Macabre Sketch by Alfred Waud: "Here's a health to the next one that dies"

Based on Waud's caption, I presume the jolly officers are singing a popular song of the period, especially favored by military men: Stand to Your Glasses.

First verse and chorus:

We stand beneath resounding rafters,
The walls around us are bare,
They echo back our laughter,
It seems like the dead are still there.

So stand to your glasses steady,
This world is a world full of lies.
A toast to the dead already,
And hurrah for the next man to die!

It was written in 1835 by British civil servant William Francis Thompson during a deadly cholera outbreak in Calcutta and was soon adopted by soldiers. It was still a big hit with Allied flyers during WWI, men who tempted fate every time they took off.
 
Highly unusual, at least in my experience. Waud was ardent supporter of the Union and tended to draw the soldiers as serious and heroic.

I wonder if this was ever published during the War? Waud was subject to some censorship by his editors at Harper's. I've seen a very interesting drawing by him of Union soldiers looting private homes in Fredericksburg Va. The editor would not publish it, but the original drawing survived in the archive.
 
Glad someone bumped this. Waud could sure convey an awful lot in just a pencil sketch, couldn't he?

Waud was subject to some censorship by his editors at Harper's.


Here's what's so weird about Harper's. Early war issues seem to present the war in a somewhat neutral light? I've never looked into it terribly in depth- sketches of Confederate camps, generals and uniforms are next-page-over from Union camps, generals and uniforms. Someone who knows this stuff will be able to ascertain when it became solidly pro-Union.

That's a great thread, unused artist's images of the war. There's another one, of Union and Confederate officers drinking a toast after a parole at Fredericksburg. I can't find it in Harper's anyway. You'd think it'd be a pretty welcome addition.
 
Wilderness Campaign nightmare fuel.
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Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/2004660365/
"At a time when the shutterspeed of cameras was not fast enough to capture action, the public's only glimpse of battle came from the sketch artists. Waud's apparent courage under fire and passion for the men he depicted drew him dangerously close to the fighting, and his drawings portray more intimately than those by any other artist the drama and horror of this country's most devastating conflict."

Note that something *just happened* drawing the attention of nearly half of the subjects off-canvas on the right.
Waud Wilderness Annotated.jpg
 
He'd probably seen way too much by the time this jolly tableau occurred to him. There's that photo of Waud sitting on a rock at Gettysburg? Poor guy buried a buddy en route there, then ' photographed ' the battle- always wondered what he was looking at that day. Has to have gotten to him.

Wonderful find lelliot, thank you!
Reminiscent of the sketch book of John Geyser as portrayed in the mini-series 'The Blue & The Gray'. Wanting to be a non-combatant as he had relatives on both sides he became a sketch artist. As the war dragged on, the nature of his sketches became darker and darker in contrast to his more optimistic early sketch work.

Perhaps Geyser was the vehicle to portray the effects the war had on the correspondents, sketch artists, and photographers.
 
Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/2004660365/
"At a time when the shutterspeed of cameras was not fast enough to capture action, the public's only glimpse of battle came from the sketch artists. Waud's apparent courage under fire and passion for the men he depicted drew him dangerously close to the fighting, and his drawings portray more intimately than those by any other artist the drama and horror of this country's most devastating conflict."

Note that something *just happened* drawing the attention of nearly half of the subjects off-canvas on the right.
View attachment 456477
I've looked at that sketch for so many years and never noticed this point - very good catch!
 
View attachment 456441
"Heres a health to the next one that dies" by Alfred Rudolph Waud (ca. 1861-'65)

Soldiers toast each other around a table, as death, in the form of a skeleton leaning upon a scythe, waits outside the tent. You've probably seen some of Waud's battlefield sketches - usually of soldier life, action on the battlefield, and even a few of soldiers killed in battle. Although in the same style as other Waud sketches, this one is quite different in content. Perfect for today. Happy Halloween.

From the Library of Congress. Waud, Alfred R., Artist. Heres a Health to the Next One That Dies. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004660327/
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🎃🎃🎃
 
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