation in Bremo Bluff, Virginia. Today, Bremo Plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the painting, Cocke is horseback in military regalia with the American flag draped over a cannon by the horse's front legs and tents, possibly military barracks, in the distance. Troye was a Swiss-born painter who specialized in painting thoroughbred horses.

A landscape painting by artist William Matthew Prior in the style of S.H. Brooke. This painting depicts the high hillside of Mount Vernon, President George Washington's estate in Virginia. To the left of center is the yellow and white brick tomb of President George Washington, behind the tomb is his estate, and to the right is the Potomac River. Prior was an American folk artist mostly known for portraits.