Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Hunley and Other Civil War Art On Web Today

At the Museum of the Confederacy's website there is a fine exhibit showing Conrad Chapman's scenes from Charleston Harbor during the War Between the States. Chapman sketched Fort Sumter where the war began in 1861, as well as batteries around the city held by the South until just before the war ended in 1865.

The most famous painting in the group is probably the one of the submarine H.L. Hunley, done about two months before the hand-cranked sub sand the Union blockade ship Housatonic to become the first sub in history top sink an enemy warship.

As we know the Hunley never returned from its mission. It was raised with the remains of the crew of eight off Charleston in 2000 and is being preserved at a conservation lab in North Charleston.

Chapman took his sketches to Rome, Italy where his parents lived. There he turned them into a series of paintings he called his "Journal of the Siege of Charleston".

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