"Peace — Good Will Towards Men," Harper's Weekly, 1865

Published in the year the Civil War ended, this full-plate illustration frames a central scene of a bearded man — a returning Union veteran, judging by his bearing — escorting a woman and children through a rural landscape, a rifle or musket still in the party's hands but carried loosely, at rest. Flanking vignettes in ruled borders narrate the larger story: soldiers mustering in the field (top left), a jubilant homecoming with a man lifting a child while a dog leaps at his feet (middle left), and a domestic interior reunion (bottom left). A riverfront industrial scene anchors the bottom right, suggesting the peacetime economy resuming. The partial caption reads *Peace… On Earth and Good Will…*, completing the biblical phrase. Nast organized the plate as sequential episodes — war, return, home, commerce — arguing that Union victory delivered not merely armistice but the conditions for ordinary family life and national prosperity.