“National Soldiers Home, Near Dayton, Ohio”

“Established in 1867, the Central Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio (now the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center) was one of the three original branches in the National Home system, which provided medical and rehabilitative care to Union veterans after the Civil War.”
See the complete article at National Park Service: Central Branch Dayton, Ohio.

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“Hicks U.S. Genl. Hospital, Baltimore, Md.”

The catalogue record for this item at the Library of Congress

“[Many hospitals] were built on a pavilion model, with separate, single-story, ward-size buildings arranged in rows or a semicircle and designed for good ventilation. These hospitals had additional buildings for kitchens and other supportive services.”
Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein. The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), page 140.

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“City Point, Virginia, Headquarters of General Grant”

This stunning oil painting — 30-1/8 inches by 60-1/4 inches —  is at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. Click here or on the image to enlarge and zoom in on mind-blowing details. 

“Edward Lamson Henry was apparently a somewhat timorous youth, for when the Civil War broke out, although he was well over twenty, he did not attempt to enlist in the army.  Instead he worked for a fairly brief period in the fall of 1864 as captain’s clerk aboard a supply vessel in the service of the Quartermaster General’s Department. His lifelong passion for all forms of transportation may be seen in the series of scenes along the Potomac and James Rivers, most of which he sketched from the deck of his vessel …. [T]he wealth of detail gives his paintings an almost jewel-like quality. One can even recognize a likeness in the almost microscopic figure of General Grant seated before his headquarters.”
Hermann Warner Williams, Jr. The Civil War: The Artists’ Record, Washington, DC: Corcoran Museum of Art, 1961, p. 19.

“Union headquarters in the Campaign of 1864-5, composed of buildings and tents upon a high shore overlooking a body of water with a fishing boat moored at the right; at the left is a busy scene of workmen on a dock loading army wagons. Signed at lower right, E.L. Henry, and dated 1873; inscribed ’65 for the year of the campaign.”
Barbizon Paintings, American Historical Paintings [sales catalogue] New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1938, p. 68

For a complete treatment of the artist, his personal life, and his career see Elizabeth McCausland’s “The Life and Work of Edward Lamson Henry, 1841-1919,” New York State Museum Bulletin 339, (Albany, NY: The University of the State of New York, September 1945), pp. 1 -381.

All links were accessed April 4, 2021.

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“Oystering on the Chesapeake”

African Americans have worked as watermen on the Chesapeake Bay for centuries. Oystering, fishing, and crabbing offered them economic independence and dignity. This print by M.J. Burns was published in Harper’s Weekly, January 11, 1890. A digital image of the entire magazine is at HathiTrust. A digital image of the page bearing this image is online at the Library of Congress. See also “Mine Oyster – Dredging-Boats in the Chesapeake” (posted January 7, 2019).

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“Chloe and Sam”

Chloe and Sam (1882) is at the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

Google Arts & Culture offers enhanced views of this painting and some information about the artist Thomas Hovenden:

“After moving to Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, in 1881, Hovenden executed a series of paintings as a tribute to the town’s proud heritage of abolitionism. These paintings are artful inventions, with characters and scenes of the type Harriet Beecher Stowe made memorable in her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). In several of his works, Hovenden painted his neighbor Sam Jones, a free black man who had arrived in Plymouth Meeting in 1849. The name Chloe in the painting’s title perhaps refers to Stowe’s character Aunt Chloe, the strong black domestic who represented the backbone of many antebellum Southern households.”

See more Hovenden paintings at “Contentment” (posted September 30, 2019) and “Sunday Morning” (posted March 2, 2020).

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