How do we remember the Civil War?

Whose stories are told in the art and memorials from and about the time period?

In a time when the nation was divided over the issue of slavery, artists helped to shape people’s understandings of the conflict that overtook the nation. Some artists depicted the political figures and events that drove and reflected the conflict. Other artists were on the battlefield itself, bringing the emotional toll of war home in immediate ways.

Mathew Brady, a prominent photographer of the era, photographed Lincoln after he won the Republican nomination for president, and his image was published on the cover of the widely popular magazine Harper’s Weekly. A printed reproduction of it (a lithograph) was sold by the thousands by the printmakers Currier and Ives and featured on campaign material. Brady believed his image had a significant influence on Lincoln’s winning the election.

Artist Winslow Homer, who had been chosen to illustrate President Lincoln’s inaugural address for Harper’s Weekly in 1861, later traveled with Union soldiers to the battlefields, studying camp life and translating those experiences through his painting. His focus on the common soldier humanized the conflict and made its effects that much more tangible.

Photographers saw an opportunity in the war and traveled to the front with all their supplies in order to capture views that would be virtually guaranteed to find a large market in both the public and the press. The Civil War was the first American war to be documented by photography, and the images produced by the major photography studios were the public’s first exposure to seeing dead soldiers, making clear the cost of war. Some viewers considered them unmediated and the only true records of the war that could be relied upon. The artists, however, chose their subjects and carefully composed their photographs, likely altering scenes from their original state to make a more powerful photo.

In the years following the end of the war, artists’ depictions reflected both a new order in which all men were to be free and equal, and resistance to that new order. Our present-day understandings of the Civil War are often driven by the memorialization of the people, places, and events of the period, and they present to us an opportunity to ask questions: Whose stories are being told? What are the ongoing impacts of a large-scale resistance to the emancipation and equal treatment of black Americans?

For black people living in the United States during the Civil War era, the abolition of slavery throughout the nation was the goal, and some who were free decided to form their own regiments to fight for the Union in pursuit of that goal. They were paid less than white soldiers or were not paid at all, received poor equipment, and often ran out of supplies. To make matters worse, Confederate soldiers threatened to enslave or kill any black soldiers they captured and kill their white commanders. Overcoming these hardships, black soldiers proved themselves heroically in battle. The bravery of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, an all-black regiment, is among the most well known and is remembered in the Shaw Memorial, a sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Richard Harvey Cain was among a group of black students from Wilberforce University who attempted to join the Union army in Ohio. Cain was turned down. He wrote about the events after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter and the importance of the 54th Massachusetts:

I shall never forget the thrill that ran through my soul when I thought of the coming consequences of that shot. There were one hundred and fifteen of us students at the University, who, anxious to vindicate the stars and stripes, made up a company and offered our services to the Governor of Ohio; and sir, we were told that this is a white man’s war and that the Negro had nothing to do with it. Sir, we returned, docile, patient, waiting, casting our eyes to the Heavens whence help always comes. We knew that there would come a period in the history of this nation when our strong black arms would be needed. We waited patiently; we waited until Massachusetts, through her noble Governor, sounded the alarm, and we hastened to hear the summons and obey it.

Letter by Richard Harvey Cain written at the time of the Civil War, quoted in Zak Mettger, Till Victory Is Won: Black Soldiers in the Civil War (New York: Puffin Books, 1997), 2.

Why do you think Cain and his fellow students were eager to fight? Is there a cause for which you would feel the same and take action? Have students write a short essay on a cause they feel strongly about and what can be done to address it. For older students, have them write an op-ed and encourage students to submit their writing to local and national publications.

The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword” lesson unit, National Endowment for the Humanities

Abraham Lincoln on the American Union: “A Word Fitly Spoken” lesson unit, National Endowment for the Humanities