Historic Letter
At age 18, John Dana, a distant relative of Maine Gov. John W. Dana (1847-1850), enlisted as a sergeant major. It was Oct. 1, 1861, and the sandy-haired, blue-eyed soldier from Maine spent the next three years as a Union soldier serving in the South. His details sent home a picture of what it was like to be a young man in the war -- from time spent as a prisoner to tales of gambling, constant fear of disease, drunken nights and speculation about how long they would be at battle. This is one of these letters to his dad. I chose this because it demonstrates how bad the conditions were and yet they continued to have faith that they were going to win and charged on.
Historic Piece Of Artwork
One of the most poignant and lyrical of Chapman's paintings is Fort Sumter, Interior, Sunrise, Dec. 9 1863. As dawn rises over the scene, groups of men huddleing around small fires, the light reflected in pools of standing water inside the shattered battlements. Chapman had been raised in Rome, and his vision of Sumter is steeped in childhood memories of the Coliseum, an emblem of the fallen empire. Chapman imbues his scene with a similarly grave pathos, as though portraying a similarly embattled civilization. Atop one of the damaged walls, a Confederate flag flies proudly in the morning light, a sentry perched close by.