The surrender of Genl. Joe Johnston near Greensboro N.C., April 26th 1865

Mike Serpa

Major
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
3b50927u.jpg

Title
The surrender of Genl. Joe Johnston near Greensboro N.C., April 26th 1865
Contributor Names
Currier & Ives.
Created / Published
N[ew] Y[ork] : Pub. by Currier & Ives, c1865.

LOC #3b50927
 
Currier & Ives put out the most useless inaccurate drawings made about the Civil War but maybe there wasn't anything else available. Generally you got a picture of two groups of soldiers running toward each other with bayonets with a label below it "Battle of Bull Run" (or Shiloh or Gaines' Mill or Fort Wagner). Amazingly they actually showed the Harpeth River behind the Union troops at the Battle of Franklin, but this was an exception. Just my opinion :thumbsdown:
 
And what's this about it being near Greensboro? Bennett's Place is near Durham. Plus agreed about the body distortion though I like the blue on Sherman's coat
That is correct. You could call it Durham actually. I guess back then Greensboro was a more recognizable name.
 
His entire body looks larger than Sherman's. Maybe to make him look more imposing and to make Sherman look more the hero? David vs Goliath.
You're being sarcastic, right?

In the pictures of Lee and Grant, it's not so bad, since Lee really did tower over Grant physically. But depicting Johnston as huge and Sherman as some wiry little shrimp definitely shows an agenda!
 
Why is it that Johnston's head is twice as big as Sherman's?

That was what I was wondering!
His entire body looks larger than Sherman's. Maybe to make him look more imposing and to make Sherman look more the hero? David vs Goliath.
Who was actually taller Sherman or Johnston? It is strange picture.

Of course what you must remember is that the engravers who produced these prints had almost certainly never seen their subjects "in person" and were working from other artist's engravings. The Johnston looks like pre-war pictures of him; the Sherman is better but still copied from something else. As for artistic merit, these were popped out at a prodigious rate, often to take advantage of newsworthy or timely events; art was a purely secondary consideration. I have an undated print entitled Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant I'd like to be able to copy and post because it looks absolutely nothing like him! This occurrence can be explained by the fact that in Spring, 1862 on the heels of Forts Henry and Donelson the M. W. Kellogg company in Hartford, Conn. wanted to take advantage of his sudden notoriety but had NO idea what he looked like. Kellogg produced this as a generic "general" in full-dress uniform on a prancing steed and copied a face from Harper's Weekly that also looked little like Grant, full long beard and all. Prints like this also tried to act as news clarions as well: another print I own is by N. Currier (of later Currier & Ives fame) entitled Flight of the Mexican Army from Buena Vista and is dated 1847. This is a scene of columns of men hurriedly marching away from the viewer with their dead and wounded sprawling in the foreground. No doubt this was made when the news had just arrived in the East of Taylor's victory and they wanted to "scoop" their rival printmakers - they were in such a hurry the only colors used on it were a teal blue for the Mexican uniforms and a little green on the scanty foliage!
 
Currier and Ives printed over 200 lithographs of the Civil War. They supported the North but avoided castigating the South. Although many of the prints depicted battles, the scenes tended to soften the carnage of the war. Newspapers preferred these more genteel prints to the more gruesome photographs of the war such as photographers as Matthew Brady made.

Currier and Ives appealed to the civilians.
 
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