1864 Four Antique Prints - Grant's Great Campaign - Cold Harbor & Hanover Ferry

Description

Four original engravings on two pages relating to the Civil War published in Harper's Weekly on June 25, 1864 and entitled as follows:
"Grant's Great Campaign - Stevens's Battery at Cold Harbor" - see below
"
Grant's Great Campaign -The New York Fourteenth HeavyArtillery crossing Chesterfield Bridge, on the North Anna, under a heavy fire"
"
Grant's Great Campaign - General Barlow in front of the Rebel Works, twelve miles from Richmond"
"
Grant's Great Campaign - Our Army crossing the Pamunkey River at Hanover Ferry, Virginia"
The artist who sketched on the battlefields was Alfred Waud - see below
Good condition
- see scans
. Unrelated text to the reverse. Page size 11 x 16
inches
These are original antique prints and not reproductions . Great collectors item for the civil war historian - see more of these in Seller's Other Items which can be combined for mailing
.
Grant's Overland Campaign
Further information:
Overland Campaign
and
Siege of Petersburg
Battle of the Wilderness
Published 1887
The Overland Campaign was a series of brutal battles fought in Virginia for seven weeks during May and June 1864.
[222]
Sigel's and Butler's efforts failed, and Grant was left alone to fight Lee.
[223]
On the morning of Wednesday, May 4, Grant dressed in full uniform, sword at his side, led the army out from his headquarters at
Culpeper
towards Germanna Ford.
[224]
They crossed the
Rapidan
unopposed, while supplies were transported on four pontoon bridges.
[225]
On May 5, the Union army attacked Lee in the
Wilderness
, a three-day battle with estimated casualties of 17,666 Union and 11,125 Confederate.
[226]
Rather than retreat, Grant flanked Lee's army to the southeast and attempted to wedge his forces between Lee and Richmond at
Spotsylvania Court House
.
[227]
Lee's army got to Spotsylvania first and a costly battle ensued, lasting thirteen days, with heavy casualties.
[228]
On May 12, Grant attempted to break through Lee's
Muleshoe
salient guarded by Confederate artillery, resulting in one of the bloodiest assaults of the Civil War, known as
the Bloody Angle
.
[229]
Unable to break Lee's lines, Grant again flanked the rebels to the southeast, meeting at
North Anna
, where a battle lasted three days.
[230]
Commanding General Grant at the
Battle of Cold Harbor
.
Egbert Guy Fowx, June 1864
Grant maneuvered his army to
Cold Harbor
, a vital road hub that linked to Richmond, but Lee's men were already entrenched there. On the third day of the thirteen-day battle, Grant led a costly assault and was soon castigated as "the Butcher" by the Northern press after taking 52,788 Union casualties; Lee's Confederate army suffered 32,907 casualties, but he was less able to replace them.
[231]
This battle was the second of two that Grant later said he regretted (the other being his initial assault on Vicksburg). Undetected by Lee, Grant moved his army south of the James River, freed Butler from
the Bermuda Hundred
, and advanced toward
Petersburg
, Virginia's central railroad hub.
[232]
Beauregard defended Petersburg, and Lee's veteran reinforcements soon arrived, resulting in
a nine-month siege
. Northern resentment grew. Sheridan was assigned command of the
Union Army of the Shenandoah
and Grant directed him to "follow the enemy to their death" in the Shenandoah Valley. When Sheridan suffered attacks by
John S. Mosby
's irregular Confederate cavalry, Grant recommended rounding up their families for imprisonment at
Fort McHenry
.
[233]
After Grant's abortive attempt to capture Petersburg, Lincoln supported Grant in his decision to continue and visited Grant's headquarters at City Point on June 21 to assess the state of the army and meet with Grant and Admiral Porter. By the time Lincoln departed his appreciation for Grant had grown.
[234]
Grant (center left) next to Lincoln with General
Sherman
(far left) and Admiral
Porter
(right) –
The Peacemakers
by
Healy
, 1868
(Clickable image—use cursor to identify.)
At Petersburg, Grant approved a plan to
blow up
part of the enemy trenches from a tunnel. The explosion created a crater, into which poorly led Union troops poured. Recovering from the surprise, Confederates surrounded the crater and easily picked off Union troops within it. The Union's 3,500 casualties outnumbered the Confederates' by three-to-one; although the plan could have been successful if implemented correctly, Grant admitted the tactic had been a "stupendous failure".
[235]
Rather than fight Lee in a full frontal attack as he had done at Cold Harbor, Grant continued to extend Lee's defenses south and west of Petersburg to capture essential railroad links.
[236]
Union forces soon captured
Mobile Bay
and
Atlanta
and now controlled the Shenandoah Valley, ensuring Lincoln's reelection in November.
[237]
Sherman convinced Grant and Lincoln to send his army to
march on Savannah
.
[238]
Sherman cut a 60-mile path of destruction unopposed, reached the Atlantic Ocean, and captured Savannah on December 22.
[239]
On December 16, after much prodding by Grant, the Union Army under Thomas smashed
John Bell Hood
's Confederate Army at
Nashville
.
[240]
These campaigns left Lee's forces at Petersburg as the only significant obstacle remaining to Union victory.
[241]
By March 1865, Grant had severely weakened Lee's strength, having extended his lines to 35 miles.
[242]
Lee's troops deserted by the thousands due to hunger and the strains of trench warfare.
[243]
Grant, Sherman, Porter, and Lincoln held a conference to discuss the surrender of Confederate armies and
Reconstruction
of the South on March 28.
[244]
Alfred Waud
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Alfred Waud photographed in 1863 by
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
sitting in
Devil's Den
after the
Battle of Gettysburg
.
Alfred Rudolph Waud
(wōd) (October 2, 1828 – April 6, 1891) was an American artist and illustrator, born in
London
,
England
. He is most notable for the sketches he made as an artist correspondent during the
American Civil War
.
Contents
1
Early life
2
Civil War years
3
Post Civil War work
4
Collections
5
Notes
6
References
7
External links
Early life
[
edit
]
Waud was christened Alfred Robert Waud but used Rhudolph as a middle name while living in America. He was the eldest son of Alfred Waud Sr., born London 1796. Waud's mother was Mary (née) Fitz-John, born 1806 in Lougher, near Swansea, South Wales. Waud had four siblings: Mary Pricilla, born 1829, William born 1831, Julia, born 1834, and Josephine, born 1840; the last two sisters were both spinsters, but Mary Pricilla married Augustus Cory Scoles in London in 1862. Waud sailed from London aboard the sailing ship
Hendrik Hudson
in 1850 for New York. His brother William followed in 1855 aboard the sailing ship
Hermann
, also for New York. Waud was naturalized as an American citizen on January 10, 1870. He married Mary Gertrude Jewell from New York circa 1855 or 1856. They lived in Orange, New Jersey, where they raised their family.
Before immigration, Alfred Waud had entered the Government School of Design at Somerset House, London, with the intention of becoming a marine painter. This did not come to fruition, but as a student, he also worked as a painter of theatrical scenery. He intended to pursue that work in the United States, when he immigrated in 1850, seeking employment with actor and playwright
John Brougham
. In the 1850s, he worked variously as an illustrator for a Boston periodical, the
Carpet-Bag
, and provided illustrations for books such as
Hunter's Panoramic Guide from Niagara to Quebec
(1857).
Civil War years
[
edit
]
"Kennesaw's Bombardment, 64", sketch of the
Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
, scanned from the original and digitally restored.
The period during the American Civil War was a time when all images in a publication had to be hand drawn and engraved by skilled artists. Photography existed but there was no way to transfer a photograph to a printing plate since this was well before the advent of the
halftone
process for printing photographs. Photographic equipment was too cumbersome and exposure times were too slow to be used on the battlefield. An artist such as Waud would do detailed sketches in the field, which were then rushed by courier back to the main office of the newspaper they were working for. There a staff of engravers would use the sketches to create engravings on blocks of boxwood. Since the blocks were about 4 inches across they would have to be composited together to make one large illustration. The wood engraving was then copied via the
electrotype
process which produced a metal printing plate for publication.
[1]
In 1860, Alfred Waud became an illustrator or "
special artist
" (a full-time paid staff artist) for the
New York Illustrated News
. In April 1861, the newspaper assigned Waud to cover the
Army of the Potomac
,
Virginia
's main
Union army
. He first illustrated General
Winfield Scott
in
Washington, D.C.
, and then entered the field to render the
First Battle of Bull Run
in July. Waud followed a Union expedition to
Cape Hatteras
,
North Carolina
the next month and witnessed the
Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries
. That autumn, he sketched army activity in the
Tidewater region of Virginia
. Waud joined
Harper's Weekly
toward the end of 1861, continuing to cover the war. In 1864 Alfred's brother,
William Waud
(who up to that time had been working with "
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
"), joined Alfred on the staff of
Harper's
and they worked together during the
Petersburg Campaign
.
Alfred Waud attended every battle of the Army of the Potomac between the
First Battle of Bull Run
in 1861 and the
Siege of Petersburg
in 1865. Alfred was one of only two artists present at the
Battle of Gettysburg
. His depiction of
Pickett's Charge
is thought to be the only visual account by an eyewitness.
Post Civil War work
[
edit
]
Waud continued to be a prolific illustrator, doing numerous illustrations for
Harper's Weekly
and other prominent publications, achieving his greatest fame in his post-War work.
Waud died in 1891 in
Marietta, Georgia
, while touring battlefields of the South.