Mid-America Conference on History, 2012
The Hat, the Horse, and the Hero: The Impact
of Civil War Newspaper Illustrations of the
Battle of Wilson’s Creek on the Legacy of
General Nathaniel Lyon
Joan Stack, Curator of Art Collections, The State
Historical Society of Missouri
During the third week of August 1861, the Eastern
seaboard of the United States was abuzz with reports
of a significant Civil War battle in Missouri. This
battle, which occurred just weeks after Bull Run, was
the first important battle in the West. Union forces
under General Nathaniel Lyon had taken control of
Jefferson City on July 15, 1861. The state’s
Confederate sympathizing governor, Claiborne Fox
Jackson, was forced to flee the capital. In a bid to
regain control, state guard troops loyal to Jackson
prepared to confront Lyon’s federal Army of the West
near the Southwestern Missouri town of Springfield.
Rebel General Sterling Price (former governor of
Missouri and commander of Governor Jackson’s state
guard) was joined by Confederate troops under the
command of General Benjamin McCulloch. This
coalition force of around 12,000 badly outnumbered
Lyon’s army of just under 6000 men.1
Recognizing the unfavorable odds, General Lyon
reportedly expressed reluctance to confront the rebels.
Yet he feared retreat would disgrace his command and
empower his enemies. At around 5:00 a.m. on August
10, he launched a surprise assault on the rebel cavalry
camp, situated ten miles southwest of Springfield near
Wilson’s Creek. Lyon led one column of men while
Union Colonel Franz Sigel oversaw another. The battle
raged throughout the early morning hours, with neither
side dominating the fight. At around 9:30, General
Lyon personally led one column of men into battle at
a site later called Bloody Hill. During this charge, he
was shot and killed. Major Samuel Sturgis assumed
Lyon’s command and managed to maintain the
position, albeit with heavy casualties. The rebels,
however, had routed Sigel’s column south of Skegg’s
Branch. With Lyon dead, Union forces exhausted, and
ammunition depleted, Sturgis ordered a retreat to
Springfield.
The rebels held the field but suffered casualties
estimated at 1,095, which approached the Union’s
1,235.2 Too disorganized and ill-equipped to pursue
the Army of the West, the rebels’ progress stalled.
Nevertheless, the success at Wilson’s Creek (also
called the Battle of Oak Hills) was lauded by Southern
sympathizers as a step towards gaining control of
Missouri. In the North, it was promoted as a nearvictory for the Union against almost impossible odds.
Reports in Northern papers immediately focused on
the most sensational aspect of the battle: the death of
the first Union general killed in action.3 Official
military reports followed on August 20. Major Samuel
Sturgis described Lyon’s death as follows:
In the meantime, the general mounted and, swinging
his hat in the air, called to the troops nearest him to
follow. . .. about the same time, a fatal ball was lodged
in the general's breast, and he was carried from the
field a corpse. Thus gloriously fell as brave a soldier
as ever drew a sword –a man whose honesty of purpose
was proverbial –a noble patriot and one who held his
life as nothing when his country demanded it of him.4
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Sturgis could not resist editorializing as he described
Lyon’s demise. The major’s emphasis on the general’s
virtue, patriotism, and sacrifice foreshadows the
propagandistic cast of representations of Lyon’s death
in pictures and prose for decades to come.
Reports in the Illustrated Press
Images representing Lyon’s final moments appeared
within days of his death. In August 1861, nationally
distributed New York journals, Harper’s Weekly, the
New York Illustrated News, and Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper published eight wood
engravings of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Most
promoted the incident as the occasion of General
Nathaniel Lyon’s “heroic” demise. Without an
illustrated paper, the South had no organ to advance a
pro-Southern vision of the battle. 5
Though understudied, newspaper images played an
essential role in shaping the public’s understanding of the
Civil War. Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper each had subscription rates of over 100,000.6
Non-subscribers, including the illiterate, viewed these
newspapers in homes, libraries, and on the street. Even
African Americans held in bondage had occasional
access to these images. Mattie J. Jackson, an enslaved
teenager living in St. Louis during the war, described her
experience with illustrated newspapers in 1861:
“My mother and myself could read enough to make out the
news in the papers. The Union soldiers took much delight
in tossing a paper over the fence to us. It aggravated my
mistress very much. My mother used to sit up nights and
read to keep posted about the war. . .. On one occasion,
Mr. Lewis searched my mother's room and found a picture
of President Lincoln, cut from a newspaper, hanging in her
room. He asked her what she was doing with old Lincoln's
picture. She replied it was there because she liked it. He
then knocked her down three times and sent her to the
trader's yard for a month as punishment.”7
Jackson’s words reflect the power of illustrations to
engage, inspire, and even enrage a wide range of
nineteenth-century. audiences. To better appreciate the
consumption of these pictures, an 1864 centerfold
illustration for Harper’s Weekly entitled, The Press in
the Field, is especially instructive. (fig. 1)
(fig.1, photo courtesy of the author))
Designed by the famed illustrator and cartoonist
Thomas Nast, this wood engraving addresses
illustrated newspapers' creation, reception, and
influence during the Civil War. The tripartite design,
with vignettes in roundels, calls to mind centuries-old
multi-panel altarpieces in the Christian tradition. The
main panels of the “triptych” depict war
correspondents gathering oral and visual information.
In the fictive, altar-like space in front of the panels, a
field sketchbook lies open like a Bible or prayer book.
This bizarre, reverent presentation imbues the press
with a quasi-sacred status.8
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The three main panels of The Press in the Field address
methods reporters and illustrators used to report on
military action in the field. Journalists were kept away
from dangerous action for their safety, so they relied
on second-hand reports for much of their information.
In the three main panels, Nast pictured reporters and
artists interviewing witnesses and gathering
information from various sources.
Below these panels, Nast created two circular vignettes that
represented the popular reception of illustrated newspapers
by civilian and military audiences. In “Newspapers at
Home,” a father sits in his parlor or living room,
surrounded by his wife and children. The family looks at
the paper and “consumes” its reports and images at home,
in what has been called “the first living room war.”9 Behind
this domestic vignette, Nast shows the distribution of
papers in the nation’s towns and cities. A boy jogs through
the streets, selling copies of a journal to eager buyers.
(detail left corner fig. 1)
In “The Newspaper in Camp,” two soldiers sit before a row
of tents, perusing newspapers. Their standing comrades
gather around to study the reports and illustrations. Outside
this vignette, a figure on horseback distributes newspapers
within a military camp.10
(detail right corner fig. 1)
These contemporary images of the consumers of
illustrated newspapers depict how consumers’
visualizations of the news created a shared “memory”
of military action in homes, camps, and elsewhere.
Historians rarely address the essential artificial and
imaginative nature of the creation and experience of
this material culture. Instead, many use Civil War
newspaper images to “illustrate” historical texts
without comment. In so doing, they allow the images
to continue to shape the public’s collective “memory”
of the war while leaving the character of that influence
unanalyzed. 11
Ignoring the creative and propagandistic aspects of
these illustrations maintains the illusion of their
objectivity. Many past and present viewers have
accepted this illusion without reflection. Audiences
may be intellectually aware that the images are fictive
constructions. However, they suspend disbelief, as the
pictures aid in their imaginative reconstruction of
history. The newspapers themselves fostered this
interpretive fantasy. In 1866, the producers of a
Harper’s compilation of Civil War news reports and
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images insisted that the book represented events “just
as they occurred.” 12
Finally, views from “behind the lines” encouraged
viewer identification and implied partisan sympathies.
Many newspaper artists worked entirely from written
reports and photographs to envision battle scenes
imaginatively. Other illustrators were “embedded”
with military units and sent drawings from the field to
be engraved by the great newspaper presses in New
York City. Few of these field drawings were
eyewitness renderings. Field artists only sometimes
saw the newsworthy events they depicted. Sketching
a battle in progress was almost impossible. As Nast
shows in The Press in the Field, artists fashioned
images from memory, hearsay, and battle reports.
Frank Leslie’s illustrator, Henry Lovie, described how
he created his drawings of the Battle of Shiloh after
the battle. Following the bloody event, the artist
visited the soldiers and “listened to all stories from all
sides.” He also visited the sites where the battle took
place, making “upwards of 20 local sketches of
positions and scenes. . .. .”13
Moreover, nineteenth-century illustrations often alluded
to visual precedents that were likely familiar to their
audiences. Artists and their audiences were aware of a
standard canon of “great” artworks dating from
antiquity to the 1800s. Popular prints reproduced these
images for audiences of every class. To visualize
topical events on strict deadlines, newspaper artists
borrowed from the era's visual culture. Naturally (and
sometimes intuitively), they selected compositional
models that evoked emotional responses with social,
religious, and political undertones. 14
Since the lived experience of war was disorganized
and chaotic, artists like Lovie created order in their
battlefield images. They manipulated their visual
forms to convey cohesive narratives and emphasized
characteristic uniforms and weaponry to elucidate
action. Panoramic landscapes portrayed the scope and
scale of battles, and site-specific topography provided
geographic information. Centermost and uppermost
elements attracted the eye, and images “read” like
Western texts, from left to right. The rightward
movement appeared forceful, progressing forward,
while leftward movement seemed challenging and
difficult. War correspondents inserted flags into
scenes to identify protagonists and antagonists.
Civil War art depends heavily on two pictorial
traditions: the heroic and the religious. While most
people would expect to see references to the heroic
tradition in war imagery, religious allusions may seem
surprising to today’s audiences. However, as George
Rable observes in God’s Almost Chosen People: A
Religious History of the American Civil War, most
nineteenth-century Americans understood the military
events in a Christian context. Rable writes, “Given [the
era’s] assumptions about divine sovereignty and God’s
role in human history, northerners and southerners
anxiously looked for early signs of the Lord’s favor.”
Rable argues that Americans saw “providence” as the
force that gave meaning to history. 15
Imagery was a part of the nineteenth-century religious
experience. Bibles and other Christian texts were often
illustrated, enriching the spiritual life of the literate
and illiterate alike. Art historian Kristen Schwain
writes in Signs of Grace. Religion and American Art in
the Gilded Age, “Tastemakers assumed that fine art–as
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well as mass-produced versions of it–would instill
[religious] virtue, secure the cultural tradition, and
educate the national citizenry generally.” This thirst
for morally edifying images undoubtedly increased
during wartime.16
Inside the paper, the centerfold presents a panoramic
portrayal of Lyon’s battlefield death. The general falls
with arms raised before a cloud of smoke. (fig. 3).
Lyon as a Modern St. Paul
References to the European Christian artistic canon
appear in the first two images of the Battle of Wilson’s
Creek, published on August 24, 1861, by Frank
Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. The dying General
Lyon graced the cover of this issue. (fig. 2) At the
picture’s center, the fallen leader lies on the ground,
embraced by a fellow soldier. Four figures rush to his
aid as the general gazes skyward, raising his hat aloft.
(fig. 2, photo courtesy of the author)
(fig. 3, photo courtesy of the author))
While both images refer to aspects of official battle reports,
they also allude to Christian precedents. Parallels exist with
canonical images of the New Testament Conversion of St.
Paul. In the Biblical book of Acts, Paul (formerly Saul)
converts to Christianity after divine revelation causes him
to fall from his saddle on his ride to Damascus.17 In artwork
from the Middle Ages onward, the converted Paul is
frequently shown on the ground beside his horse, reaching
for the heavens. Around 1675, Bartolomé Murillo painted a
version of this scene that is especially analogous to the Frank
Leslie’s cover. (fig. 4)
(fig. 4, photo courtesy of the Prado)
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In Murillo’s picture (now in Madrid’s Prado), the artist
painted St. Paul beside his fallen horse on the ground. The
saint reaches toward a celestial figure of Christ as a
companion supports the apostle’s body.18 If one reverses the
composition, its mirror image is very similar to the Frank
Leslie’s cover. While the illustrator may not have seen
Murillo’s painting in person, he likely knew works
derived from it, such as an engraving of Paul’s conversion by
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld published in Schnorr’s Bible
Pictures by the British firm of Williams and Norgate in 1860.
(fig. 5)
Scripture History for the Improvement of Youth, an 1851
spiritual guide for young people in nineteenth-century
America 1851.19 (figs. 7)
(fig. 5, photo courtesy of the author)
The Frank Leslie’s centerfold also recalls images of
St. Paul. It presents a panoramic battle scene with
Lyon at the center. A “halo” of smoke surrounds the
general, who has just been shot and falls from his
horse. The image recalls depictions of Paul’s
conversion that show the saint tumbling from his saddle,
such as Hans Baldung Grein’s ca. 1515 woodcut (fig. 6),
and popular nineteenth-century examples such as the
anonymous engraving that illustrated Tallis’s Illustrated
(fig. 6, top and fig. 7, bottom, photos courtesy of the author)
Lyon's outstretched arms explicitly show the religious
implications of Frank Leslie’s centerfold. “Crucifixion
arms” appear in several St. Paul conversion images,
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most famously in the ca. 1520s tapestry designed by
Raphel that hangs in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican
(fig. 8) and the celebrated 1601 painting by
Caravaggio in S. Maria del Popolo, Rome (fig. 9).
this way, Frank Leslie’s illustration may have
extended the implied relationship between Christ’s
passion, Paul’s mission, and Lyon’s sacrifice for the
Union cause.
As Sturgis’ battle report portends, stories of the
general’s ultimate sacrifice almost immediately
endowed Lyon with an iconic, savior-like character.
Nineteenth-century viewers might connect the
general’s transformative death with the concept of a
Pauline spiritual or moral awakening. Indeed,
audiences who viewed Lyon's death on the cover of
the August 24 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper could read an article inside the paper
that began with the words, “The country is waking
up to the reality of war.” 20
Before his death, Lyon was celebrated in popular
culture as an uncompromising defender of the
Union. 21 After his fall, he became a national martyr.
As his body traveled from Missouri back to his
Ashford, Connecticut home, thousands viewed it en
route in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Jersey
City, New York, and Hartford. Over 10,000 people
attended Lyon’s funeral, where former Connecticut
governor Chauncey Cleveland addressed the crowd.
The dead Lyon became a Paul-like “apostle” and
martyr for the Northern cause, his new posthumous
identity inspiring a nation newly awakened to the
urgency of the effort to save the Union. 22
(fig. 8, top, photo courtesy of the Vatican, and fig. 9, bottom,
photo courtesy of S. Maria del Popolo)
Scholars generally agree that Raphael and Caravaggio
chose this pose to manifest Paul’s newfound commitment
to imitate Christ as an apostle. By representing Lyon in
The ”Passion” of General Lyon and Benjamin
West’s Death of General Wolfe
Returning to the Frank Leslie’s cover image, the vision
of Lyon expiring into his companion’s arms may have
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also encouraged nineteenth-century associations
between the wood engraving and the famous and often
imitated Death of General Wolfe by American painter
Benjamin West, now in the National Gallery of Canada.
(fig. 10)
After The Death of General Wolfe popularized the
concept, sentimental compositions centered on war
heroes dying in the arms of comrades became common
in military art for the next two centuries. 26 John
Trumbull’s 1784 Death of General Warren at Bunker
Hill (Museum of Fine Arts Boston) was a particularly
popular American variation.27 This image has several
compositional elements in common with the Frank
Leslie’s cover, including a figure rushing towards
Warren from the right. (fig. 11)
(fig. 10, photo courtesy the National Gallery of Canada)
Wolfe was a pre-revolutionary British general who died in
battle against the French on September 13, 1759, on the
Plains of Abraham, Quebec. This decisive victory, during
which Wolfe sacrificed his life, was a turning point for the
British in the French and Indian Wars.23
West’s painting, which was first displayed in 1771,
changed the nature of European and American battle
images. It broke with earlier allegorical traditions by
depicting a believable (though staged and romanticized)
military death scene.24 West’s picture was much admired
in the nineteenth century, and its reproduction as a famous
engraving by William Wollet in 1775 ensured its
worldwide fame. The painter based the pose of Wolfe
and his companions on images of the dead Christ
mourned by his followers (depositions and pietàs).
These well-respected precedents gave The Death of
General Wolfe dignity and pathos while also implying
that Wolfe’s sacrifice had parallels to that of Christ. 25
(fig. 11 photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston)
In all three pictures, the intimate physical contact between
the dying generals (Wolfe, Warren, and Lyon) and their
companions brings emotional poignancy to the experience
of viewing the scenes. In Frank Leslie’s wood engraving
(details of figs. 6 and 11)
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the visual parallels between Wolfe, Warren, and Lyon also
reinforce the idea that Lyon participated in an American
legacy of patriotic self-sacrifice. At the same time, the
compositional allusions to pietà imagery might have
encouraged viewers to associate military sacrifice with the
“wages” of sin.
This brutal analysis of the horror of war was visually
illustrated in the centerfold on August 31. (fig. 12).
This image challenges the notion that early Civil War
illustrations ignored the human costs of the conflict. 31
In 1861, Unionists were likely to equate such
transgressions with the “national” sins of secession,
slavery, and war.28 The idea that the United States was
already paying for its wrongs through war-time death and
suffering resonated with Unionists. On August 12,
President Lincoln declared that September 26, 1861,
would be a national day of “fasting, humiliation, and
prayer. . . in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and
crimes as a nation and individuals.” This announcement
implicitly associated the sacred with the secular,
connecting the war with the shared religious
atonement of the nation. 29
For some, casualties on the battlefield may have
embodied this concept. In the August 31 issue of Frank
Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, the paper published
the following report of casualties at the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek:
The loss of the Union force is definitely ascertained to
have been 223 killed, 721 wounded, and 291 missing–
or a total of 944 killed and wounded. This loss of onefifth, or 20 percent of the whole number engaged,
shows with what determination the battle was fought
by Lyon’s heroic band. . . Had the French and
Austrians fought with corresponding determination at
Solferino, their aggregate loss would have been
80,000 instead of 30,000. 30
(fig. 12, top and detail of fig. 12, bottom; photos courtesy
of the author)
The artist Henry Lovie presented a view behind the
Union lines. As the battle wages in the background,
the foreground reminds viewers of the war’s deadly
consequences. Lovie portrayed wounded and dead
bodies across the foreground plane. At right, a horsedrawn ambulance commands attention as a body is
hoisted into its wagon bed. A stunned soldier sits upright
on the ground as though recovering from a body blow.
Another man carries a wounded companion on his
back, an action that recalls images of Aeneas
carrying his father from the besieged city of Troy.
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Other soldiers attend to one another in intimate
proximity, recalling the central group in The
Death of General Wolfe. Yet here, anonymous
soldiers suffer. Unlike the cover image that Frank
Leslie’s published on August 24, there is no heroic
focus in this scene of mass carnage on the
battlefield.
Perhaps to relieve the somber implications of this
centerfold, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
decided to revisit Lyon’s heroic death elsewhere in
the August 31 issue, with Lovie’s interpretation of
the subject. (Fig. 13)
The original sketch for this picture survives in the
collection of the New York Public Library (fig. 14). In
the drawing, Lovie portrayed Lyon falling backward,
holding but not waving his hat. The artist foresaw the
symbolic power of the hat, however, which warranted
its own mini sketch in the upper portion of the sheet.
After publishing two illustrations of the dying Lyon in
the August 24 paper, Frank Leslie’s editors may have
ordered their New York artists to change the
composition to show Lyon immediately before his fall,
thus generating a more inspirational image.
(fig. 13, photo courtesy of the author)
(fig. 14, photo courtesy of the New York Public Library)
While not a two-page centerfold, this image fills an
entire single page. Lovie shows us Lyon’s final
moments behind the Union lines, providing his
audience with a federal soldier’s view of the action.
Lyon is seen from the back at the center of the
composition. He rides leftward, his movement suggesting
strained progress. As the general’s horse rears, Lovie
shows him waving his hat in the moments before the
fatal bullet hits him.
Further impetus for the modification may have come
from the paper’s primary competitors, Harper’s
Weekly and the New York Illustrated News, who
published “heroic” pictures of the hat-waving Lyon
leading his men into battle.
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The New York Illustrated News’ Classicized Vision
of Wilson Creek as an Epic Battle Frieze
On Monday, August 26, 1861, the New York Illustrated
News (NYIN) reported news from the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek in its pages. Instead of picturing
General Lyon on the cover of the issue, the NYIN’s
front page portrayed a Missouri military leader who
survived the battle, the newly promoted Brigadier
General Frans Sigel (fig. 15).
suggests an optimistic vision of Siegel’s leadership on
the Western frontier. 32
Inside the New York Illustrated News, verbal
description of Sigel, the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, and
the Union situation in the West is less favorable. A
reporter for the paper wrote, “General Franz Siegel
(sic) is obtaining a celebrity in defeat.” The journalist
goes on to fault Union leadership at Wilson’s Creek,
stating:
“We ought not to lose a battle! And when we hear that
a Union force of eight thousand has attacked a rebel
army of twenty thousand, so far from feeling
admiration for the audacity of the Union commander,
we desire that he should have a Court Martial for his
foolhardiness.” 33
Despite these harsh words, the paper’s discussion of
the deceased Commanding General Nathaniel Lyon is
positive. In introducing an eye-witness description of
the late general, the paper claims Lyon was already
viewed as “the savior of Missouri” before the battle.
The reporter writes,
(fig. 15, photo courtesy of the author)
The artist likely copied a studio photograph for the
foreground figure of Sigel, although the general is
shown in a military setting. Behind him, fighting men
wave hats, swords, and an American flag. A military
groom holds a horse ready for action. The composition
“The sketch was written at a time when the loyal men
of the Union regarded Gen. Lyon as the savior of
Missouri from rebel rule. We read it now with the same
feelings as those which warm us as we regard a
portrait of the dead.” 34
Inside the paper, a heroic centerfold illustration
celebrates Lyon’s final charge. (fig. 16). According
to the newspaper text, an eyewitness, J. S. Scheibel,
made a drawing on-site that served as the model for
the paper’s illustration. However, Scheibel's drawing
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was likely only roughly related to the final wood
engraving published in the paper. The young Thomas
Nast undoubtedly radically reworked the drawing in
the tradition of heroic battle images. Nast signed the
composition, indicating that he considered it his
own. 35
(fig. 16, photo courtesy of the author)
Nast pictured Lyon charging into battle (fig. 16).
Viewers assume the point of view of an observer
nearby as the action proceeds frieze-like across the
picture plane. The torso of the mounted general is
at the pinnacle of a moving pyramid of figures
silhouetted against the sky—his outstretched right arm
points forward as he clenches his hat in his hand. Foot
soldiers join in the rightward charge. They rush
forward and block our view of the general’s horse and
the background scene. The shallow space calls to mind
martial reliefs, particularly those on Roman
sarcophagi.
Directly behind the general, an American flag points
diagonally upward. It joins the repeated, right-facing
diagonals of bayonets and legs running in step to
suggest movement. Near Lyon’s horse, a foot soldier
falls backward in a Christ-like pose, foreshadowing the
general’s imminent fate. Nearby, another charging
soldier drops his gun and falls forward as the dead and
wounded sprawl across the ground.
The composition's rightward thrust ends when the “frieze”
of figures is interrupted by a glimpse of the background
landscape with troops in the distance. At the edge of the
picture frame, the perpendicular form of a foot soldier
interrupts the composition's rightward diagonal thrust,
suggesting suspended advancement. He faces the distant
troops and steps towards the smoke-filled landscape,
bayonet pointing leftward.
Compositionally, the wood engraving owes much to
Antoine-Jean Gros’ 1810 picture, Napoleon Haranguing
the Army at the Battle of the Pyramids. at the Palace of
Versailles. (fig. 17). The gestures of the mounted
generals are especially close.
(fig. 17, photo courtesy of the Palace of Versailles)
Gros’ picture, like Nast’s, ultimately derives from Imperial
Roman friezes, such as the relief on the Ludovisi Battle
Sarcophagus, which dates to ca. 250-280 CE (fig. 18). 36
This pedigree imbues both with a timeless, epic grandeur.
Gros shows Napoleon delivering his famous message to
his soldiers in Egypt. Pointing rightward, the French
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(fig. 18, photo courtesy of the National Museum of
Rome, Palazzo Altemps)
leader announces, “Soldiers, from the height of these
pyramids, forty centuries are watching us.” For those in
the know, Nast’s allusion might encourage a connection
between Napoleon’s words and the Union Cause. Many
probably believed centuries of future Americans would
look back on this epic fight as instrumental in answering
questions about the historical viability of representative
democracy nationally.37
Although Lyon’s fatal charge appeared in the
centerfold, the editors of the August 26 issue of the
New York Illustrated News also felt the general’s death
warranted a full-page illustration (fig. 19).
This unsigned composition (perhaps Thomas Nast) is
also related to John Trumbull’s Death of General
Warren at Bunker Hill (fig. 11). Lyon’s pose mimics
Warren’s as the Union leader sinks into his
companion's arms, sword still in hand. Unlike
Trumbull’s Warren, however, Lyon remains alert. His
open-eyed gaze may illustrate Lyon’s dying moments
as described in the newspaper’s text, “He [Lyon] was
asked if he was hurt, and replied, ‘No, not much,’ but
in a few minutes expired without a struggle.” 38
As in Trumbull’s composition, the NYIN artist creates
a compositional pyramid made up of the general and
his attendants. A standing figure forms the apex, the
left slope consists of a kneeling figure supporting the
dying Lyon, and a forward-striding soldier crates the
sloping right side. Behind this group, the fight goes on.
The repetitive poses and profiles recall the frieze-like
composition of the centerfold, reflecting the
movement of an infantry charge. Pictorial elements
suggest the lost potential of the fallen general. A dead
soldier at left foreshadows the leader’s imminent demise.
An abandoned bayonet and Lyon’s plumed hat sit on the sunlit
ground. A riderless horse stands alert, held by a soldier who
looks toward the dying general. Readers might associate this
horse with the animal behind Sigel on the paper’s front page–
the living and dead riders representing a changing of the guard.
Lyon as Archetypal Mounted Leader and Heir to
the Glory of the Founders
(fig. 19, photo courtesy of the author))
Perhaps the most heroic and iconic Wilson Creek
images published in the U.S. illustrated press appeared
a few days later on the cover of the August 31, 1861,
issue of Harper’s Weekly. The composition by an
unidentified artist depicts General Lyon waving his hat
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as he rides forward. As an image, it functions more as a
posthumous portrait than a narrative portrayal of
Lyon’s battlefield exploits (fig. 20).
The mounted general astride a galloping steed
dominates the composition. The rightward-facing
horse storms into the viewer’s space, suggesting
forceful progress. The general looks back, presenting an
ennobling near profile. He raises his right arm, hat in
As a posthumous equestrian portrait, the Harper’s
cover recalls a portrait type traditionally reserved for
heroic military and political leaders. For centuries, the
ultimate source for most such portraits was the secondcentury CE bronze sculpture of Marcus Aurelius,
which has been publicly displayed in Rome for almost
a millennium. (fig. 21)
(fig. 21, photo courtesy of the author)
(fig. 20, photo courtesy of the author)
hand, still controlling his horse. Below the animal’s
hooves lies a fallen soldier. The artist limits spatial
depth with a “curtain” of imprecisely rendered foot
soldiers behind Lyon (the most distinct holds his gun
up in a posture of battle readiness). The form of the
general’s upper torso and arm stand out against the
lighter tone of the background sky.
While not every American would be familiar with the
Marcus Aurelius equestrian portrait, many Harper’s
readers would likely have been aware of recent equestrian
monuments that had been created in the United States that
recalled the Marcus Aurelius model. Henry Kirke Brown's
bronze sculpture of George Washington erected in New
York City in 1856 would likely have been particularly
familiar to many viewers. (fig. 22)
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Andrew Jackson waving his hat by Clark Mills erected
in Washington D. C. in 1853 (fig. 23). A replica was
also erected in New Orleans in 1856.
(fig. 23, photo courtesy of the author)
(fig. 22, photo courtesy of the author)
The horse in Brown’s sculpture is very similar to Lyon’s
steed. It would likely have been a convenient stationary
model for the Harper’s illustrator working in a New York
Office, far from the battle lines.39
The Mills’ Andrew Jackson sculpture was closely associated
with the Union cause because the north side of its base was
decorated with text paraphrasing Jackson’s 1830 condemnation
of secession, “OUR FEDERAL UNION /IT/ MUST BE
PRESERVED,” These pro-Union words were moved to the less
visually conspicuous west side of the statue’s base in 1909, but
they can be seen as they appeared during the Civil War in a
lithograph by Thomas Sinclair, published by Casimir Bohn in
1853. The print shows a view of the sculpture in Lafayette
Park, with the White House in the background.40 (fig. 24)
(Detail of fig. 20)
Likewise, Americans nationwide would have been
familiar with the rearing bronze equestrian portrait of
(fig. 24, photo courtesy of the author)
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Nineteenth-century viewers who associated the Harper’s
cover with equestrian portraits of Washington and Jackson
might see a connection between Lyon and America’s
victorious military heroes of the past. 41 By presenting
Lyon in an image that resembled other portrayals of
America’s military heroes, the Harper’s cover implied that
the Civil War general emulated their valor.
(fig. 25, top, photo courtesy of the Vatican Museum and
fig. 26, bottom, photos courtesy of the author)
(detail of fig. 20)
As in all equestrian portraits, Lyon’s war horse
becomes an extension of its rider’s being–a masculine
attribute of his power. The image has an intimidating
aspect as Lyon charges into the viewer’s space, his
steed trampling over a fallen U.S. soldier. On a literal
level, this ruthless treatment of the dead suggests a
hardened, single-minded will to fight. The fallen
figure may also foreshadow Lyon’s own death and
serve as a grim reminder of the realities of war. On a
figurative or symbolic level, the visual trope of a
mighty horseman trampling over bodies is an ancient
emblem of military power. Similar images appear on
Roman coins and in imperial statuary as depictions of
martial triumphs, such as the ca. 380 CE Sarcophagus
of St. Helena (fig, 24) and a ca. 280 CE coin minted
under the Roman emperor Probus. (fig. 25)
The imagery resurfaced periodically in Western art over
the centuries, appearing, for example, in an 1818-century
medal commissioned by the U.S. Congress to
commemorate the 1813 Battle of the Thames. Here,
Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby charges over the
Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, who fell in the battle at the
hands of Col. Johnston. (fig. 26)
(fig. 26 at left, with detail of horseman at right, photos
courtesy of the author)
These visual allusions might have encouraged viewers
of Harper’s covers to associate Gen. Lyon’s image
with emblems of martial might that instilled fear and
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awe in allies and adversaries alike. The iconic and
emblematic aspects of the image also allow Lyon to
“perform” and inspire viewers as the heroic,
transformative figure alluded to in other images.
The image also has theatrical implications. The front
page “frames” the general with a proscenium arch-like
background (compare the Harper’s cover with fig. 27,
Laura Keene’s Broadway theatre, from Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper, Dec. 13, 1856). Lyon rides forward
towards “center stage” in a relatively shallow space. His
hat-waving is addressed not just to his troops but also to
the Harper’s audience. He is portrayed as an archetypal
military hero.
The fiction that this picture (or any of the images
above) represented a “true” record of Lyon’s last
moments is a delusion that was probably readily
embraced in the nineteenth century, although few
would defend it as rational. The image and all it
represented fed a shared need for heroic exemplars
early in the war. Since Lyon was dead, he could not
tarnish the reputation of his new heroic persona.
The dead hero was “resurrected” in this and other
newspaper images, reassuring Unionists that the
federal army had the power and heroism to win the
war. As Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper reported in
its August 31 issue, the Union’s heroic stand at the
Battle of Wilson’s Creek could potentially “. . . inspire
confidence in the courage and steadiness of our volunteers,
more than compensating for the doubts and fears to which
the circumstances of the flight from Bull Run have given
rise.”43
Lyon as a Western Martyr, Atoning for the Sins of
a Nation
(figs 27 and 20, photos courtesy of the author)
Although Lyon was said to have worn a modest captain’s
jacket in the battle, he is shown in his brigadier general’s
coat on the Harper’s cover. The unknown artist visualizes
Lyon’s physical heroism and self-sacrifice in a way that
likely reassured viewers that the Union army was ready,
willing, and able to fight. This powerful image had the
potential to prompt admiration, identification, or even
imitation of Lyon in those who saw it.42
Although the heroic Harper’s cover image implied
victory, the report inside the paper acknowledged that
the battle’s outcome was a stalemate (or worse). The
paper illustrated Colonel Franz Sigel's struggles with
an image that visualized a context and setting for the
cover image. This half-page engraving, Sigel Forcing
Prisoners to Draw off his Canon at the Battle of
Springfield, presents a panoramic view of the Wilson’s
Creek battlefield (fig. 28).
Bodies of the dead and wounded litter the landscape.
In the foreground, a line of rebel prisoners occupies
the central portion of the composition. Three grim17
Mid-America Conference on History, 2012
faced prisoners lead the group, hauling the canon. To
their left, Sigel's mounted figure assumes a
commanding pose, arm outstretched, directing the
captives. The picture illustrates an episode described
in the Harper’s text:
illustration, most of the prisoners wear military uniforms,
yet the most prominent figure is hatless and clad in a suit
of fringed leather.
General Sigel had a very severe struggle, and lost three of
his four guns. His artillery horses were shot in their
harness, and the pieces disabled. He endeavored to haul
them off with a number of prisoners he had taken, but was
finally compelled to abandon them. . . .44
(detail fig. 28, photo courtesy of the author)
(fig 28, photo courtesy of the author)
Such leather clothing conforms with outfits worn by
Indigenous Americans, Western fur traders, and
mixed-race or Metis individuals of the era. Indeed, by
the mid-nineteenth century, fringed leather had
become so emblematic of the American West that the
commander of the Department of the West, General
John C. Frémont (previously famous as a Western
explorer), adopted buckskin as his “signature”
uniform.
The image's leftward movement suggests the battle's
hardship, as do the lost canons and dead horses in the
background near the horizon. Yet the uppermost figure is
the manly Sigel, riding a black stallion, his head
surrounded by a white cloud. The artist diverts attention
from the Union’s tactical losses by focusing on the general’s
command and the humiliation of the rebel prisoners.
Moreover, the imagery evokes the exotic setting of the
“Western” theater by drawing attention to a long-haired,
buckskin-clad rebel prisoner at the center of the
composition. At Wilson’s Creek, Union forces fought a
coalition of Southern Confederates and Missouri State
Guardsmen, many of whom wore civilian clothes.45 In this
(fig. 29, photo courtesy of the author)
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Illustrator M. Nevin created a full-page equestrian
portrait of Frémont in this “prairie costume,”
published in Harper’s Weekly in July 1861. 46 (fig. 29)
Returning to the Sigel image, the artist who depicted
the leather-clad prisoner hauling the canon may have
intended viewers to recognize him as an Indigenous or
mixed-race person. Early reports describing the Battle
of Wilson’s Creek mention Cherokee “half-breeds”
among the rebels fighting with the Confederate
General Benjamin McCullough. The leather-clad
figure may have been designed to represent one of
these fighters.
Whether or not his presence reflects historical reality,
his pictorial function is clear. He encourages eastern
viewers to visualize Missouri as a battleground on the
Western frontier (detail fig. 38) where “untamed”
rebels jeopardized America’s dream of extending its
borders across the wilderness.47
In the August 31 issue of Harper’s Weekly, Sigel
Forcing Prisoners to Draw off his Canon and the
heroic cover image of Lyon reinforced the idea that
Wilson’s Creek was more than an ordinary battle. It
was a heroic struggle to “save” America’s future as a
mighty continental nation. While a quasi-sacred
aspect of this mission had been suggested visually in
the Frank Leslie’s images of Wilson’s Creek, Harper’s
also used Christological allusions to describe Lyon’s
sacrifice in its text. The newspaper’s emotionally
charged description of the general’s behavior before
and during the battle, calls to mind Biblical accounts
of the Agony in the Garden, where Jesus foresees,
doubts, and finally accepts his mission:
For two or three days before the battle General Lyon
changed much in appearance. Since it became
apparent to him that he must abandon the Southwest
or have his army cut to pieces, he had lost much of his
former energy and decision. To one of his staff he
remarked, the evening before the battle, "I am a man
believing in presentiments, and ever since this night
surprise was planned, I have had a feeling I can not
get rid of that it would result disastrously . . . .
. . . . On the way to the field I frequently rode near him.
He seemed like one bewildered, and often when
addressed failed to give any recognition, and seemed
totally unaware that he was spoken to. . . . On the
battlefield . . . . he was standing where bullets flew
thickest, [and] some of his officers . . . begged that he
would retire from the spot . . . . Scarcely raising his
eyes from the enemy, he said: "It is well enough that I
stand here. I am satisfied."
. . . . Major Sturgis, during the conversation, noticed
blood on General Lyon’s hat and, at first, supposed he
had been touching it with his hand, which was wet with
blood from his leg. A moment after, perceiving that it
was fresh; he removed the General’s hat and asked the
cause of its appearance. “It is nothing, Major, nothing
but a wound in the head,” said General Lyon, turning
away and mounting his horse. Without taking the hat
held out to him by Major Sturgis, he addressed the
Iowans he was to command with, “Forward men, I will
lead you.” Two minutes afterward, he lay dead on the
field, killed by a rifle ball through the breast, just
above the heart. 48
Harper’s focus on the general’s mental state affects
the audience’s imaginative understanding of his death.
Lyon’s somber, uncertain mood is reminiscent of
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Christ’s emotional anguish before the Passion. In the
Gospel of Luke, Jesus verbalizes his agony during his
nighttime visit to the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God
to “remove this cup from me,” his sweat dripping like
“great drops of blood falling to the ground.” Yet,
gradually, Jesus comes to embrace his destiny. Likewise
(according to the report), Lyon suffered mentally and
physically before accepting the fate he had foreseen.
Before his death, the general’s bloody hat, like a
modern-day crown of thorns, presages his
martyrdom.49
Oddly, Lyon’s hat-waving gesture, while depicted on
the Harper’s cover, is not described in that paper’s
account of the general’s death. Yet the Harper’s
cover, together with the magazine's account of the
battle, reinforce the concept of the general as a
redemptive figure, sacrificing his blood and body for
the Union. This concept was reinforced by numerous
cultural forces in the summer of 1861, reflecting the
collective need of the Northern populace for martyred
heroes to validate their cause. In the Harper’s text,
Lyon’s hat is a material manifestation of the general’s
sacrifice and a tangible omen of his fate. Moreover,
the hat pictured on the cover became doubly
significant in context with the newspaper's text.
Harper’s audience would likely visualize the hat as an
inspirational sign of Lyon’s commitment to the Union,
and as a blood-soaked memorial to his ultimate
sacrifice.50
In the summer of 1861, the treatment of Lyon’s hat as
a relic bolstered the general’s status as a secular martyr
and quasi-saint. Displayed on his coffin as his body
lay in state in cities across the nation, Lyon’s hat
eventually lay at the head of the general’s coffin
during his August 5, 1861 funeral. Weeks later, the
family presented the “chapeau” to the state of
Connecticut so that it could be shared and preserved in
perpetuity.51 The hat’s continued cultural significance
is reflected in its survival to this day in the collection
of the Connecticut Historical Society. (fig. 30).
(fig. 30, photo courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society)
In conclusion, historians have long overlooked the role
newspaper illustrations played in the construction of
historical memory during the Civil War era. This case
study of journalistic images associated with the Battle
of Wilson’s Creek reveals that these wood engravings
were loaded with religious and historical allusions to
Americans' shared visual and literary heritage. Few
nineteenth-century Americans experienced the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek firsthand, yet the illustrated newspapers
published a series of images that allowed a nation to
imaginatively “witness” the soldiers’ sacrifice and
Lyon’s heroic charge.
Art historian William J. Ivins describes the power of
such visual reportage, asserting that we “think and act
upon” symbolic reports rather than concrete historical
events. The Wilson’s Creek newspaper illustrations
shaped the way Lyon’s death was understood and
remembered by the nation in 1861. The images
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characterized the battle as a pivotal fight for the West
and helped reinforce a heroic, savior-like persona for
Lyon that helped inspire Unionists to fight
(metaphorically and literally) for the national cause.
This paper was read at the Mid-America Conference
on History, Springfield, Missouri, Sept. 21, 2012.
The bibliography on the battle of Wilson’s Creek is extensive and cannot
be wholly documented here. For a basic analysis, overview, and
bibliography related to the battle, see William Piston and Richard Hatcher,
Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who
Fought It (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and
Christopher Phillips, The Battle of Wilson’s Creek (Fort Washington,
Pennsylvania: Eastern National), 2008.
1
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/08/14/news/another-battle-missouridefeat-rebel-troops-official-announcement-battlefull.html?pagewanted=all, accessed Feb. 10, 2012.
See Major S. D. Sturgis’s Official Report from the Army of the West
Headquarters near Rolla, Missouri, August 20, 1861, The War of the
Rebellion, p. 67.
4
5
Estimated casualties at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek were 1,235 for the
Union and 1,095 for the combined rebel forces of the Missouri State
Guard and the Confederacy. Federal casualties were reported by Major
Samuel Sturgis, on August 20, 1861, in official military reports
republished in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, (Washington:
Govt. Print. Off., 1881), vol. 3, part 1, p. 67. On page 106 of the same
text, the casualties of the rebels are reported by General Ben McCulloch
in his official August 12, 1861, account of the battle. The War of the
Rebellion is published online:
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?Content=003/0067,
accessed April 10, 2012. This source will hereafter be abbreviated OR.
2
3
As early as Wednesday, August 14, 1861, The New York Times published
this early, unofficial (and not entirely accurate) report of the death of
General Nathaniel Lyon: Early on Saturday morning Gen. Lyon marched
out of Springfield to give battle to the enemy. . . . Sometime in the
afternoon, as [he] was leading on his column his horse was shot from
under him. He immediately mounted another, and as he turned around to
his men, waving his hat in his hand and cheering them on to victory, he
was struck in the small of the back by a ball and fell dead to the ground .”
See “Another Battle in Missouri: Defeat of the Rebel Troops. Official
Announcement of the Battle. Full Details of the Battle. Sketch of Gen.
Lyon. News of the Rebellion.” New York Times, Aug. 14, 1861:
The publishing industry was much stronger in the North than in the South,
even before the war. The South’s few presses, limited paper production,
and expensive mail service hampered the circulation of newspapers. In
August of 1861, no Southern illustrated newspaper existed to represent the
battle of Wilson’s Creek (or Oak Hills, as the rebels called it). The
Southern Illustrated News, launched in Richmond in the fall of 1862 (its
final issue published on Sept. 13 1862 and its last issue published on March
25, 1865), never had a large circulation or staff. Most editions included
only a few wood engravings, which rarely exhibited the variety or quality
characteristic of the Northern illustrated papers. For The Southern
Illustrated News, see Mark E. Neely, Harold Holtzer, Gabor S. Boritt, The
Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause (Chapel Hill, University of
North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 23-30.
For subscription rates and a discussion of the importance of illustrated
newspapers in the Civil War era, see A. G. Pearson, “Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly: Innovation and Imitation in
Nineteenth‐Century American Pictorial Reporting,” The Journal of
Popular Culture, vol. 24, no. 4 (Spring, 1990): 81-111. See also Joshua
Brown, Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age
America, (2002), especially pp. 46-59; William Fletcher Thompson, The
Image of War: The Pictorial Reporting of the American Civil War
(University of Louisville Press, 1996); and James M. Volo and Dorothy
Denneen Volo (editors), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life in
America, Volume 4: The Civil War, Reconstruction and Industrialization
6
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1861-1900, series editor, Randall M. Miller (Newport, Connecticut: The
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2009), 97-100.
See Dr. L. S. Thompson The Story of Mattie J. Jackson . . .A True Story
Written and Arranged by Dr. L. S. Thompson as Given by Mattie,
(Lawrence, Kansas: Sentinel Office, 1866), pp. 13-14.
7
Thomas Nast published several large illustrations for Harper’s Weekly
during the Civil War period that were constructed like multipaneled
altarpieces. See, for example, Christmas 1863, published Dec. 26, 1863,
pp. 824-825.,New Year’s Day 1864, published Jan. 2, 1864, pp.8-9; Palm
Sunday, published May 20, 1865, pp 312-313.
8
a tangentially related discussion of the political role of newspaper
illustrations in journalism’s post-Civil War history, see Thomas C.
Leonard’s The Power of the Press: The Birth of American Political
Reporting (Oxford: Oxford University, 1986), especially pp. 63-132.
For this quote see Alfred Hudson Guernsey and Henry Mills Alden,
Harper’s Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion (Chicago: McDonnell
Brothers, 1866), ii. The book reprinted many of the HW’s original articles
and illustrations related to the Civil War. For the concept of objectivity in
newspaper illustration, see Brown, Behind the Lines. Pictorial Reporting,
Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America, pp.54-55 and 71.
12
The appellation “The First Living Room War,” was applied to the Civil
War in Jan Zita Grover’s “The First Living-Room War: The Civil War in
the Illustrated Press,” Afterimage (February, 1984): 8-11.
Henry Lovie, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News, May 17, 1862, cited in
Campbell, The Civil War: A Centennial Exhibition of Eyewitness
Drawings, pp.86-88. Hereafter, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News will be
abbreviated FLIN.
For this illustration see Harper’s Weekly (April 30, 1864): 280-281.
Harper’s Weekly will hereafter be abbreviated HW. For a reproduction of
The Press in the Field and a discussion of the print as it relates to Thomas
Nast’s role as a HW artist, see Applewood Books, An Album of Battle Art
(Washington: Library of Congress: 1988), pp. 62-63. For a discussion of
the nature of audiences that consumed newspaper wood engravings and the
means by which papers were distributed, see Brown, Behind the Lines, 4950.
The nineteenth-century artist George Caleb Bingham described the
practice of copying masters as a means of learning the artistic trade in a
June 3, 1838 letter: “I have been purchasing a lot of drawings and
engravings, and also a lot of casts from antique sculptures which will give
me nearly the same advantages in my drawing studies at home that are
present to be enjoyed here.” See George Caleb Bingham in “But I Forget
that I am a Painter and not a Politician: The Letters of George Caleb
Bingham,” (Columbia: The State Historical Society of Missouri and the
Friends of Arrow Rock Inc., 2011), p. 47.
9
13
14
10
See George Rable, God’s Almost Chosen People: A Religious History of
the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2010), p.74.
15
11
The previously cited book by Joshua Brown, Behind the Lines, contains
extensive discussion of Civil War newspaper images as cultural artifacts.
However, most scholars use the wood engravings to illustrate wartime
events without discussing their inherently subjective nature. Scholarship on
these artworks tends to focus on their creation rather than reception, with
an emphasis on the artists’ methods and experiences. For such artistfocused discussions, see Harry Katz and Vincent Virga, Civil War Sketch
Book: Drawings From the Battlefront, (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2012), Witness to the Civil War: first-hand accounts from FLIN,
compiled by J.G. Lewin and P.J. Huff; ed. by Stuart A.P. Murray (New
York: Collins, 2006); Frederick E. Ray, Alfred Waud, Civil War Artist
(New York: Viking Press, 1974), and William P. Campbell, The Civil War:
A Centennial Exhibition of Eyewitness Drawings (Washington D. C.: The
National Gallery of Art, 1961). A recent study of the topic, First Hand Civil
War Drawings from the Becker Collection, eds. Judith Bookbinder and
Sheila Gallagher (Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College,
2010) provide some discussion of the reception of published wood
engravings, but as an exhibition catalog, in-depth analysis is limited. For
Kristen Schwain, Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the
Gilded Age (New York: Cornell University Press, 2008), p.2.
16
See Acts 9:3-6 (King James translation), “And as he journeyed, he came
near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from
heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul,
Saul, why persecutes thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the
Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutes: it is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the
city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.”
17
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For Murillo’s painting, see Charles Boyd Curtis, Velazquez and Murillo:
a Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Works of Don Diego de Silva
Velazquez and Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, (New York: J. W. Bouton,
1908), p. 262. Murillo was likely aware of the ca. 1820s tapestry of the
subject designed by Raphael Sanzio that hangs in the Vatican. Engravings
after Raphael’s composition, reproduced in numerous engravings, may
have also influenced the Frank Leslie’s artist. Other images of St. Paul’s
conversion that could have influenced the artist include Peter Paul Rubens’
painting of the subject (ca. 1616, formerly Keiser Friedrich Museum in
Berlin, destroyed in 1945); the sixteenth-century Conversion of St. Paul by
Francesco Salviati in the Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome; and Ludovico
Caracci’s, ca. 1589 picture in the, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
17
Rev. I. B. Watkins, Tallis’s Illustrated Scripture History for the
improvement of youth (New York and London: John Tallis and Company),
1851. For a recent discussion of Paul’s Christ-like gesture in Caravaggio’s
painting, Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane,
(New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2011), pp. 214-217.
19
See “Printed Treason,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (August 24,
1861), p. 226.
20
Pre-Wilson’s Creek biographies of Lyon appeared in HW (July 13, 1861):
444 and FLIN (Aug. 10, 1861): 199.
21
The Death of General Wolfe challenged this tradition, see Inèn E. Annus,
“Seeing Pain: The Visual Representation of Pain in American Painting,” in
Feeling in Others: Essays on Empathy and Suffering in Modern American
Culture, eds. Nieves Pascual and Antonio Ballesteros González (Vienna:
LIT Verlag Münster, 2008), pp. 101-115. Annus argues that before The
Death of General Wolfe, pain was considered unheroic and inappropriate
for publicly consumed artworks. West imbued Wolfe’s pain with a
theatrical spirituality that made it acceptable.
Contemporary costumes and site-specific details gave The Death of
General Wolfe the air of authenticity, although emotive credibility rather
than accuracy was West’s goal. “Wolfe must not die like a common
soldier,” he later claimed, “all should be proportioned to the highest idea
conceived of the hero.” For this quote, see The Diary of Joseph Farrington,
ed. Katherine Cave, vol. 8 (New Haven: Yale University Press), 3,064.
West made multiple copies of the painting and profited from the lucrative
sale of approximately 10,000 impressions of William Woollett’s engraved
version published by John Boydell in 1775. See Alan McNairn, Behold the
Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century, p. 165-167.
Among the many works that may have influenced West, a direct precedent
may be a dry point by Annibale Carracci known as the Capranola Pietà
(fig. 10). For discussion and bibliography related to the complexities of
the Christian allusions in The Death of General Wolfe, see Ronald Paulson,
Hogarth’s Harlot: Sacred Parody in Enlightenment England (John
Hopkins University Press, 2003), 130-132.
25
For a discussion of the widespread influence of The Death of General
Wolfe, see McNairn, pp. 144-164.
26
For the posthumous display of Lyon’s body and his subsequent funeral,
see Ashbel Woodward, Life of General Nathaniel Lyon ( Hartford,
Connecticut: Case Lockwood & Co., 1862), pp. 338-345 and “The
Reception of General Lyon’s Body in New York,” FLIN (Sept. 7, 1861):
263.
23
For West’s Death of General Wolfe, its history, precedents, influence,
and bibliography, see Alan McNairn, Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and
the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 1997).
22
Trumbull partnered with Antonio di Poggi to distribute the print, The
Death of General Warren at Bunker Hill, engraved by Stuttgart printmaker
Johann Gotthard von Müller in 1797. For this engraving, see Theodore
Sizer’s The Works of Colonel John Trumbull (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1967), p. 95.
27
28
24
For a historical overview of battle images in Western art, see Peter Paret,
Imagined Battles, Reflections of War in European Art (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1997), David Perlmutter, Visions of
War: Picturing Warfare from the Stone Age to the Cyber Age (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1999), and Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles: Art and
Warfare in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pia Cuneo (Leiden: Koninklijke
Brill, 2002). Before the second half of the eighteenth century, images of
heroes in pain or heroic military death were few. For a discussion of how
The political associations between the concept of Christian atonement,
secession, and slavery reappear repeatedly in the popular culture of the
Civil War era. Before the war, John Brown encouraged such associations
with his last written words, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the
crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” The
redemptive power of Brown’s posthumous “resurrected” self is articulated
in the famous Civil War song “John Brown’s Body” (according to the song,
Brown’s body is “moldering in his grave” while his soul “marches on,”
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inspiring Union soldiers). For a discussion of these issues, see Franny
Nudelman, John Brown’s Body: Slavery Violence and the Culture of War,
(University of North Carolina Press, 2004), especially pages 9-39. Lincoln
famously reiterated the war-as-atonement theme in his second inaugural,
suggesting that the war might not end “until every drop of blood drawn
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”’ For this
speech, its allusions, and bibliography, see Ronald White’s Lincoln’s
Greatest Speech (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), pp. 17-19. For a
discussion of the political and religious use of atonement rhetoric, see
George Rable, Gods Almost Chosen People: A Religious History of the
American Civil War and Ernest Bormann, “Fetching Good out of Evil: A
Rhetorical Use of Calamity,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1977): 130139.
See “Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. Proclamation by the
President,” FLIN (Sept. 7, 1861): 263. The official practice of setting aside
of a day to atone for the sins of a nation has a long history and continues to
this day. For a discussion of the practice see William A. Callahan, “War,
Shame, and Time: Pastoral Governance and National Identity in England
and America,” International Studies Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 2 (2006): 395
–419.
29
“The Battle of Wilson’s Creek,” FLIN (August. 31, 1861): 258. The pages
of this issue are not numbered sequentially. The article on Wilson’s Creek
appears on the first page of printed text.
30
This argument is made in William Fletcher Thompson’s, The Image of
War: The Pictorial Reporting of the American Civil War (New York:
Thomas Yoseloff, 1959), pp. 60-61. Thompson illustrates his point that
early war images tended to present “heroic” visions while later examples
focused on war’s carnage with the August 31, 1861, image from FLIN
showing General Lyon waving his hat as he rides into battle at Wilson’s
Creek. Ironically, the less famous centerfold representing the carnage of
the Battle of Wilson’s Creek appears in the same issue of the paper. When
seen together, the heroic and the somber images of Wilson’s Creek present
a more nuanced vision of the battle. It is also worth noting that even the
most heroic images representing the Battle of Wilson’s Creek include dead
and wounded bodies.
31
33
See New York Illustrated News, vol. 4, no. 95 (Aug. 26, 1861), 257, 260,
264- 265 (the New York Illustrated News will hereafter be abbreviated,
NYIN. Two related images were also published in the paper, “The Fourth
Regiment Iowa Volunteers Crossing the Prairie en Route to Join Gen. Lyon
in Missouri,” p. 268 and Ben McCulloch, the Rebel General Commanding
the Traitors in Southern Missouri,” p. 256. The page numbers are out of
sequence and page 256 is the back page of the issue,
33
New York Illustrated News vol. 4, no. 95 (Aug. 26, 1861), 266.
34
Ibid.
See “Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Mo., Aug. 10, 1861. Gen. Lyon Leading
into Action the Iowa Regiment, whose Colonel had been disabled.” NYIN,
vol. 4, no. 95 (Aug. 26, 1861), 264- 265. Although the caption records that
the initial drawing was sketched by J. S. Scheibel, the illustration is clearly
signed in the left-hand corner “Th. Nast.” Thomas Nast was working for
the NYIN in 1861, before joining HW in 1862. Scheibel is acknowledged
as the originator of the composition on page 258, “We tender our thanks to
Mr. J. S. Scheibel for his promptness on forwarding the spirited sketch
taken on the spot of the battle of Wilson’s Creek Missouri. . . .” The
likelihood that Scheibel’s sketch was rather amateur and unfinished is
suggested in the solicitation on the same page: “Any one in any part of the
country who will send us faithful sketches of scenes and incidents
connected with the war, however roughly they may be drawn, will be
heartily thanked by the proprietors of this paper. If the sketches be used,
they will be liberally paid for.”
35
36
Commissioned by Napoleon as propaganda, Napoleon Haranguing the
Troops at the Battle of the Pyramids is now housed in the palace of
Versailles, Versailles, France. For Gros’ picture see David O’Brien, After
the Revolution: Antoine-Jean Gros. Painting and Propaganda Under
Napoleon (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 97
and 144-146. See also Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby in Extremities: Painting
Empire in Post-Revolutionary France (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2002), 137, 141-142. Engravings truncated vertical version of the image
made into a mezzotint by T. W. Huffam, and published in England in 1841
by I. W. Laird, as well as one published in France in 1838 by Philippe
Joseph Auguste Vallot. A medal inspired by the image by Antoine Bovy
was minted ca. 1840. For the relationship of Gros’ Napoleonic battle
pictures to Imperial Roman reliefs, see John Walker McCoubrey, “Gros'
Battle of Eylau and Roman Imperial Art,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 43, no. 2
(Jun., 1961), pp. 135-139.
For a discussion of later examples of Nast’s allusions to French art, see
Albert Boime, “Thomas Nast and French Art,” American Art Journal, vol.
4, no. 1 (Spring, 1972), pp. 43-65
37
38
NYIN vol. 4, no. 95 (Aug. 26, 1861), p. 260 (illustration), p. 266 (text)
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For a discussion of newspaper illustrations’ relationship to theater, see
Brown, Behind the Lines, p. 72.
42
For Brown’s statue, installed in 1856, see Karen Lemmey, Henry Kirke
Brown and the Development of American Public Sculpture in New York
City 1846-1876, (diss. New York City University, 2005). The horse’s head
in the Harper’s cover is especially reminiscent of the New York
monument.
39
See “The Battle at Wilson’s Creek” FLIN (Aug. 31, 1861): 242
(misprinted as page 258 in the copy examined).
43
44
See HW “The Battle of Springfield,” (Aug. 31, 1861): 549.
For the clothing worn by the Confederate soldiers during the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek, see William Piston, “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek and the
Struggle for Missouri,” American Battlefield Trust Website,
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/battle-wilsons-creek-and-struggle-missouri
accessed, June 13, 2024.
45
Clark Mills’ 1853 statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback was
commissioned by Congress for Lafayette Park across from the White
House. Mills made a second casting for Jackson Square in New Orleans in
1856. The pro-Union inscription, OUR FEDERAL UNION / IT/ MUST
BE PRESERVED was on the north side of its base throughout the
nineteenth century. The text paraphrased words spoken by Jackson in 1830
during a toast made during a celebration of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.
The pro-Union words were moved to the less conspicuous west side of the
statue’s base in 1909. In 1862, General Benjamin Butler had, “THE
UNION MUST /AND/ SHALL BE PRESERVED” engraved on the stone
pedestal of the New Orleans statue. See James M. Goode, “Four Salutes to
the Nation: The Equestrian Statues of Andrew Jackson,” White House
History 27 (2010), 1-18. Clark Mills’ equestrian portrait of George
Washington was installed in Washington Circle, Washington D. C. in 1860.
For the inauguration of this statue, see Thomas S. Bocock, Inauguration of
Mills' equestrian statue of Washington (Washington D. C.: W.H. and O. H.
Morrison, 1860). A third equestrian sculpture of Washington was in
Confederate territory: Thomas Crawford’s 1858 bronze equestrian statue
of Washington in front of the capitol in Richmond Virginia. See Lauretta
Dimmick, "An Altar Erected to Heroic Virtue Itself: Thomas Crawford and
His Virginia Washington Monument," American Art Journal 23, no. 2
(1991): 4-73.
40
A reporter for the New York Daily Tribune wrote on August 18, 1861,
“The intelligence from Missouri of the death of the chivalric Lyon, will
cast sadness over the land not unlike that which filled the heart of our Hero
age when the young, talented and brave fell fighting for the country. So
passed on to an immortal crown, one of the noblest of men of the maternal
family of Lyon, Thomas Knowlton, by whose command the men of
Connecticut took a key position in the Bunker Hill Battle . . . as
subsequently he fought and died under the eye of Washington at Harlem
Heights.” New York Daily Tribune (August 18, 1861): 6. Accessed March
16, 2012, via the Library of Congress’s “Chronicling America” website:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. Lyon’s connection with Knowlton was
also publicized before his death, appearing in biographies in the HW, (July
13, 1861): 444 and FLIN (Aug. 10, 1861): 199.
41
46
See HW (July 13, 1861): 444.
In an August 14 story, the New York Times quotes Colonel E. D.
Townsend report stating that the enemy’s captured muster rolls included
“Cherokee half-breeds.” See “Another Battle in Missouri: Defeat of the
Rebel Troops. Official Announcement of the Battle. Full Details of the
Battle. Sketch of Gen. Lyon. News of the Rebellion.” New York Times,
August 14, 1861. http://www.nytimes.com/1861/08/14/news/anotherbattle-missouri-defeat-rebel-troops-official-announcement-battlefull.html?pagewanted=all accessed Feb. 10, 2012. FLIN also mentioned
Indians with General Benjamin McCullough’s forces, arguing that the
Native American presence reflected “Southern Barbarism.” See “Southern
Barbarism: Employment of Savages in War,” FLIN (Sept. 14, 1861): 274.
The article cites a report from the Helena (Arkansas) Shield, August 10,
1861, “we learn that on last Monday week, thirteen hundred Indian
warriors–Southern allies-crossed the Arkansas river, near Fort Smith, on
the way for McCullough’s camp. These Indians were armed with rifle,
butcher knife and tomahawk, and had their faces painted one half red and
the other black.” The use of Indigenous people as symbols of the
“Westerness” of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek reappears later in Herman
Melville’s poem, “Lyon: Battle of Springfield, Missouri,” in Battle-Pieces
and Aspects of War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866), pp. 24-27. In
the poem, Melville refers to “Texans and Indians trim for a charge,” and
writes “On they came: they yelped and fired/ His spirit sped;/We leveled
right in, and the half-breeds fled. . . .”
47
“The Battle of Springfield,” HW, p. 549. The passage quoted is credited
to a correspondent for The Herald.
48
The complete passage from the King James translation of Luke 22: 3944 reads, “And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of
Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place,
49
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he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was
withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and
prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:
nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel
unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he
prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling to the ground.”
The aforementioned poem by Herman Melville, “Lyon: Battle of
Springfield,” also suggests Lyon foresaw his fate: “This seer foresaw his
soldier-doom,/ Yet willed the fight./ He never turned, his only flight/ Was
up to Zion,/Where prophets now and armies greet brave Lyon.” See
Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War (New York: Harper &
50
Brothers, 1866), pp. 24-27. For the nineteenth-century concept of the Civil
War as a war of atonement, see note 27.
See “The Reception of General Lyon’s Body in New York,” FLIN (Sept.
7, 1861): 263, “The burial case was bedecked with the American flag. At
the head lay the chapeau of the late general in the centre a wreath of
evergreens and immortelles and at the feet the sword which was grasped in
General Lyon's hand while leading his gallant troops.” For the display of
the hat at the funeral, see Ashbel Woodward, Life of General Nathaniel
Lyon (Hartford, Connecticut: Case Lockwood & Co., 1862), p. 342,
“Upon the coffin were placed the hat which he waved aloft when rallying
his brave but shattered ranks to smite the rebel host on the field of Wilson's
Creek . . .” Woodward also documents the gift of the hat to the state and its
preservation in the Conneticut Historical Society in Appendix B, 357.
51
26