[1] After completing his secondary education, he was enrolled at Newton University, to prepare him for a career in his father's law practice.

He was able to enter the École des Beaux-Arts in 1864; studying with Charles Gleyre, Alberto Pasini and Émile Lambinet.

The academy would be his major venue, with over 125 paintings sold there; 40 of them depicting scenes from the Revolutionary War.

Despite this, in 1878, he joined the Society of American Artists, an organization formed in opposition to the academy's conservative approach.

In the 1870s, during the Reconstruction era, he made several what were then risky trips into Virginia and North Carolina, where he painted rural genre scenes.