The Civil War
A new country, America was to have a long and difficult birth.
The first settlers came to America some 400 years ago in 1607, escaping religious persecution in England where only ‘one true Protestant religion’ was tolerated. A situation that was to contribute to the English Civil War of 1642- 1651. Catholics, Puritans and Quakers left to find a new world - a new utopia, the American Dream. They came to build new colonies for their native countries and it was to be a further 170 years before they gained independence from Great Britain in 1783.
But 80 years later; as new states were formed; differences began to emerge, primarily on the enslavement of black slaves from Africa who toiled in the lucrative fields of cotton and tobacco of the South. In 1861 eleven southern states out of the 34 formed, seceded from the country to form the Confederate States and set the ground for the American Civil War.
The question of black slavery was such that in 1862 President Lincoln proposed to a Committee of coloured leaders that ‘It is better for us both to be separated’, suggesting that they emigrate to Central America.
Battle of Antietam, 1862, Library of Congress
Both sides immediately introduced conscription, raising armies from civilians and setting the North-South divide. The Confederate armies gained the early victories, destroying larger Northern ‘Union’ armies. But the Southern Confederacy lacked the resources of the North and the tide began to turn with the Union General, Ulysses Grant engineering gains in the west. At the bloody battle of Gettysburg in 1863 General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army was defeated and the South fell into retreat.
Across both sides, casualties at Gettysburg totalled 50,000 men. Surgeons were to be avoided with a reputation for incompetence and laziness. The North had virtually no medical facilities at the outset and at the earlier Battle of Bull Run in 1861, 3,000 wounded still lay injured in the field 3 days after the battle. (1)
As the Union armies battled south, they set out to destroy what resources the Confederates still held, setting fire to homes and fields, ravaging the countryside and towns and cities. Hungry women in the towns protested in ‘bread riots’ and in Richmond 5,000 broke into shops to steal provisions. The army were called in to restore order, but resistance to the war was mounting as the suffering increased.
As the Union armies swept down the Mississippi river, they cut the Confederate army in two. Depleted by the mounting casualties and deserting conscripts, Lee had a smaller army to confront the well equipped Northern Union and defeat was inevitable.
Finally, at the Confederate’s last stand at the capital of Richmond, Virginia, Lee was surrounded with the city in ruins and he finally surrendered; humiliated; to a corps of black troops.
Four years of intense and bloody battles had left up to 700,000 people dead. More than the total losses from the four 20th century wars, (World wars 1 & 2, Korea and Vietnam). The South was devastated with political power now in the North, but in a divided country.
This was the first war to be recorded by camera and the immediacy and unvarnished dreadful truth was depicted in 7,000 photos. The immediacy and stark truth of these photos, brought the war into every home.
Richmond Virginia, 1865. Final days of the Confederacy,
‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’, 1969 ballad
The savagery of the young men of America killing each other hit Americans hard, as if their New World had been lost. Many Southern plantation owners lost their land with devastated cotton and tobacco farms. They now had a worthless Confederate currency and the new crippling land taxes, drove these ‘Southern Gentlemen’ into bankruptcy. Northerners (termed ‘carpetbaggers’) seized the opportunity to purchase these farms. Whilst they provoked great resentment, they restored the plantations, employed both white people and black ex-slaves and established schools and banking systems. In short, resentment was to turn to relief as the country looked to a slow reunification and rebuilding. The deep depression of war began to recover some optimism and although America had lost its innocence, it was eventually to emerge stronger and become truly ‘The United States of America’.
From these losses people looked to the new lands of the west and a drive west grew. Landscapes of a vast unspoilt and beautiful wilderness fed the vision of a wonderful new country waiting with a new history.
The Great American West
A country free of war again looked to the untapped riches of the West and landscape painting was to encourage the westward expansion. One famous wagon trail opening these new lands, was the Oregon Trail - a 2,170-mile trek over mountains and across plains to the Pacific.
‘The Oregon Trail’, Albert Bierstadt, 1869
One artist Albert Bierstadt portrayed a sense of majesty and divine beauty, drawn from his homeland in Germany and the romance of their art.
His immense luminous canvases were inspired by his early travels along the wagon trail. A master of self- promotion, he held exhibitions across Europe. He glorified the American West as a land of promise and is credited with ‘fuelling European emigration’(2)
Another artist to celebrate the great outdoors was Winslow Homer who also rose from magazine illustrator at Harpers Weekly, to world renowned artist. In this respect the media acted in supporting artists, like the art patrons of old.
His love of outdoor ‘pursuits’ embraced mountain scenes, but he is best known for his seascapes that capture the ‘Wild Coast of Maine’ and children riding the waves in a new spirit of freedom.
Through the magazines his paintings reached the masses, celebrating the national ownership of America’s exceptional beauty, instilling a shared bond across society, promoting:
‘America the beautiful’.
Breezing Up, (A Fair Wind), 1874, Winslow Homer
But the lure of the West still held appeal and one artist typified these iconic images - Frederic Remington, for whom the cowboy was his focus saying ‘With me cowboys are what gems and porcelain are to others’. A restless individual, Remington was not suited to the academia of Yale University and instead took his inheritance monies west where he invested in cattle, mining and finally a saloon. As his money dwindled, he began to sell his sketches and also became an artist-correspondent for Harpers Weekly, specialising on the Apache leader Geronimo. Although he never caught up with Geronimo, his artistic prowess grew and his work appeared on the front cover in 1886.
These ‘heroes’ masked the true cost of the adventure west.
Remington ventured west to experience the Apache wars and from his brief and unsuccessful attempt at ranching, became the authentic ‘pseudo cowboy’. This at a time when the early West was inevitably disappearing. He preferred ‘action’ works and here we see the iconic cowboys fighting off a chase from Apaches. He went on to produce 2,700 paintings. The excitement, speed and adventure sweep out towards a viewer
A Dash for the Timber’, Frederic Remington, 1889
To most Americans the Indians were considered a threat to be overcome and the land to be ‘settled’. These ‘new Americans’ looked to conquer this vast continent, often at the expense of the estimated 5-15 million Native Indians who had