Editor’s Note: This article is part of “The Unfinished Revolution,” a project exploring 250 years of the American experiment. The Atlantic’s November 2025 issue commemorates the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. For our cover image, the artist Joe McKendry painted a tableau of figures drawn from the stories in the issue. Some of the figures will be instantly recognizable—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson—and some of the depictions are based on historical portraiture. The image of Paul Revere, for instance, is an homage to John Singleton Copley’s painting of the silversmith and Patriot, which hangs in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.The AtlanticOther figures will be less familiar. Standing beside George Washington is a man he enslaved. Like thousands of enslaved people, Harry Washington abandoned the plantation when the war began and fought for Great Britain. No image of this Washington survives. For such figures, McKendry imagined their visages, taking cues from written descriptions when possible. No occasion would have brought all of these people together in the same room (certainly, it is difficult to imagine King George in the same room as the other George). They represent different sides of the war, of the period’s political ferment, and of early American society itself. One figure existed only in a work of fiction. But together they convey the ambition of this special issue: to capture the Revolutionary Era in all of its complexity, contradictions, and ingenuity.The Atlantic1. James Madison 2. King George III3. George Washington 4. Harry Washington5. Abigail Adams 6. Paul Revere7. Benjamin Franklin 8. Benedict Arnold9. Pontiac 10. William Franklin11. Thomas Jefferson 12. Thomas Paine13. Robert Hemmings 14. Prince Hall15. James Armistead Lafayette 16. Eliza Schuyler17. Patrick Henry 18. Priscilla Timbers19. Rip Van Winkle 20. Alexander Hamilton21. Ralph Waldo Emerson 22. Lord Dunmore23. John Adams