Thomas Nast (1840-1902), considered the “father of American political cartooning,” created a series of 33 monumental paintings titled The Grand Caricaturama, which was an illustrated history of the United States as told by Nast, in part, in response to the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Nast created The Grand Caricaturama as political theatre. From 1867-1868, he showed these paintings, each measuring approximately 7 x 11 feet, on stage in New York City and Boston accompanied by commentary and live music.

“The Last Ditch” and “The Palace of Tears,” on display here, are two of eight from the series known to have survived. Another one, “Swinging ‘Round the Circle’,” is on public display two blocks from MHHM at the Morristown & Morris Township Public Library. The remaining 5 paintings have been in storage at the Library of Congress since their last public display at The Whitney Museum of American Art, in NYC, in 1973.

Public memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction continue to inform American political, cultural, and civic life. In 1867, just two years after the surrender at Appomattox, Thomas Nast painted “The Last Ditch" and "The Palace of Tears" as stage backdrops for his historical commentary performed as political theater.

These paintings resonate because they embody themes that are at the root of many current national civic debates.

Conservation and framing of these paintings was funded by a generous grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission. High School Programming has been developed around the caricaturamas thanks to a generous grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

To learn about The Last Ditch click on The Last Ditch below.

To learn about The Palace of Tears click on The Palace of Tears below.

"The Last Ditch" depicts Union commander General Ulysses S. Grant and General Philip Sheridan on horseback in pursuit of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Nast shows Grant with cigar in mouth, calmly and with firm resolve downing the over-life-sized figure of Lee and beheading him. Lee, who has fallen from his horse and broken his bloodied sword, looks back at Grant fully aware of defeat. In the prone, disarmed figure of Lee, Nast shows Grant toppling the Confederacy and the Southern Cause accompanied in the stage performance by the song “Just after the Battle, Mother.”

To learn about The Palace of Tears click on The Palace of Tears below.

In "The Palace of Tears" Nast conveys his dismay with the failed promises of Reconstruction by attacking President Andrew Johnson’s pro-South policy. Nast depicts Johnson enshrined as a knock-kneed, tiny monarch atop a pedestal bearing the inscription “My Policy Unbroken Harmony” presiding over the 1866 National Union Convention, which is awash in crocodile tears.

In the left foreground, Nast depicts Clement Vallandingham, a pro-Southern peace democrat, with the body of a copperhead snake. During the Civil War, Union supporters referred to Pro-southern peace democrats as “Copperheads” for scheming to undermine the North’s war effort. Behind Vallandingham, Nast illustrates a looming Congressman Fernando Wood, whom he depicts as a winged serpent. Nast frames Wood’s body with large red and black wings and illustrates a coiled serpent’s tail visible between the figure’s legs. As mayor of New York City before the Civil War, Wood favored the city’s secession from the Union for economic reasons.

The people portrayed by Nast in the painting from left to right are: Congressman from Ohio, Clement Vallandingham, Congressman from New York and past NYC mayor, Fernando Wood, journalist and politician Thurlow Weed, Governor James Orr of South Carolina, General Darius Couch of Massachusetts, General John Dix, President Andrew Johnson as a knock-kneed statue, NY Congressman and editor of the NY Times Henry Raymond and in the right corner holding the keys to the delegates locked mouths is Wisconsin Senator James Doolittle, president of the convention.

Nast presented this mural accompanied by the song “The Long, Long, Weary Day, was Passed in Tears Away.” Through "The Palace of Tears" Nast illustrates that the convention, far from a union, was rather a sellout to the Southern demands during Reconstruction.

To learn about The Last Ditch click on The Last Ditch above.