After painting this picture, Homer redid the head of the officer. He inserted an image of Barlow, whom he considered the best looking officer in the AoP. Homer wrote that his painting, Viewing Prisoners from the Front, made him famous at age 29. He regretted that he did didn't have a few more years to experiment and didn't have that well known picture compared to his later works. He did use the Matthew Brady photograph of the three Confederate stragglers/prisoners at Gettysburg as an inspiration.
The Sharpshooter and Home Sweet Home are wartime pictures which are part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery in WDC, along with his Maine and Bermuda/Bahamas pictures. The national Gallery had a major exhibition of Homer's works about five years ago. Included were about a half dozen wartime paintings. Personally, I think his painting of the young women with the horn to summon the farm hands to lunch and the Black sailor on a dismasted sailboat are his best works, although I am an admirer of his works.
Homer lived near Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME for the last years of his life and left a number of his works to the College.