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Images in Conflict: Union Soldier-Artists Picture the Battle of Stones River, 1862–1863

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2019

JAMES BROOKES*
Affiliation:
Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham. Email: james.brookes@nottingham.ac.uk.

Abstract

The Civil War marked a revolution in the use of visual culture, during which imagery became a soldier's tool. Engagement with imagery presented both an opportunity and a dilemma, forcing some soldier-artists to abandon existing artistic conventions, whilst others fortified them, in search of ways to represent both the war's violence and tedium. The visual idealization of war jarred uncomfortably with the depiction of the conflict's realities. The creation of a diverse grassroots archive ran parallel to the mainstream narrative, examination of which offers new insight into how some soldiers visualized the war in opposition to themes exhibited in popular culture.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2019

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References

1 Thompson emphasizes that image makers, “most of whom had never accompanied an army into the field,” established these conventions. Though soldiers and newspaper sketch artists gradually realized that these stereotyped images were meaningless and abandoned them, many home-front image makers retained heroic-war practices for propagandistic purposes throughout the duration of the war. Thompson, William F., The Image of War: The Pictorial Reporting of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994), 7Google Scholar.

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24 Mumey, Nolie, Alfred Edward Mathews (1831–1874): Union Soldier, Illustrator of Civil War Battles, Author, Traveler, Map Maker, and Delineator of Western Scenes, Especially Those of the Territories of Colorado and Montana (Boulder, CO: Johnson Publishing Company, 1961), 1, 45Google Scholar.

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27 It is unknown what privileges Mathews enjoyed, but another volunteer, Joseph Boggs Beale of the “Blue Reserves,” was “appointed regimental artist, & relieved of all duties except drill & parade” during General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. Joseph Boggs Beale, “Diary Entry: 27 June, 1863,” in “Volume 6, Diary, Dec. 1862–Oct. 1864,” Arthur Colen Collection of Joseph Boggs Beale Papers (JBBP) 2007, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP); Beale, “Letter to Pa, Ma, Aunty, Sisters & Brothers, July 3, 1863,” Box 1, Folder 1, JBBP 2007, HSP; Beale, “Diary Entry: 8 July, 1863,” Vol. 6, JBBP, HSP.

28 B. B. Brashear, “Letter to the Tuscarawas Advocate Newspaper,” Tuscarawas Advocate, 28 March 1862.

29 Ulysses S. Grant, “Unidentified newspaper clipping in the Western History Department, Denver Public Library,” Daily Miner's Register, 1 Dec. 1865, 3. Robert Taft, who notes that the Grant letter is “included in the Charles H. Mathews material,” also uses the quote. Taft, 106.

30 Taft, 105, 108.

31 Ibid., 106.

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33 Metzner's duties as a topographical engineer permitted him access to a range of creative resources. But even in periods of scarcity, his pharmaceutical gave him the skills to produce tints from natural materials such as berries and bark. Ibid., 2–3.

34 Ibid., 2.

35 William G. Mank, “Battlefield Near Pittsburg Landing, 9 April 1862,” Louisville Anzeiger, 19 April 1862, in Reinhart, Joseph R., ed., August Willich's Gallant Dutchmen: Civil War Letters from the 32nd Indiana Infantry (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006), 77Google Scholar.

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38 Peter Cozzens notes that “defeat would have made the Emancipation Proclamation look like the last gasp of a dying war effort and perhaps brought England and France into the war on the side of the Confederacy.” Cozzens, Peter, No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 10Google Scholar. In the debacle at Fredericksburg in Virginia, fought 11–15 December 1862, the Union suffered 12,653 casualties (1,284 dead, 9,600 wounded, 1,769 captured or missing, by the official record) whilst gaining no tactical or strategic advantage. Rable, George C., Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 288Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 582; “Z,” “Camp near Murfreesboro, Tenn., 7 January 1863,” Louisville Anzeiger, 15 Jan. 1863, quoted in Reinhart, 127–28.

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42 Engravers, with their detachment from the war as experienced by its combatants and with patriotic fervor to instill amongst the American populace, would often censor images for civilian consumption to the extent that soldiers barely recognized their depictions. The engravers would take on-the-spot sketches from soldiers and sketch artists, and by combining them with written or telegraphed reports of battles, turn them into marketable images of the war. Thompson, The Image of War, 83. Even in peacetime, editors and engravers generally directed the content of images. Simpson, Marc, Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2013), 128Google Scholar.

43 In another Homer sketch, a soldier attempting to control skittish horses became an orderly procession of cavalry, and battle smoke a benign cloud formation; a foreground fence was enlivened by a curiosity-seeking civilian couple. Printmakers attempted to censor any allusions to unpleasant sensory experiences. Giese and Perkinson, “A Newly Discovered Drawing,” 62, 66, 77.

44 Daniel Wait Howe of the 7th Indiana noted that, in particular, the illustrations of Harper's Weekly exercised a powerful influence in shaping northern sentiment, which was “loyal to the Federal government” and was “zealous for a vigorous prosecution of the war.” Howe, Daniel Wait, Civil War Times, 1861–1865 (Indianapolis, IN: The Bowen-Merrill Company Publishers, 1902), 45Google Scholar.

45 Thompson, 83.

46 Alfred E. Mathews, letter in the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library, quoted in Nolie Mumey, Alfred Edward Mathews, 46.

47 Harvey defines history painting, in the traditional, academic sense, as the “monumental canvases depicting elaborate battle scenes and heroes” that were prominent in European art. But such imagery had gained, at best, a tenuous foothold in the US. Even grand-manner history paintings by artists such as Benjamin West and John Trumbull never garnered the same support as the wilderness aesthetic. Harvey, The Civil War and American Art, 5.

48 Holloway, David and Beck, John, eds., American Visual Cultures (London: Continuum Publishing, 2005), 13Google Scholar. Other soldier-artists who had worked as landscape painters in the antebellum era included Captain James Hope of the 2nd Vermont Infantry. Harvey, 6–8.

49 Harvey, 19.

50 The soldiers in the rear regiment carry their weapons at right shoulder shift, a position often employed during hastened manoeuvres due to the additional stability it offered. “Right Shoulder Shift Arms. – No. 219,” Plate 13, in Casey, Silas, Infantry Tactics, for the Instruction, Exercise, and Manouvres of the Soldier, A Company Line, Line of Skirmishers, Battalion, Brigade, or Corps D'Armée, Volume I (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1862)Google Scholar.

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52 Daniel, Larry J., Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict between the Confederate Army of the Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), 193–94Google Scholar.

53 US War Department, War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume XXV, Part 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 193Google Scholar, quoted in Neely and Holzer, The Union Image, 76.

54 Hays, Gilbert Adams, Under the Red Patch: Story of the Sixty-Third Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861–1864 (Pittsburgh: Sixty-Third Pennsylvania Volunteers Regimental Association, 1908), 422Google Scholar. Even the son of Reverend A. M. Stewart of the 102nd Pennsylvania, a visitor to the Army of the Potomac and a recent observer of the battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks in 1862, threw down a copy of Harper's Weekly and exclaimed, “Pshaw. It's no use, they can't picture a battle,” after seeing their published illustrations of those engagements. Stewart, Rev. A. M., Camp, March and Battle-Field; Or, Three Years and a Half with the Army of the Potomac (Philadelphia, PA: Jas. B. Rodgers, Printer, 1865), 188Google Scholar.

55 Though Mathews's work differed from that of many other soldiers, his works bear resemblance to those of Robert Knox Sneden of the 40th New York, who favored panoramas. Bryan, Charles F. Jr.; Kelly, James C., and Lankford, Nelson D., Images from the Storm: Private Robert Knox Sneden (New York: The Free Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Bryan, Charles F. Jr. and Lankford, Nelson D., Eye of the Storm: Written and Illustrated by Private Robert Knox Sneden (New York: The Free Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

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57 In other works Mathews coupled his images with official reports from Union officials, further stressing the authenticity of his depictions.

58 Alfred Edward Mathews and Middleton, Strobridge, & Co., Charge of the First Brigade, Commanded by Col. M. B. Walker, on the Friday Evening of the Battle of Stones River, January 2nd, 1863; in Which the Rebels Were Repulsed with Heavy Loss, and Driven behind Their Breastworks, lithograph, 1863, LC-DIG-pga-02197, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

59 Stewart, 280.

60 Linderman, Gerald, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1987), 157–78Google Scholar.

61 See, for example, N. Currier, lithograph, 1846, Battle of Monterey – The Americans Forcing Their Way to the Main Plaza Sept. 23th 1846, PGA – Currier & Ives – Battle of Monterey (A size), Prints and Photographs Division, LoC, or N. Currier, lithograph, 1847, Battle of Cerro Cordo April 18th 1847, PGA – Currier & Ives – Battle of Cerro Cordo April 18th 1847 (A size), Prints and Photographs Division, LoC.

62 For white southerners, battle was ennobling: the “necessity for discipline strengthened character.” Southern chivalry's fascination with the duel emphasized “the attractiveness of individualized combat.” Mathews's perspective denies the southern soldiers the foundations of their martial culture, as it renders them an irregular force, unwilling to face their northern adversaries except from the relative safety of the skirmish line or the woods. Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University, 2007), 38-39Google Scholar; Linderman, 16.

63 George Oscar French, “Letter to Dear Friends, 10 June 1864,” George Oscar French Letters, Vermont Historical Society, at http://vermonthistory.org/research/research-resources-online/civil-war-transcriptions/george-oscar-french-letters, accessed 14 Sept. 2018.

64 Linderman, 240; Leif Torkelson, “Forged in Battle: The Evolution of Small Unit Cohesion in the Union Voluntary Infantry Regiments, 1861–1865,” senior thesis, Princeton University, 1991, 5.

65 Sears, Stephen W., Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (New Haven, CT: Ticknor & Fields, 1983), 369, 251–55Google Scholar.

66 Metzner applied these words with softer brush strokes and without adequate spacing, so much so that the Library of Congress has mistakenly titled the image Stone River Rebellion.

67 The sword appears similar to a Model 1840 army non-commissioned officers’ sword or a Model 1840 musicians’ sword, but the closest subject of rank to the weapon is a commissioned officer (either a lieutenant or a captain, the subject pictured at center wearing a double-breasted frockcoat, tall boots, and what appears to be a pistol holster by his side). His frockcoat appears to include rank-defining shoulder boards, or epaulettes, but neither of these were common to the Confederate officer class.

68 Daniel, Battle of Stones River, 190; US War Department, War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Volume XX, Part 1, 786, quoted in ibid., 191.

69 Cozzens, No Better Place, 192; War Department, War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Volume XX, Part 1, 588, quoted in ibid., 194.

70 “Z,” “Camp near Murfreesboro,” quoted in Reinhart, Willich's Gallant Dutchmen, 128.

71 William Newlin, A History of the Seventy-Third Regiment of Illinois Infantry Volunteers: Its Services and Experiences in Camp, on the March, on the Picket and Skirmish Lines, and in Many Battles of the War, 1861–65 (n.p., 1890), 143–44, quoted in Cozzens, No Better Place, 171.

72 Henry Raymond, “Editors Table,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine 8 (April 1864), 691; quoted in Faust, This Republic of Suffering, 62.

73 Cate, Wirt Armistead, ed., Two Soldiers: The Campaign Diaries of Thomas J. Key, C.S.A., December 7, 1863–May 17, 1865 and Robet J. Campbell, U.S.A., January 1, 1864–July 21, 1864 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938), 182Google Scholar.

74 Thompson, The Image of War, 86. Thompson observes that the work of Civil War printmakers established the main themes of pictorial propaganda for every American war to follow. Thompson, William F., “Pictorial Propaganda and the Civil War,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, 46, 1 (Autumn 1962), 2131, 22Google Scholar.

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78 Faust, 40.

79 Cozzens, No Better Place, 10; Daniel, Battle of Stones River, 7; letter, “2 January 1863,” in ibid.

80 Hess, The Union Soldier, 55; Faust, 41. For more on the destructive power of rifled weaponry, which caused 94% of Union casualties in the war, see Hess, Earl J., The Rifled Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008)Google Scholar.

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82 More recent estimates, based on careful statistical analysis of census data, consider the death toll to be as high as 750,000. J. David Hacker, “A Census-Based Count of the Civil War Dead,” Civil War History, 57 (Dec. 2011), 307–48, quoted in McPherson, , The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 54Google Scholar.

83 Faust, 60.

84 Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage, 115, refers to “simmering down,” noting that a “series of shocks would compel soldiers to abandon or to modify beliefs that in battle proved useless – or dangerous.” Mitchell, 10, notes that the “hardening process was painful” for soldiers: “being a man meant risking horrors that might unman a man … by making him inhuman.” McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 141–42, acknowledges the estrangement between soldiers and civilians: “the impossibility of describing what war is really like to the folks back home creates a vast gulf between those who have been in combat and those who have not,” but notes that patriotic values of duty and honor remained with soldiers on the front lines until the war's end.

85 Warren Olney, “Shiloh as Seen by a Private Soldier,” A Paper Read before California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, May 31, 1889 (n.p., n.d.), 21, quoted in Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle, 154–55.

86 Bierce's “Chickamauga” describes a wounded soldier with “a face that lacked a lower jaw – from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone.” This short story concerns the annihilation of a child's innocence as he happens upon the wounded of the Battle of Chickamauga. Bierce, Ambrose, The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 5657Google Scholar.

87 Neely and Holzer, The Union Image, 77.