Carpenter is best known for his painting First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which is hanging in the United States Capitol.

Francis and Augusta had the following children: In 1844, after showing his father a painting of his mother that the former viewed as a success, Carpenter was allowed to go to Syracuse, New York, for six months to study under Sanford Thayer.

In 1852, Carpenter was commissioned to paint a portrait of President Millard Fillmore, a fellow upstate New Yorker born in Cayuga County.

Commissions followed for portraits of Presidents Franklin Pierce and John Tyler, and other mid-19th century notables, including the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher; newspaper editor Horace Greeley; Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University; James Russell Lowell, poet; and John C. Frémont, the first Republican presidential candidate.

Bankrolled by Lane, and through the influence of Samuel Sinclair of the New York Tribune and Representative Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, Carpenter gained Lincoln's assent to travel to Washington and work with him on the painting.

Carpenter was given free access to Lincoln's White House office for the former purpose, and the State Dining Room was given him for a studio.

Carpenter campaigned for Congress to purchase the painting, enlisting the help of fellow Homer native William O. Stoddard, Lincoln's private secretary.

The book details Carpenter's time living in the White House, as well as his personal relationship with Lincoln and other politicians such as William Seward, Edwin Stanton and Ulysses S.

[8] Among the notable portraits painted by Carpenter, aside from Lincoln, were those of President Fillmore and Governor Myron H. Clarke, painted in the New York City Hall; Horace Greeley (a portrait owned by the Tribune Association); Asa Packer, founder of Lehigh University; James Russell Lowell; New York banker David Leavitt; Dr. Lyman Beecher; Henry Ward Beecher and others.

Cowdrey attempted a full-scale biography that might have helped his reputation, but became frustrated by lack of interest on the part of Carpenter's family.

The United States Senate Catalogue of Fine Art observes that First Reading, as it hangs today in the Capitol, contains a much weaker portrait of Lincoln than the engraving made from it.