Emperor Pedro II of Brazil sporting a majestic beard in 1876.  Hard to argue with this man's style...

Winfield Scott Hancock was a U.S. Army officer and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1880 (he lost to James A. Garfield). He was a Union general in the American Civil War, and nicknamed "Hancock the Superb."  He looks a bit scruffy here, but it's pretty awesome if you ask us!  

Maryland Governor Thomas Swann with a long mustache and goatee combination. Such beards were common around the time of the American Civil War.  

Henry David Thoreau helped pioneer what would later become known as the "neckbeard".  This portrait is from 1856.  

General Ambrose Burnside, the legendary man for whom "sideburns" are named.   

The carpenter Karl August Andersson, born in 1859, photographed in Sabbatsberg Old People’s Home in 1934.  Source  

Charles Darwin was a man of nature, and he had the scruffy beard to prove it.  Here he is in 1868.  

 

Unidentified soldier with full beard in Union non-regulation uniform, between 1861 and 1865.  Library of Congress  

Peter Cooper (1791 – 1883), the inventor of the first steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb – and reportedly also inventor of the first gelatin dessert better known now as JELL-O.