It's Not Just Art Historians That Plague Museums

I may have left the impression in my last posting that the only problems museums have are with art experts and historians who fail to do proper research on military and war related exhibits. However, the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History has had a similar problem now for several years. In the year before it closed for renovations, the Museum unveiled an exhibition called "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, this presents a survey of America's conflicts and their costs. This exhibition is again on display, unchanged, after these renovations.

An obvious element in such an exhibit would be the American Civil War, described by many historians as the conflict that defined America. The photo included with this article is one that I took earlier this year after the museum was re-opened. I took an almost identical photo before the closure for renovation and attempted to alert museum curators to the errors thus illustrated. Whoever placed the equipment upon the mannequin did it backwards - a fact that as an active reenactor of a Civil War Union soldier immediately struck me when I first visited the exhibit.

The most visible item of equipment is the canteen covered in brown blanket cloth. This is resting on the mannequin's left leg when it should be resting on top of the oilskin cloth haversack and both lying atop the left hip, out the way yet still accessible. The haversack on this mannequin has been reversed from its proper position and can be made out hanging close to the body at the right front.

On the mannequin's left hip, resting approximately where the haversack should be is the black leather cartridge box which would have carried the soldier's rounds of ammunition. This should be resting on the right hip where the soldier can easily use his right hand to reach back, open the pouch, and pluck out a single paper cartridge containing both one bullet and the black powder that when the weapon is fired would propel the bullet towards the chosen target.

The next most important accessory is the cap pouch, a small coin purse sized leather pouch that contains the soldier's percussion caps. After the soldier has poured the black powder down the barrel of his musket, dropped in the bullet, and then used his ramrod to force all of this down to the bottom of his weapon's barrel, he would hold the musket in his left hand while his right hand would reach down to remove a single cap from this pouch which should be just the right side of the buckle of his waist belt. This cap is placed upon the cone or nipple of the musket where it will be struck by the weapon's hammer when the trigger is pulled. The hammer's blow should set off the fulminate of mercury contained in the percussion cap which should create enough of a spark to ignite the black powder already poured down the barrel, firing the weapon. In this instance, the mannequin's pouch is in approximately the right position though the haversack being incorrectly placed just below it makes it difficult to reach.

It would be reasonable to surmise that neither the mannequin nor the curator or individual who kitted out this mannequin was ever dressed down by a sergeant major or any kind of sergeant for being a "slovenly soldier" because their kit was all a scramble. It is not impossible that the individual was using an original image of an actual Civil War Union soldier as a reference aid when placing the equipment on the mannequin. If this is the case, the individual was either unaware or had forgotten that in some forms of photographs or images from this period, the image is in fact a mirror image of the original subject, i.e., backward or reversed so that the real person's right side is on the leftside of the image. The sad result is that the exhibition misinforms the public and leads knowledgable visitors to conclude that the museum is ignorant on this subject and reluctant to admit that fact.

Military Art and the Art of War: Can We Get Art Historians to Study Military History?

One of my favorite past-times at home or on the road is to visit art galleries in search of artwork that might offer some insights about war, warfare, and its practioners. However, I have learned that these excursions also present the risk of coming within earshot of art museum docents, guides, and experts as they explain the military scenes and subjects depicted, all too often exposing gaps in their knowledge of military history, war, and warfare.

One my first such experiences was at the National Gallery of Art exhibition Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art. This exhibit brought together a small selection of works tracing the career of this American artist, including some of his Civil War drawings and paintings. Of particular interest to me was “Home Sweet Home”, depicting two Union Army soldiers in a moment or relaxation in camp. Also in this exhibit was “The Sharpshooter on Picket Duty”. This image first appeared as an engraving in Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862. It depicts a Union Army sharpshooter in a tree drawing a bead on a long-range target, a scene captured during McClellan’s Peninsular campaign which sought but failed to capture the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia.

As I was studying the two paintings, a National Gallery guide led a group of visitors into the small gallery. The guide presented a general and not inaccurate description of the two paintings, though he skipped over a number of details that I had found particularly interesting and was clearly not as immersed in the Civil War. He was apparently unaware that the sharpshooter in the painting was an image from the Peninsular campaign and insisted on linking it to the later Battle of Antietam fought in western Maryland, apparently not knowing that Winslow Homer was actually present during the former campaign. As for the campfire scene in the first-named painting, my examination of the canvas quickly convinced me that one of the soldiers had placed his tin cup on the fire to make himself a cup of coffee – something I had myself done as a Civil War Reenactor and Living Historian. I also knew from my study and from my reenacting experience that the Union Army (and most modern reenactors) almost literally ran on coffee.

As the guide continued to examine “Home Sweet Home,” he referred to the tin cup on the fire as a small pot and declared that the soldiers were making stew. At this point I was unable to restrain myself and said loudly enough to be heard by the guide and the small group of visitors that actually the soldier was making himself some coffee in his tin cup. The guide ignored my comment even when I repeated it more briefly, refusing to even acknowledging my existence. I listened a little longer to his discussion of the paintings before leaving the room unacknowledged and apparently unheard, though I surrendered enough to impulse to tell one of the museum guards that “this fellow may know art but he knows next to nothing about the Civil War.”

The National Gallery’s web site presents this painting for online viewing (link above) with a zoom feature that allows the viewer to enlarge details of the image for closer examination. Using this feature I have found that you can actually make out the curve of the top of the handle of the tin cup just above the rim at the back of the cup as it sits on the fire. You can take advantage of this capability to conduct your own examination of the image and draw your own conclusion. I should add, however, that in the catalog for the 1988 San Francisco exhibition Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War there are citations from a number of critics’ comments upon “Home Sweet Home” dating from its first public showing in 1863. Among these, T.B. Aldrich wrote in The New York Illustrated News (16 May 1863) that this work:

“…shows a Federal camp at supper time. The band in the distance is playing ‘Home Sweet Home’ in the immediate foreground are two of the boys, one warming the coffee at the camp fire, and the other dreamily watching the operation….”

More recently I found myself in similar circumstances at the Seattle Arts Museum where I went to see the traveling exhibit Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery. This is a great exhibit of selected works from the Yale University collections that have been put on the road instead of into storage while their permanent home is undergoing renovations. The exhibition included two works of particular interest: “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill,” painted by John Trumbull, and a photograph of unfinished pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, taken during the American Civil War. Examining the placard describing the photograph of the pontoon bridges I found that it referred to the “unsuccessful siege of Fredericksburg,” described as unsuccessful because the bridges were never completed – according to the caption writer. Unfortunately for the Union troops involved, the “siege” actually did succeed as the bridges were completed, the Army of the Potomac crossed the river, and on December 13, 1862, engaged the Confederates entrenched on the heights beyond the town of Fredericksburg. The Civil War Preservation Trust website hosts an excellent presentation on the campaign and battle that goes into detail both on the bridges and the resulting battle.

As disappointing as I found the erroneous caption, it wasn’t until I returned to examine the photo again that I had another of those encounters with a guide. A Seattle Art museum guide was discussing John Trumbull’s painting “The Death of General Warren” (aka “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill”) depicting the battle fought on Breed’s and Bunker’s Hills in Charlestown opposite the city of Boston on 17 June 1775. At the approximate center of the canvas, the American patriot General Warren is lying in the arms of a comrade who is pushing away the bayonet of a British soldier attempting to thrust it into the dying American’s body. That soldier is also restrained by a British officer, Colonel John Small, who reportedly recognized the prominent American rebel and actually called out to him to surrender to avoid being killed in the final moments of the battle.

The guide attributed the British colonel’s act of restraint to a sense of community and kinship between the British and the American colonials. However, other accounts of the battle make it clear that such a sense of kinship was not universally shared among the British. As the leader of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, Warren was a recognized leader among American patriots and his death was welcomed by many British officers. General Gage is reported to have said Warren’s death alone was worth the death of 500 other rebels. Another British officer, Captain Lane, who had been engaged in the running battle between Concord and Lexington and Boston before participating in the repeated assaults on the American positions, boasted that he had happily buried Warren in an unmarked common grave and hoped that he would never be found and identified. Finally, while elaborating on this point, the guide never chose to mention that the artist John Trumbull actually painted this work while in London, England a few years after the revolution and while studying there under the British artist Benjamin West – known for his own dramatic portrayals of British Army victories – a fact that can reasonably be concluded to have had some influence on how John Trumbull chose to portray the British Army on his own canvas.

These experiences have not totally dampened my enjoyment of these military scouting trips in the world of the fine arts. Just recently I toured a now closed National Gallery of Art exhibition – Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age – which brought together a collection of 17th century Dutch works focused upon the cities and urban scenes of the then newly independent United Provinces. These presented great views of the extensive fortifications that protected many of these cities from the forces of Spain during their independence struggle. There were also several canvases that presented the Dutch soldiers and militia in full regalia and kit, offering excellent information regarding their armaments, uniforms (such as they were), and even their level of drill and military training. But the sum total of my experience in such excursions is to tread warily when an art expert or even art historian describes for you the details of military history, war, warfare, etc. based upon the art work presented by that expert. Try doing some research of your own or find a military historian or expert on the war or period presented and compare the museum works to what these experts can tell you about the relevant military art.

Note: For the works of Winslow Homer, I have found two especially good sources: Winslow Homer, Paintings of the Civil War, by Marc Simpson with contributions by others, published by The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the publishers Beford Arts, to accompany the 1988 exhibit of the same name (ISBN 0-88401-060-0 paper/ISBN 0-938491-15-6 cloth). For his engravings, I have The Wood Engravings of Winslow Homer, edited by Barbara Gelman, published in 1969 by Crown Publishers (LoC 73-75096).

A Napoleonic Hat Trick: Three Basic Readings on the Life and Career of Napoleon Bonaparte, Europe’s Greatest Soldier

Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography by Vincent Cronin

The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History’s Greatest Soldier by David G. Chandler

A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars prepared by Brigadier General Vincent J. Esposito and Colonel John Robert Elting


I recently finished reading Vincent Cronin’s Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography and realized that having done so, I now had the answer to a common question of what should you read if you don’t know anything about Napoleon. This biography in combination with the two other works listed above would provide the reader with a basic knowledge of who Napoleon was, what he tried to accomplish in his political and military careers (and personal life), and why in the end he failed.

Published in the early 1970s, I long resisted reading Vincent Cronin's biography because of the work's reputation as too sympathetic to the subject. However, as part of an ongoing reading program on military history I finally picked up Cronin's volume as the first of a series of biographies of Napoleon that I will be reading. Having completed it, I really wonder now how well the others will match up against this book. Cronin is sympathetic to his subject but he does not hide this from the reader and only in the later chapters did I find myself in disagreement or at least questioning his account of Napoleon's intentions, thoughts, and/or feelings.

The author subtitled this "An Intimate Biography" and in a general way he meant it. The work is not limited to or even focused solely upon Napoleon's military career nor to his entanglements with women, but touches upon all aspects of the life of a man who in his 52 years was a soldier, general, head of state, statesman, lawmaker, lover, pater familias to an extended family, and a father several times over. No one aspect of Napoleon's life dominates the narrative but instead each in turn is made the central focus of the story as that part of his life comes to the fore. This is an especially appealing element of Cronin's book given these many varied roles filled by Napoleon.

And yet the word "intimate" does not offer either empty titillation nor guarantee that we are really and completely inside this man's head at any moment. I believe that this reflects the above-mentioned flaw of being too sympathetic to Napoleon Bonaparte. The author often steps forward to declare what Napoleon thought or felt at a particular moment or about a specific subject, issue, or event and yet I found myself resisting these claims. Vincent Cronin provides neither footnotes nor endnotes, though he does offer a section on Sources and Notes that goes chapter by chapter to identify and explain the basis for his statements and conclusions in the text. There is also an interesting and not un-useful essay "Memoir-Writers and Napoleon" that reviews the background and history of the most important and/or frequently used first-person memoirs from Napoleon Bonaparte's contemporaries.

If you are not a military historian and really only wish to read one book about Napoleon Bonaparte, this biography would be an excellent choice - with the understanding up front that you will find herein a favorable and even sympathetic image of a man who during his life inspired bitter and prolonged opposition and even hatred among Frenchmen as well as others in Europe and the world.

. . . . . .

David Chandler’s book is the best single volume English-language military history focused upon Napoleon’s military career. He begins with an introductory essay “Napoleon – The Man and the General: Qualities and Defects” in which the author presents a summary view of Napoleon and sets the stage for the complete work. The rest of the book is a generally chronological account and review of Napoleon’s military career. Chandler starts with Napoleon Bonaparte’s education and early military career, capped by his service in Italy. The chronological narrative is then interrupted by a section presenting Napoleon’s “philosophy of war” and his methods of making war at both the tactical and strategic level including a discussion of the sources and inspirations for these. The author then proceeds to present Napoleon’s entire military career, devoting a section to each conflict or major campaign – always focused upon those theatres in which Napoleon was personally active. (Therefore, theatres such as the Peninsula receive significant attention only for the period in which Napoleon was present.)

The narrative of Napoleon’s military career is rounded out via 10 appendices addressing the orders of battle for the Army of Italy and the Grande Armée of successive campaigns among others, as well as notes on various battles and on the Empire’s aristocrats and a Glossary of Military terms. There are also over 15 pages of end notes and a five page bibliography.

In his treatment of Napoleon Bonaparte, Chandler is not unsympathetic to his subject but is not as uncritical perhaps as Cronin is in his biography. Perhaps this is because a discussion of Napoleon’s military activities is always founded as much on what he actually did and what happened as it is on Napoleon’s explanations of his intentions. This allows both the author and the reader to more readily draw conclusions from the facts rather than from the he-said and then he-said of after the fact memoirs
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. . . . .

The final contribution to this triad is A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars which presents both a military history and some 169 maps of the campaigns and battles that occurred between France and the other nations of Europe during this period – 1796-1815. This work is focused upon the strategic and what today we call the operational levels of war and therefore its maps only present the engaged armies down to the Corps, division, and occasionally brigade level. However, its comprehensive treatment of Napoleon’s campaigns and battles makes this a unique work in English.

This atlas has appeared in a modified form in more recent years whereas my copy is one the original 1965 edition (Second Printing) examples. However, both versions are in a 13 inches by 10 inches landscape format which gave the editors a good canvas upon which the sketch out the movements of the armies across Europe’s battlefields. The atlas includes a set of biographical sketches of the major military and political figures of the Napoleonic era. There is also a 10 page list of recommended readings in various languages, each accompanied by a one sentence description of that work’s contents and thrust. Although a bit dated today having been compiled in 1965, this list is a useful resource for any scholar, student, or even casual reader who wants to know more about a particular individual, battle, or campaign.