As the first war to see the extensive use of photography, the American Civil War was brought home to civilians in hundreds of photographs portraying camp life or the aftermath of battles. Due to the nature of nineteenth century photography as well as safety concerns, however, photographers were not able to capture scenes of actual combat for their viewers. This task fell instead to men known as Special Artists or “Specials,” hired by the illustrated periodicals of the day to travel with the armies and sketch all manner of events associated with the military, including battles as they progressed.
Competing Stories: The Gardner Saga Continues
In 1893, two Philadelphia doctors from the Mütter Museum sent surveys to Civil War amputee veterans in order to compile records on their war amputations circa thirty years after seeing combat. One of those surveys found its way into the hands of Clark Gardner, a fifty-four year old double amputee vet who served in the 10th New York Heavy Artillery. (An introduction to Garnder can be found here.) Gardner’s responses to the survey are quite compelling and provided vivid details about his war amputations, the healing processes, difficulties he encountered, and artificial limb usage.
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Special Guest Book Review: A Blaze of Glory by Jeff Shaara
By David Bruce Smith
A BLAZE OF GLORY:
A NOVEL OF THE BATTLE
OF SHILOH
By Jeff Shaara
448 pp. Ballantine Books Trade Paperback
$16.00
Within a year after the start of the Civil War, the cohesion within the Confederate army was wearing away. Defeats from the Union forces were on the upsurge; they were trounced at Fort Donelson, and overwhelmed in Fort Henry. Tennessee appeared to be lost, but the much-loved rebel commander-in-chief, General Albert Sidney Johnston, envisioned a decisive turnaround in Shiloh that would arrest his bad fortune, and assure the country of its destiny–as he saw it: a nation of slaveholders.
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A Long Road Ahead: Reflections from the Glenn Ligon Lecture
It is no secret that slavery in America was abhorrent — people endured such abuses as beatings and were often thought of as less than human. When looking at prebellum slavery, artist Glenn Ligon found that he could tell the narratives of black women — stories of horrors endured under the whip, stories of rape — through the medium of his photo etchings. On February 21, 2014, I attended a lecture in Gettysburg College’s Mara Auditorium that spoke about Ligon’s art. Professors Kimberly Rae Conner, Crystal Feimster, and Scott Hancock were the key speakers for the lecture and all approached Ligon’s pieces with different and interesting interpretations.
The first speaker, Professor Kimberly Rae Connor, herself a Gettysburg College graduate (’79), talked about how she was inspired to look at poetry from African-Americans, which was a shift from her original focus of European literature, when she did her dissertation at the University of Virginia. While doing her research, she became extremely passionate about black history when she learned of some of the slave narratives she read. She also remarked on the progress of racial integration at Gettysburg College and the University of Virginia, and how in the 70s and 80s, minority recruitment was still very low at both of these schools. In other places outside of colleges and universities there were observable scars of the Civil War, as well. Professor Connor spoke about a visit to Monticello. During the tour, one of the guides referred to Thomas Jefferson’s slaves as “servants.” By changing the word, the tour guide bestowed upon the slaves a freedom and agency they did not possess under the south’s Peculiar Institution.
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Mocking a Perilous Prediction: Currier and Ives’ Political Cartoons
Currier and Ives’ political cartoons, while comical, also represent the general undertones of the time as well as people’s feelings regarding this era of political controversy. The election of 1860 was an incredibly important one because, not only were there numerous political and social divides, but the South had threatened to secede. The political cartoon “The Irrepressible Conflict” or “The Republican Barge in Danger,” released in 1860, gives historians a good understanding of the reactions to not only Seward’s speech but also the wariness of Lincoln’s nomination and eventual election.
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Satirizing Strife: Currier and Ives Political Cartoons
Currier and Ives’ prints were a large part of the media during the Civil War era. Not only were Romantic prints sold and hung in people’s parlors, but cartoons were also very popular. It is important to remember that Currier and Ives’ goal was not to produce fine art, but to make a product that was attractive to middle-class consumers. Thus, political and social cartoons became a way to attract customers. They tried to stay away from controversial topics; however, their Darktown series was one of their best-selling series of the day. Today, the Darktown series is rarely displayed and relatively unknown because of its controversial depictions of slavery and African-Americans. The press also rarely took sides, but when pushed upon took up the side with the more popular argument. Special Collections is fortunate to have two Currier and Ives cartoons. The first cartoon, discussed below, illustrates a common criticism towards the Union during the war, mocks a political conflict before the war, and the other displays a common criticism towards the Union during the war.
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Controversial Commemoration: Remembering the Varied Legacies of Nathan Bedford Forrest
Over the winter break, I participated in an immersion trip to Alabama to learn about the Civil Rights Movement and visited cities like Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma that played an important part in the movement. Despite the past, I did not expect to encounter such a racially charged atmosphere fifty years after the push for desegregation and equality in the South. I also did not anticipate a controversy over a statue dedicated to Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was born in 1821 in Tennessee and, with no military education, was later promoted Lieutenant General and became a controversial figure in the American Civil War. Historians and Civil War scholars continue to debate Forrest’s complex legacy. While famous for sending a Confederate division to what is referred to as the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864, Forrest was regarded as an important commander for his guerilla warfare-style tactics and for creating and practicing the doctrine and tactics of mobile warfare. Throughout the former states of the Confederacy, mostly throughout Tennessee, people have erected statues of him and named public spaces after him. In the past ten years, people have debated about Forrest’s legacy and whether a commemoration is suitable, especially in Southern cities with a predominately black population, including Selma, Alabama.
A Living Image: Newspaper Sketches in the American Civil War
Photography: the ability to capture a moment in time exactly as it appeared, to then preserve it for posterity, even mass produce it for a wide viewership. A relatively new concept by the beginning of the American Civil War, photography quickly came into its own in the hands of such legends as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner as they sought to document the furious storm which had swept over the land. Photographs of the Civil War are prolific, and for many the memory of the conflict is intertwined with black-and-white photographs of unsmiling men and corpses bloating in the sun. Yet as I sat in Gettysburg College Special Collections, reverently paging through original issues of some of the era’s most famous illustrated newspapers, I could not help but notice the deficiencies inherent in Civil war photography when compared with other media, most notably the work of sketch artists.
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An Institution Sanctioned by God?: Slavery and Religion in the North and South
While a young student at the University of North Carolina, Iveson Brooks, an optimistic student of promise, wrote several speeches arguing that slavery was an impediment to the future. After graduating, he decided his best prospects following graduation lay in the Baptist ministry. By 1851, while his piety remained, Brooks’ antislavery had vanished, replaced by a deeply conservative outlook which held slavery as not merely essential to southern society, but as intended by God. In his pamphlet, A Defense of Southern Slavery against the Attacks of Henry Clay and Alexander Campbell, Brooks argued that slavery was not only allowed by the Bible, but was an integral part of Christianity “intended to exist until the Day of Judgment.” This passage, found in the Old Testament, was one of many instances in which Brooks read that the Bible implied that God desired a hierarchical society. Like many other southerners, Brooks argued that the curse laid upon God to the descendants of Ham, whose descendants were allegedly the people of Africa, sanctioned slavery along racial lines.
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For Those at Home: The Romantic Nature of Civil War Lithography
Lithography, the art of drawing on stone, was an important part of American Victorian culture during the Civil War. Not only did lithography provide news in pictorial form, but it also was widely displayed in the home. With the economic move from home to factory during the early 19th century, the home became more of a “sanctuary” in which women could decorate and display.
Lithography became a cheap and popular way to express a certain family sentiment; these lithographs were normally hung in the parlor where the family entertained guests. As Peter Marzio noted, this artwork was a sign of “a fondness for home and a desire to cultivate virtues, which made home peaceful and happy.” It also became a kind of media in which news and popular opinion reached the masses. Lithography is very important to historians today, because it gives great insight into the culture, home, news, and popular opinion of the Civil War era.
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