Alfred Waud made this pencil and white paint sketch at Gettysburg on July 3 1863 It shows swaths of smoke hiding the Union forces just before the Confederates launched their last doomed offensive of the battle Pickett’s Charge Commerce raider A fast ship used to intercept Union ships at sea and seize their cargo Curriculum Context Cole was seen as the founder of the Hudson River School a group of artists who were inspired by the landscapes of upstate New York and the western frontier 8 Behind the Fighting Manet 1832 1883 He painted a battle he witnessed at the French port of Cherbourg between the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama and the Union warship USS Kearsarge James Walker meanwhile painted a notable depiction of the Battle of Lookout Mountain The battle was a Union victory and Walker was commissioned to do the painting by the victorious Union general Joseph Hooker for 20,000 Haunted memory Before the Civil War American art had been dominated by the sense of wonder felt by European settlers at the sheer size and richness of the land they had occupied The American painter Thomas Cole 1801 1848 declared that American artists had privileges superior to any other All nature here is new to art Other artists reveling in America’s size and beauty were Frederick Edwin Church 1826 1900 and Albert Bierstadt 1830 1902 William Sidney Mount 1807 1868 and George Caleb Bingham 1811 1879 painted outdoor scenes of everyday American life War brought horrors that demanded and inspired new ways of seeing in its aftermath doubt tension and danger crept into depictions of the great wide-open spaces of North America
Winslow Homer’s postwar work continued to have an undercurrent of psychological tension In The Veteran in a New Field 1865 he painted a Confederate soldier harvesting wheat The empty field feels full of ghosts a reminder that the land was recently a battleground Homer’s near contemporaries Thomas Eakins 1844 1916 and Albert Pinkham Ryder 1848 1917 did not witness the Civil War at first hand but they learned its artistic lessons through the older man’s work Among other noted postwar artists were the Southern veterans Allen C Redwood Conrad W Chapman and William L Shepherd Striking images Some Civil War pictures had an immediate effect on public opinion George Caleb Bingham covered the Civil War His Order No 11 a painting of Missouri residents being driven from their homes by Union troops provoked widespread public contempt even in the North for the army’s conduct Other works eroded the idea of military glory Winslow Homer painted The Sharpshooter 1862 showing a lone sniper sitting in a tree hidden from his target Homer wrote to a friend that this struck me as being as near murder as anything I could ever think of in connection with the army Close to the Battle Curriculum Context It might be interesting to compare Bingham’s painting with images that affected public opinion in later wars such as World War II and Vietnam Artists like reporters photographers and nurses often found themselves in danger The photographer Mathew Brady and the illustrator Alfred Waud were almost captured by the Confederates at the First Battle of Bull Run when they found themselves too close to the action Alfred Waud spent much time with soldiers in camp and in battle and shared their experiences When his work took him onto the battlefield Waud was usually weighed down with drawing gear haversack bowie knife revolver flask and a bedroll Artists and Illustrators 9
Camp Followers During the Civil War most army units were attended by hundreds of people called camp followers who followed the army for profit or employment Many were officially recognized and encouraged by the armies of both sides Among the most useful camp followers were bakers barbers contract laborers laundresses private physicians private servants slaves and refugee slaves contrabands There were also numerous traveling sellers of provisions the men who did this were known as sutlers the women as vivandières The vivandières often carried out other roles as well as mascots and nurses and sometimes wore a stylized uniform Such camp followers had a semiofficial status within regiments and were governed by army regulations There were also many other less respectable camp followers but even they were usually tolerated They included many prostitutes but also black marketeers illegal whiskey sellers soldiers were forbidden alcohol cardsharpers and other criminals and tricksters Friends and family Many female camp followers were relatives of the soldiers These women often did most of the cooking They washed and sewed uniforms and cared for the sick and wounded A few women even took up arms and went into action Sutlers Other camp followers had no such affiliations and were concerned only with making money Sutlers were particularly notorious for their greed They often did not care which side they sold to Some of the most enterprising sutlers diversified into catering selling pickles cheese homemade cakes and dumplings Curriculum Context If curricula ask students to understand soldiers experience during the war camp followers are an important factor to include Cardsharper A gambler who cheats by manipulating playing cards 10 Behind the Fighting
Many soldiers complained that the sutlers were profiteering and giving short measure Despite the questionable morals of their role sutlers were viewed as a necessary evil by the Union and the commanders of many northern units sanctioned and indeed benefited from their activities The sutlers were taxed by their unit usually a percentage of their total month’s earnings Some of the money raised in this way was used for the benefit of the regiment to fund military bands for example the education of soldiers children or items for wounded members of the unit Soldiers were forbidden to spend more than one-third of their pay on sutlers goods and sutlers received payment directly from the regimental paymaster While this policy helped ensure the sutlers continued presence it also increased the troops resentment The army’s tolerance of sutlers lasted only for as long as the troops were on the road or in battle When the army entered a town many commanders banned sutlers and ordered their men to buy from local stores When news of the sutlers activities reached the North many people began to send food parcels to their relatives in the army to save them from being fleeced Many of these packages were stolen en route and those that did reach their intended destination took so long to arrive that the food had often gone bad by the time it was unwrapped Out of control Sometimes the number of camp followers spiraled out of control When the Union commander William T Sherman marched from Atlanta Georgia to the coast his army was followed by thousands of stragglers including deserters from both sides and freed slaves Although all camp followers were meant to be subject to military discipline this often proved difficult to enforce in practice Profiteering Making unreasonably high profits by selling essential goods at high prices during a time of emergency Curriculum Context What advantages would there be in soldiers shopping at local stores Curriculum Context It is worth remembering that most food throughout the war was poor quality boring and often rotten Camp Followers 11
