Call for Soldier-Produced Artwork

[DamnTheTorpedoes]

Hello! I am an intern with the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, and my job is to collate artwork produced by soldiers during the Civil War for a planned exhibition. This post is a call for any information about material in personal collections which meets that criteria.

This could mean pencil drawings, like those of Lieutenant William Hedge: (Held at The University of North Carolina)

Or soldier-made comics, like those of John J. Omenhausser: (Held at Allegheny College)

Or even just tiny sketches on the margins of a letter or diary, like in Henry Stark Seage's journal: (Held at The University of Michigan)

We are looking for works produced specifically during the war, by soldiers on either side. This includes individuals held as prisoners of war. Textual works (letters, diaries, and post-war memoirs) by soldiers which discuss visual art are also acceptable. There is no restriction in topic, a Valentine's Day drawing is as valid as a battlefield sketch for our purposes.

Please reach out to this account if you have anything in a personal collection which matches this description that you would be interested in exhibiting, or if you are aware of any especially rare and hard-to-find items our own searching might miss.

 

[R. Porter]

American Libby Prison Painting Martin B. Leisser - Sep 21, 2024 | Antique Arena Inc. In Ny

Martin B. Leisser, American, 1846 to 1940, oil-on-board painting, offering a detailed panorama capturing a historical scene featuring Libby Prison in Ri{ellipsis} on Sep 21, 2024

www.liveauctioneers.com

How about a painting of Libby Prison by Martin B. Leisser? I don't know who Leisser was or when it was painted, but I seem to recall reading that it was the view out of his office window during the war. That could be totally wrong.

 

[UnionistMarylander]

Adolph Metzner was a German immigrant who served as a Captain in the 32nd Indiana Infantry, he drew a lot of camp life, but also some fairly realistic (and to that extent gruesome) combat scenes.

 

[R. Porter]

A brief survey of the Web suggests that the Leisser painting does not qualify to be in the artwork for which you are searching. Leisser was born in 1845 to immigrant parents on the south side of Pittsburgh. He might have been able to enlist during the war but I haven't come across anything that suggests military service. Obviously, he wasn't sitting in an office across the street from Libby Prison during the war. Leisser seems to be known to the Internet so there are a number of hits that pop up when you google his name.

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Interestingly, there are a couple of versions of his painting. One is in color. Another is in shades of gray with an inset of the commandant's house in the upper left corner.

American Libby Prison Painting Martin B. Leisser - Sep 21, 2024 | Antique Arena Inc. In Ny

Martin B. Leisser, American, 1846 to 1940, oil-on-board painting, offering a detailed panorama capturing a historical scene featuring Libby Prison in Ri{ellipsis} on Sep 21, 2024

www.liveauctioneers.com

MARTIN B. LEISSER (PENNSYLVANIA, 1846-1940) FOLK ART PAINTING OF LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

MARTIN B. LEISSER (PENNSYLVANIA, 1846-1940) FOLK ART PAINTING OF LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, oil on artist board, a detailed panoramic depiction featuring the prison flying the Second National Confederate flag, four sentries guarding the perimeter, flanked by associated buildings, a ship...

live.jeffreysevans.com

If you expand your image search, you find other pictures of a similar nature, including a lithograph:
"Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia / sketched by W.C. Schwartzburg, Co. A, 24th Wis. Vols. ; lith. by E. Sachse & Co. "

Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia / sketched by W.C. Schwartzburg, Co. A, 24th Wis. Vols. ; lith. by E. Sachse & Co. 104 S. Charles St. Baltimore. - PICRYL - Public Domain Media Search Engine Public Domain Image

Download Image of Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia / sketched by W.C. Schwartzburg, Co. A, 24th Wis. Vols. ; lith. by E. Sachse & Co. 104 S. Charles St. Baltimore.. Free for commercial use, no attribution required. Print shows an exterior of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, from across a...

itoldya420.getarchive.net

Is the lithograph based on Leisser's work or is it the other way around? There are other lithographs too.

Lithograph Of The Infamous Libby Prison - Mar 24, 2018 | Leland Little In Nc

(Richmond: Mountcastle, 1882), after a Civil War photograph showing the former tobacco warehouse when it was used to house captured Union officers. This{ellipsis} on Mar 24, 2018

www.liveauctioneers.com

This last lithograph seems to have been the inspiration for the poster:

Libby Prison During the War.

Poster depicting a large, red-brick building and ranks of soldiers in the background and white tents in the foreground. Text under the image reads, "Compliments of J. Thompson Brown & Co., Real Estate Agents and Auctioneers, 113 Main St., Richmond, Va."

texashistory.unt.edu

One thing that might be noticed when comparing the paintings and lithographs of the prison with photographs of the prison is that in photographs the bottom floor of the prison/warehouse is whitewashed. This raises the question of when the whitewashing occurred. There is an image that shows the whitewashing having mostly worn off and its presence/absence is remarked upon in the text describing the image. The poster places the image in the 1870's to 1880's period.

Libby Prison - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Escaping from Libby Prison - Home of Heroes

Escaping from Libby Prison By James G. Fausone, Esq. The desire to escape capture is a response as old as…

homeofheroes.com

The Infamous Confederate Prison – Libby Prison, Richmond, VA

Here is a previously undocumented photograph of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. The second-most infamous prisoner-of-war camp in the Confederacy (after Andersonville), it housed Union officers …

dcphotoartist.com

Was the lithograph above from Schwartzburg's sketch made from a post-war view of the prison or was the whitewash just omitted?

Finally, comparison of the Leisser paintings with the maps of the area show they do not agree when it comes to the small buildings on the left side of the pictures.

Escape from Libby Prison

Libby Prison There were many thousands of prisoners captured by both sides in the Civil War. Although many were patrolled or exchanged,...

civilwar150th.blogspot.com

So the Leisser paintings don't qualify as having been made by a soldier, or a person at the time of the war, or probably even once removed of an image by soldier who was there during the war either as a prisoner or observer in the army of occupation. They do offer some possible interest to someone documenting the history of Libby Prison from it's creation to its eventual existence in Chicago including how it was promoted as a museum and remembered as history by those living in the North.

 

[DamnTheTorpedoes]

Adolph Metzner was a German immigrant who served as a Captain in the 32nd Indiana Infantry, he drew a lot of camp life, but also some fairly realistic (and to that extent gruesome) combat scenes.

Metzner's work is very unique compared to his contemporaries. Most work I have seen that depicts death, which is already in the minority compared with landscapes, does so bloodlessly and without many visible wounds. The only equivalent that I have found is by Ensign John W. Grattan: (Held at The Naval History and Heritage Command)

Edgar H. Klemroth provides a much more typical example of how soldiers would depict death in visual art: (Held at The University of Michigan)

 

[R. Porter]

That blown up artillery emplacement looks like how we would draw battle scenes in first grade with our Crayola crayons. We had never seen a real battlefield with casualties. I wonder if the artist of the scene above had either.

 

[chubachus]

Union soldier Samuel Reader made a number of paintings and sketches of his experiences fighting in the western theater of war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Reader

The Liljenquist collection at LOC has a few of his hand-painted lantern slides (first one is a slider):