The Peacemakers The Peacemakers is an 1868 painting by George P . A . Healy . It depicts the historic March 28 , 1865 , strategy session by the Union high command on the steamer " River Queen " during the final days of the American Civil War . Historical setting . In March 1865 , General - in - Chief Ulysses S . Grant invited President Lincoln to visit his headquarters at City Point , Virginia . By coincidence , Major General William Tecumseh Sherman ( then campaigning in North Carolina ) happened to visit City Point at the same time . This allowed for the war ' s only three - way meeting of President Lincoln , General Grant , and General Sherman . Also present was Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter , who wrote about the meeting in his journal , and later recounted : I shall never forget that council which met on board the River Queen . On the determinations adopted there depended peace , or a continuation of the war with its attendant horrors . That council has been illustrated in a fine painting by Mr . Healy , the artist , who , in casting about for the subject of an historical picture , hit upon this interview , which really was an occasion upon which depended whether or not the war would be continued a year longer . A single false step might have prolonged it indefinitely . Painting . General Sherman ' s recollection . The artist was not present at the meeting near Richmond . However , he had previously painted individual portraits of the four men and he had obtained the data from which he worked from General Sherman . In a November 28 , 1872 letter to Isaac Newton Arnold , General Sherman wrote : In Chicago about June or July of that year , when all the facts were fresh in my mind , I told them to George P . A . Healy , the artist , who was casting about for a subject for an historical painting , and he adopted this interview . Mr . Lincoln was then dead , but Healy had a portrait , which he himself had made at Springfield some five or six years before . With this portrait , some existing photographs , and the strong resemblance in form of [ Leonard Swett ] , of Chicago , to Mr . Lincoln he made the picture of Mr . Lincoln seen in this group . For General Grant , Admiral Porter , and myself he had actual sittings , and I am satisfied the four portraits in this group of Healy ' s are the best extant . The original picture , life - size , is , I believe , now in Chicago , the property of Mr . [ Ezra B . McCagg ] ; but Healy afterwards , in Rome , painted ten smaller copies , about eighteen by twenty - four inches , one of which I now have , and it is now within view . I think the likeness of Mr . Lincoln by far the best of the many I have seen elsewhere , and those of General Grant , Admiral Porter , and myself equally good and faithful . I think Admiral Porter gave Healy a written description of our relative positions in that interview , also the dimensions , shape , and furniture of the cabin of the " Ocean Queen " ; but the rainbow is Healy ' s — typical , of course , of the coming peace . In this picture I seem to be talking , the others attentively listening . Whether Healy made this combination from Admiral Porter ' s letter or not , I cannot say ; but I thought that he caught the idea from what I told him had occurred when saying that " if Lee would only remain in Richmond till I could reach Burkesville , we would have him between our thumb and fingers , " suiting the action to the word . It matters little what Healy meant by his historic group , but it is certain that we four sat pretty much as represented , and were engaged in an important conversation during the forenoon of March 28 , 1865 , and that we parted never to meet again . Fate of original painting . The original painting was destroyed by fire . A copy was discovered in 1922 , after lying unnoticed in a family storeroom in Chicago for fifty years . The acquisition of the painting by the Truman White House in 1947 was laden with contemporary significance , for another great conflict , World War II , had ended just two years earlier . Legacy . The pose of Lincoln inspired Healy ' s 1869 portrait , " Abraham Lincoln " . Robert Todd Lincoln considered the likeness of his father in this painting to be the " most excellent in existence . " The U . S . Postal Service commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln by issuing four first - class commemorative 42 - cent stamps . One of these stamps features an image of this painting . The painting was displayed in the Treaty Room of the White House from the Kennedy through the George W . Bush presidencies . In his book Decision Points , President Bush mentions the painting specifically and makes the following comment : " Before 9 / 11 , I saw the scene as a fascinating moment in history . After the attack , it took a deeper meaning . The painting reminded me of Lincoln ’ s clarity of purpose : he waged war for a necessary and noble cause . " It was briefly loaned to the George H . W . Bush Presidential Library from March 11 , 2002 to July 31 , 2002 for an exhibit entitled , " Fathers and Sons : Two Families , Four Presidents . " The painting is also featured behind the elder Bush in his official presidential portrait , painted by Herbert Abrams . The Obama administration moved the painting to the private President ' s Dining Room , where it currently hangs . There is also a copy of the painting at the Pentagon .