Causes of the U.S. Civil War image gallery

This schematic diagram of the interior of the slave ship “Brookes” dates to 1787, but it circulated later in many different versions, used to demonstrate the inhumane conditions of the transport on enslaved Africans by boat across the Atlantic ocean. From The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament,London, 1808 (British Library).

In this work, artist Betye Saar assembled items that serve as potent reminders of the experience of historical trauma for Black people in the United States: images of the "Brookes" slave ship and the Mammy figure imprinted on an ironing board, an iron attached to the board by a chain, and the letters KKK imprinted on a white sheet. The letters stand for Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist terrorist organization that threatened and murdered Black people and their political allies. Betye Saar, I'll Bend But I Will Not Break, 1998 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) © Betye Saar

In this work, artist Betye Saar assembled items that serve as potent reminders of the experience of historical trauma for Black people in the United States: images of the "Brookes" slave ship and the Mammy figure imprinted on an ironing board, an iron attached to the board by a chain, and the letters KKK imprinted on a white sheet. The letters stand for Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist terrorist organization that threatened and murdered Black people and their political allies. Betye Saar, I'll Bend But I Will Not Break, 1998 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) © Betye Saar

Elizabeth Freeman successfully sued for her own freedom in 1781, arguing that the Massachusetts Bill of Rights guaranteed her freedom and equality. As a result, Massachusetts became the only state in the Union to end slavery because it was declared unconstitutional by a court. Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick, miniature portrait of Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet), 1811, watercolor on ivory, 7.5 cm x 5.5 cm (Massachusetts Historical Society)

Albro and Mary Lyons owned a home in Seneca Village, a Black and, to a lesser extent, Irish community in the northern section of the island of Manhattan. Seneca Village was founded in the mid-1820s and existed until Central Park’s creation in 1857. Albro and Mary's home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Albro Lyons, Sr. and Mary Joseph Lyons, c. 1860, ambrotype (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library)

A free Black woman from Tennessee, Mary Richardson and her husband John Jones, also free, were actively involved in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad from their home in Chicago. Aaron E. Darling, Mary Richardson Jones, c. 1865, oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches (Chicago History Museum)

Jones, a free Black man from North Carolina, and his wife, Mary, were actively involved in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad from their home in Chicago. Aaron E. Darling, John Jones, c. 1865, oil on canvas, 46 x 36 inches (Chicago History Museum)

Works by David Drake are rare examples of objects produced by enslaved people that can be identified with a particular maker. Even more uncommon is the fact that this pot is inscribed with text written by the artist at a time when literacy was illegal for the enslaved in South Carolina, where this was produced. David Drake, Doubled-handled Jug (Lewis J. Miles Factory, Horse Creek Valley, Edgefield District, South Carolina), 1840, stoneware with alkaline glaze, 44.13 x 35.24 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Elizabeth Keckley overcame her brutal enslavement in Virginia, North Carolina, and Missouri, and became the dressmaker to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. This purple velvet dress with satin piping and mother of pearl buttons was made for Mrs. Lincoln. Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln dress, 1861, velvet, satin, and mother of pearl, 152.4 cm x 121.92 cm (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution)

Henry “Box” Brown made headlines in 1849 when he escaped from enslavement in Richmond, Virginia by packing and mailing himself to the North, with the help of friends and abolitionists. After an 1851 lithograph by Peter Kramer, Resurrection of Henry Box Brown, 1872, engraving from William Still. The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, and Letters, Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872, p. 83 (Newberry Library)

Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, writer, and speaker, who escaped from slavery as a young man, saw portraits as a tool in the battle for abolition and citizenship at a time when popular, widely circulated images depicted racist stereotypes of Black people. Douglass sat for many portraits in his lifetime and was always consciously attired in the clothes of a gentleman. Samuel J. Miller, Frederick Douglass, 1847–52, daguerreotype, 5 1/2 x 4 1/8 inches (The Art Institute of Chicago)

Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, writer, and speaker, who escaped from slavery as a young man, saw portraits as a tool in the battle for abolition and citizenship at a time when popular, widely circulated images depicted racist stereotypes of Black people. Douglass sat for many portraits in his lifetime and was always consciously attired in the clothes of a gentleman. Frederick Douglass, c. 1850, photograph, 6.6 x 5.3 cm (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Despite the similarities in media, subject, and era, the circumstances and purpose of these photographs could not be more different. On the left is Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, writer, and thinker, who escaped from slavery as a young man, and used carefully crafted portraits of himself as a tool in the battle for abolition and Black citizenship. On the right is Renty Taylor, one of a number of enslaved people who were forced to pose nude for dehumanizing photographs commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz. Agassiz believed that the photographs would demonstrate that Black people had innate physical differences from white people, and were therefore inferior. Left: Frederick Douglass, c. 1855, daguerreotype, 8.3 x 7 cm; right: Joseph T. Zealy, daguerreotype of Renty Taylor, 1850

Delia Taylor and her father, Renty, were among a group of enslaved Black men and women forced to pose partially or completed nude for dehumanizing photographs commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz. Agassiz believed that the photographs would demonstrate that Black people had innate physical differences from white people, and were therefore inferior. Joseph T. Zealy, daguerreotype of Delia Taylor (cropped), 1850

Hammatt Billings created the illustrations for the first publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This picture depicts the arrival of self-emancipated characters George, Eliza, and Harry in Canada, where slavery was illegal. Hammatt Billings, The Fugitives are Safe in a Free Land, 1852, engraving, from Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1852, p. 238 (Newberry Library)

Hammatt Billings created the illustrations for the first publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In this scene, Tom's enslaver, Haley, has gone to Kentucky to purchase enslaved laborers for his plantation. Hammatt Billings, The Auction Sale, 1852, engraving, from Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1852, p. 174 (Newberry Library).

The publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” inspired Northern artists to create artworks, plays, and songs about the novel's themes and characters. This sheet music cover includes a drawing of the character Eliza’s escape from enslavement, a very popular subject for songs and reenactments. Eliza's Flight: A Scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852, from E.L. Loder and M.A. Collier, Eliza's Flight: A Scene From Uncle Tom's Cabin, Boston: Oliver Ditson (Newberry Library)

It is likely that Susan Torrey Merritt’s image shows an anti-slavery picnic typical in parts of the North before the U.S. Civil War. These fairs and picnics allowed abolitionists to meet one another, hear speakers, and spread the word about their movement. The image has also been known as “Fourth of July Picnic at Weymouth Landing.” Susan Torrey Merritt, Antislavery Picnic at Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts, 1845, watercolor, gouache, and collage on paper, 25 15/16 x 35 15/16 inches (The Art Institute of Chicago)

Abolitionist John Brown was convicted of treason for leading an attack on the Federal Armory (a weapons storehouse) at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Brown believed that God had chosen him to end slavery. He planned to distribute captured weapons to enslaved people and lead them to freedom in the Appalachian mountains. Eighteen men, including five Black men and his own son, joined him in the attack. Brown was captured by Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee (later commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia). The Harper's Ferry Insurrection [John Brown, Now Under Sentence of Death for Treason and Murder, at Charleston, VA.]. engraving after a photograph by Martin L. Lawrence, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. no. 207, vol. 8 (November 18, 1859), p. 383 (Newberry Library)

In Charleston, South Carolina, slaveholders forced enslaved people who were hired out to wear a ticket or metal badge (issued by the city) in a visible place. For a brief time in the 1780s, Charleston even issued badges for its free Black population. The badge on the left was issued to a free person of color. The badge on the right was issued to an enslaved person (“servant” was a euphemism for slave) in 1824. Left: Free badge, 1783–89, copper, 1.457 x 1.614 inches (The Charleston Museum); right: Slave badge, 1825, copper, 2.717 x 2.559 inches (The Charleston Museum)

Enslaved people fought back against the slave society of the South in various ways, including breaking tools or feigning sickness, escaping, or coordinating uprisings. With white people creating and distributing most imagery at the time, uprisings were depicted as savage murders of innocents rather than defensive responses by enslaved people to ongoing violence and oppression. Woodcut depicting Nat Turner’s uprising, 1831 (University of Virginia Special Collections)

Presenting a pro-slavery position, this cartoon contrasts the “happy, well cared-for” enslaved Black people of the American south with the “wage slaves” of England’s factories. Edward Williams Clay, America (Black and White Slaves), c. 1841

Artifacts often encountered in museum settings, such as shackles, provide some tangible evidence of the experience of enslavement, but also feel profoundly inadequate as records of human lives. Not surprisingly, few, if any, images made or commissioned by enslaved people that address their lived experience survive. Leg shackles used to restrict the movement of enslaved people, 19th century, iron (Museum of the Civil War, Richmond; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

This image by a traveling carpenter depicts twenty enslaved men, women, and children purchased in Staunton, Virginia, and being taken in chains to Tennessee. The words below them on the page are from the song that the artist heard the enslaved people singing. Lewis Miller, Slave Trader, Sold to Tennessee, page from Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virginia, 1853, watercolor and ink on paper (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Eyre Crowe made several paintings of the subject of slavery, all based on sketches made from life at Shockoe Bottom, in Richmond, Virginia, where enslavers bought and sold men, women, and children, forcibly separated families, and procured slave labor for white people across the American South. Eyre Crowe, After the Sale: Slaves Going South from Richmond, 1853, oil on canvas, 27 x 36 inches (Chicago History Museum)

Between 1850 and 1873, Hiram Powers made at least twenty eight versions of this idealized bust personifying the democratic values of the United States. America’s crown includes thirteen stars, signifying the thirteen original states. The bust was based on a full-length sculpture of America that Powers made in 1848-1850. Hiram Powers, America, 1850–54, marble, 29 inches (The Art Institute of Chicago)

Hiram Powers made multiple versions of this sculpture between 1843 and 1866. Originally inspired to depict the subject by the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830), the later versions took on new meaning when considered against the growing conflicts over American slavery which culminated in the Civil War. In this final version from 1866, the replacement of the original chains with a set of manacles emphasizes such a connection. Hiram S. Powers, The Greek Slave, 1866, marble, 166.4 x 48.9 x 47.6 cm (Brooklyn Museum)

William Wetmore Story created this image of the ancient Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, at a time when tensions over the role of slavery in the United States were extraordinarily high. Like most other American Neoclassical sculptors working in the mid-to-late 19th century, Story addressed issues of race with ambiguity, using the form of white marble female bodies that largely conformed to European standards of beauty. William Wetmore Story, Cleopatra, marble, modeled 1858, carved 1865, 137.16 x114.3 x 68.58 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

Edward Atkinson created this broadside map of the cotton growing regions in the South to make the case that freeing enslaved people would actually improve the cotton economy in the South. Edward Atkinson, The Cotton Kingdom, 1863, 42 x 37 cm (Newberry Library)

A long line of steamboats in the background of this image forms a parallel to the long line of cargo in the foreground, illustrating the economic importance of cotton. The magazine illustrator copied a panoramic photograph to convey the great breadth and depth of commerce occurring in the scene. View of the Famous Levee of New Orleans, 1860 wood engraving from a photograph by E. H. Nelson, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (Chicago History Museum)

Eli Whitney's cotton gin (“gin” was a short form of “engine”) was a machine that removed seeds from cotton fiber, specifically from short-staple cotton—a significant advance over earlier devices. The gin made the crop profitable, pushing plantation owners to expand well into the interior of the South, fueling the demand for land and enslaved laborers. Eli Whitney patent for the cotton gin, March 14, 1794 (Records of the Patent and Trademark Office; Record Group 241, National Archives).

The process of growing cotton and preparing it for sale involved many steps and significant labor. This image illustrates the stages of work involved in pressing cotton into bales. Its depiction of enslaved laborers and a white overseer employs vicious racist stereotypes. William J. Pierce and A. Hill, "Cotton Pressing in Louisiana," Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, no. 15, April 12, 1856, p. 236

Huge cotton bales can be seen in the right foreground, likely headed for textile mills in the north of England. Samuel Colman, Jr., Ships Unloading, New York, 1868, oil on canvas mounted on board, 105 x 76 cm (The Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1984.4)

Commissioned by a railroad baron who was poised to benefit financially from the nation's continued expansion west, Durand's painting portrays the west as a place of limitless possibility and abundance. It encapsulates the concept of Manifest Destiny, wherein the United States had a divine mission to spread the light of democracy and the word of God. Paintings like this erase or minimize the violent and crushing impact of westward expansion on Indigenous peoples already residing in the territory. Asher B. Durand, Progress (The Advance of Civilization), 1853, oil on canvas, 58 7/16 x 82 1/4 x 4 3/8 inches (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

Although this map of North America from 1767 indicated that lands between the British colonies and military forces on the eastern seaboard and the inland French territory of Louisiana were “reserved for the Indians," victory in the American Revolution gave citizens of the new United States license, as they saw it, to invade western lands and remove the Indigenous peoples there. Daniel Paterson, Cantonment of His Majesty's forces in N. America according to the disposition now made & to be completed as soon as practicable taken from the general distribution dated at New York, 29th. March, 1767 (Library of Congress)

Richard Caton Woodville's genre scene depicts the moment when the inhabitants of a frontier town receive the news of a U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War. Woodville's characters display a range of responses to the news, reflecting divided opinions about the war and aspects of westward expansion, such as the role of slavery in new U.S. territories. Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico, 1848, oil on canvas, 68.6 × 63.5 cm (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas)

George Caleb Bingham's painting was first exhibited at the same time that the U.S. Congress was debating a proposal to outlaw slavery in any territory that might be gained in the ongoing Mexican-American war. The scene depicts a politician earnestly addressing an older voter, a reminder of the political choices that citizens faced, including slavery and its future. George Caleb Bingham, Country Politician, 1849, oil on canvas, 51.8 x 61cm (de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Andrew Jackson Grayson, whose family was among the earliest U.S. settlers to move to California in 1846, commissioned this painting of their arrival. By depicting California as empty of people (effectively erasing the region’s Indigenous and Hispanic inhabitants), William Jewett's canvas reinforced the concept of Manifest Destiny, wherein the west was akin to a biblical promised land for white settlers. William S. Jewett, The Promised Land—The Grayson Family, 1850, oil on canvas, 50 3/4 x 64 inches (Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection)

Daniel Webster was a well-known lawyer and senator from Massachusetts who gave an important and controversial Senate address in support of the Compromise of 1850. Just after the U.S. Civil War, Thomas Ball created a monumental bronze version of the sculpture for New York City's Central Park. Thomas Ball, Daniel Webster, 1853, bronze, 30 x 12 x 11 inches (The Art Institute of Chicago)

Explorer and army officer John C. Frémont was a fierce anti-slavery politician (he was the first Republican presidential candidate and became California's first senator), but also had a near total disregard for Indigenous people and their cultures, typical of white people at this time. Meade Brothers Studio, John Charles Frémont, c. 1856, photograph, 9.2 x 5.7 cm (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Solomon Nunes Carvalho documented the 1853 expedition led by explorer and army officer John Frémont to explore a possible route across the Rocky Mountains for a proposed rail line. Carvalho produced hundreds of daguerreotypes of the people, landscape, and animals they encountered in Kansas, Utah, and Colorado. This badly damaged image is the only one known to have survived. Solomon Nunes Carvalho, [View of a Cheyenne village at Big Timbers, in present-day Colorado, with four large tipis standing at the edge of a wooded area. Frame with pemmican or hides hanging at the right; two figures, facing camera, standing to the left of center], between 1853 and 1860, daguerreotype (Library of Congress)

This lithograph was part of a series depicting Narciso López’s attempt to invade Cardenás, Cuba, as part of a scheme of U.S. annexation, the goal of which was to add another slaveholding state to the nation. López was financed by U.S. sugar growers, who wanted to expand U.S. sugar production to Cuba, where slavery was legal. Narciso López, Gefe de los Piratas Invasores (Leader of the Invading Pirates), 19 de Mayo de 1850, 1850; color lithograph by Víctor Patricio de Landaluze, draftsman (The Historic New Orleans Collection)

Louis Lussier, a Canadian-American artist, painted several portraits of Stephen Douglas, who was a lawyer, politician, and long-time Lincoln rival, but this is the most accomplished in terms of technique, style, and in capturing the Senator’s personality. Louis O. Lussier, Stephen Arnold Douglas, c. 1861, oil on canvas, 36 3/4 x 28 inches (Chicago History Museum)

In this larger-than-life portrait, Abraham Lincoln holds a heavy, long-handled hammer, or maul, to split logs. As the Republican Party presidential nominee in 1860, Lincoln's rural upbringing appealed to many northern men (women could not yet vote), most of whom were farmers as Lincoln had been. They also liked his free soil stance opposing slavery in the Western territories. Lincoln’s supporters nicknamed him “The Railsplitter” to recall his frontier past and displayed this painting at their lively campaign rallies. The Railsplitter, 1860, oil on canvas, 108 x 84 inches (Chicago History Museum)

On May 16, 1860, ten thousand people packed this building and thirty thousand more people waited outside for the news of who the Republican Party would nominate to run for president. It would turn out to be Abraham Lincoln. Though white people had used the term “wigwam” (from the Algonquian for "to dwell") to refer to the homes built by some North American Indigenous peoples since the 1600s, in the 1800s American political parties used it refer to their campaign headquarters. Attributed to William Thomas Law, Republican Wigwam Erected at Chicago, 1860, watercolor on paper, 9 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (Chicago History Museum)

This silk campaign ribbon bears an image of Abraham Lincoln based on a famous photograph taken by Mathew Brady. It was reproduced for the ribbon by John Chester Buttre, an American steel plate engraver and lithographer who specialized in political and military portraits. Lincoln is fifty-one years old, beardless, and dressed as he was when he gave his famous “Cooper Union speech” in New York. Matthew Brady operated photography studios in New York and Washington, D.C., and he photographed most of the leading political and military figures of the Civil War era. John Chester Buttre, Campaign ribbon, A. Lincoln, 1860, 7.5 x 2.5 inches (Chicago Public Library)

This ribbon would have been worn to show support for Abraham Lincoln in his campaign to become President in 1860. Unlike ephemera made for previous elections, actual photographs have been printed right onto the cloth. Newton Briggs, Republican Standard Bearers: Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, 1860, photoprints mounted on silk ribbon (Newberry Library)

Historians date beardless pictures of Abraham Lincoln to his life before becoming president, since he grew a beard just after being elected. According to records, Lincoln posed for painter Cornelia Fassett in 1860. Her portrait, though, is quite similar to an 1859 (photograph) taken by her husband, Samuel Montague Fassett. She may have worked from watching Lincoln as he sat for the photograph and from the photograph itself. In 1863 she donated this watercolor portrait to the Northwestern Sanitary Fair held in Chicago’s Bryan Hall. Cornelia Adele Fassett, Abraham Lincoln, 1860, watercolor, 48 x 30.5 inches (Chicago Public Library)

This photograph was taken in Chicago in October, 1859, the year before Abraham Lincoln became the Republican Party candidate for President, and two years before the start of the Civil War. Samuel Fassett, Lincoln Portrait [Photograph of Abraham Lincoln], October 4, 1859, photograph, 19 x 13 cm (Newberry Library)

This hand-colored lithograph is based on a photograph of Abraham Lincoln taken by Mathew Brady in New York on the day Lincoln gave his famous Cooper Union speech—where he proved to the East Coast that he was a serious contender for the presidency. The photograph was reproduced in newspapers, on campaign ribbons, and on popular prints, such as this one. Nathaniel Currier partnered with his brother-in-law James Merritt Ives and built one of the most famous and successful commercial lithograph studios in the nineteenth century. Lincoln was a popular subject for Currier and Ives. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States, 1860, Currier and Ives, lithograph, 14.24 x 10 inches (Chicago Public Library)

A photograph and chromolithograph of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, one made at the start of the war and the other more than a decade after the war, demonstrate the importance of these two new technologies in the dissemination of images in the late 19th century. Left: A. C. McIntyre, First inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18, 1861 (photographic print, 19.9 x 14.7 cm (Boston Athenaeum); right: The starting point of the great war between the states: the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, 1878, chromolithograph, 76.6 x 60.8 cm (Library of Congress)

At least 1,700 schools, roads, buildings, municipalities, and monuments have been named after or dedicated to Confederates since the Civil War. Many of these images and visual records of the Confederacy still stand today. Alabama State Capitol Building photographed December 2021; statue at left noted in red: Frederick Cleveland Hibbard, Jefferson Davis, dedicated 1940; inset photo of star embedded in paving at the top of the steps where Davis stood during his inauguration as the President of the Confederacy (photos: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Memorials to Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, still stand in public and civic spaces, including this one in the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., erected in 1927 during the Jim Crow era. Gutzon Borglum, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, given 1927, National Statuary Hall, U.S. Capitol (photo: Architect of the Capitol)

A wave of patriotic fervor swept the North after Fort Sumter fell, prompting Currier & Ives, a New York printing firm, to issue this colorful lithograph commemorating the momentous event, considered the first battle of the U.S. Civil War. Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, 1861, Currier and Ives lithograph 10 x 14 inches (Chicago History Museum)

This engraving depicts the explosive thirty-three hour bombardment by South Carolina soldiers on the U.S. Army’s Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This attack is considered the first battle of the U.S. Civil War. Sumter [The Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charlestown Harbor, the 12th and 13th of April, 1861], 1861-1862, engraving from E.G. Squier, ed. Frank Leslie's Pictorial History of the American Civil War, New York: Frank Leslie, 1862, p. 8 (Newberry Library)

This small, but bold image is a patriotic response to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. An American flag flies in the heavens, suggesting that the U.S. Army was guided by a higher purpose. Affordable prints of the image were made beginning in June 1861. Many copies were purchased and even inspired poems. Frederic Edwin Church, Our Banner in the Sky, 1861, oil paint over photomechanically produced lithograph, 7 1/2 x 11 3/8 inches (Terra Foundation for American Art)

The photographs of the aftermath of the battle at Fort Sumter stressed the destruction of the site and helped to strengthen the resolve of the Confederacy. The Evacuation of Fort Sumter, April 1861, albumen silver print from glass negative, 12.6 x 9.4 x 2.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Paintings, like photography and popular prints, often addressed the issues of both prewar and wartime emotion using landscape as a metaphor. The meteor in Frederic Edwin Church's painting was understood as being akin to artillery fire in a nation where war began to seem unavoidable. Frederic Edwin Church, The Meteor of 1860, 1860, oil on canvas, 10 x 17.5 inches (Collection of Mrs Judith Filenbaum Hernstadt)