The Army of the Potomac--A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty

Download3000 × 2011 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
Medium: Wood engraving on paper
Size: image: 9 1/8 x 13 3/4 in. (23.2 x 35.1 cm)
Museum: Smithsonian Institution
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Winslow Homer created an image of a Union sharpshooter while working as an artist-correspondent for Harper's Weekly during the Civil War. The soldier looks through the sight of a telescopic rifle as he searches for a target. Sharpshooters were called for duty when there was a lull in the action and weary soldiers from both North and South were resting. Reviled as "murderers" by both sides, sharpshooters usually were executed if captured.

Years after the Civil War ended, Homer recounted his memory of peering through the scope in a company of Union sharpshooters. "I looked through one of their rifles once when they were in a peach orchard in front of Yorktown in April, 1862," he recalled. "The . . . impression struck me as being as near murder as anything I ever think of in connection with the army & I always had a horror of that branch of the service."