With the close of the War, Brady was in the direst financial straits. He had spent every dollar of the money accumulated in early portraiture and was heavily in debt. Seven thousand of his negatives were sent to New York as security for Anthony, his largest creditor. The remaining six thousand negatives were placed in a warehouse in Washington. Brady then began negotiations for replenishing his funds by disposing of the property. He exhibited proofs of his negatives in galleries of the New York Historical Society the year following the cessation of the conflict. On the twenty-ninth of January of that same year, 1866, the Council of the National Academy of Design adopted a resolution in which it acknowledged the value of the Brady collection as a reliable authority for art and an important contribution to American history. It indorsed the proposal to place the collection permanently with the New York Historical Society. General Ulysses S. Grant had been much interested in the work of Brady on the battlefield, and in a letter written on February third, 1866, spoke of it as "a collection of photographic views of battlefields taken on the spot, while the occurrences represented were taking place." General Grant added: "I knew when many of these representations were being taken and I can say that the scenes are not only spirited and correct, but also well-chosen. The collection will be valuable to the student and artist of the present generation, but _how much more valuable it will be to future generations_?" These were days of reconstruction. It was almost impossible to interest men in matters not pertaining to the re-establishment of Commerce and Trade. Brady had spent twenty-five years in collecting the portraits of distinguished personages and endeavored to dispose of these to the Government. The joint committee on libraries, on March third, 1871, recommended the purchase of some two thousand portraits which they called: "A National Collection of Portraits of Eminent Americans." The congressmen, however, faced problems too great to allow them to give attention to pictorial art and took no final action on the subject. In the meantime Brady was unable to meet the bill for storage and the negatives in Washington were offered at auction. William W. Belknap, the Secretary of War, was advised of the conditions and in July, 1874, he paid the storage bill and the negatives fell into possession of the Government. The purchase was made at a public auction and the Government bid was $2840 from money accumulated by Provost Marshals and turned in to the Adjutant-General at the close of the Civil War. The Government Records fail to give a list of the negatives made either at the time of the purchase or for many subsequent years. The original voucher dated July 31st, 1874, is silent as to the number of negatives received by the Government.