The Petersburg Project
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  • Petersburg Panorama 1865
  • Steeples of Petersburg
  • The Mine Explosion and its Crater
  • Petersburg in Pencil and Ink
    • Alfred R. Waud, Special Artist at Petersburg >
      • Waud Drawing of 5th Corps Fortifications
    • William Waud, Special Artist
    • Charles H. Chapin, Special Artist
    • Joseph Becker, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Edwin Forbes, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Winslow Homer, Special Artist
    • Edward Mullen, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Andrew W. Warren, Special Artist
    • Enlisted Artists >
      • Charles Wellington Reed
      • Andrew McCallum
      • Francis Knowles
      • James William Pattison
      • Herbert Valentine
      • Howard A. Camp
  • Petersburg Photographs --So Many!
    • Working with Photographs
    • City Point
    • City Point Wharf Explosion, Aug. 9, 1864
    • Fort Rice?? We don't think so!
    • Federal Picket Line, Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Egbert Guy Fowx, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Timothy O'Sullivan, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • Fort Morton and Baxter Road Group
      • Fort Haskell Panorama
      • Fort Stedman Group
      • Gracie's Salient Group
      • Bombproofs behind Fort Haskell
      • Camp of the 50th N. Y. Engineers
    • David Knox, Photographer at Petersburg
    • William Redish Powell, Photographer at Petersburg
    • John Reekie, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Thomas C. Roche, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Andrew J. Russell, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • "Fort Mahone" CS Batteries 25 & 27
  • U. S. Military Railroad
    • Terminus of Military R. R. at City Point
    • City Point to Clark's Station
    • Pitkin's Station to Shooting Hill
    • Hancock's Junction/Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Parke's Station
    • Warren's Station
    • Patrick's Station
  • Maps and Topogs
    • Grand Medicine Pow-wow
    • Michler's Reports from Topographical Department
    • John E. Weyss, Cartographer
    • William H. Paine, Cartographer
    • Gilbert Thompson
  • Confederate Maps
    • Confederate Defenses 1862
    • Gilmer-Campbell Maps, 1864
    • Stevens Map July 1864
    • Fields of Fire
    • Coit's map of the Crater Battlefield
  • Federal Maps
    • Army of the Potomac, Routes of the Corps to Petersburg
    • June 18, 1864-Federal Engineers Map
    • June 18, 1864, 18th Corps
    • June 21, 1864, Federal Engineers Map
    • June 22, 1864. Second Corps at Jerusalem Plank Road
    • June 29, 1864. Bermuda Hundred
    • June 30, 1864 -- XVIII Corps Map
    • June-July, Undated Federal Engineers Map-
    • July 1864 Map of XVIII Corps Lines
    • Crater, Native American Perspective of the Crater
    • August 28, 1864, Michler Map
    • September 13, 1864, Recon Map
    • September 30, 1864, Warren Map
    • October 1864, Two IX Corps Maps
    • Nov. 2, 1864, Army of the Potomac
    • 1864, Coast Survey Map of Petersburg
    • NEW 1865-1867, Manuscript Survey Maps
    • 1864-1867, Michler-Weyss, Siege of Petersburg
    • 1865-1867, Michler Map Series
    • 1871, Map of Recapture of Ft. Stedman
    • 1881, Boydton Plank Road
  • Confederate Forts and Batteries
    • Dimmock Line >
      • Priest Cap
      • French Rifle Pits
    • Fort Clifton
    • "Fort Mahone" CS Batteries 25 & 27
    • Confederate 8-inch Columbiad
    • Leadworks
  • Federal Forts and Batteries
    • Battery X
    • Fort Alexander Hayes
    • Fort Avery
    • Fort Conahey
    • Fort Davis & Battery XXII
    • Fort Fisher
    • Fort Meikel --Photographic Views
    • Fort Morton
    • Fort Patrick Kelly
    • Fort Sedgwick, better known as Fort Hell,
    • Fort Wadsworth -- the Evolution
    • Fort Willcox or Battery XVI
  • Battlefield Features
    • Aiken House
    • Armstrong's Mill
    • Avery House
    • Bailey/Johnston Farm
    • Blandford Church
    • Broadway Landing, Appomattox River
    • The Crater
    • Cummings House
    • Dams and Inundations
    • WW Davis Farm
    • Dunn House
    • Friend House >
      • View from Friend House toward Gibben complex and Petersburg
    • Gibbons Properties
    • Globe Tavern / Weldon Railroad
    • Gregory House
    • Griffith Farm
    • Gurley House
    • Hare House
    • Hare House Hill
    • The "Horseshoe"
    • Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Jones House
    • Jordan House
    • Newmarket Racecourse
    • Pegram's Farm
    • Peebles Farm, Pegrams Farm, Poplar Springs Church
    • Shands House
    • Taylor Farm >
      • The Ice House
      • Surviving Taylor Barn
    • Williams House
  • Signal Towers and Trees
    • Some Operations of the Signal Corps at Petersburg
  • Archeology
    • Geology of the Crater
    • Fieldwork -- Petersburg
    • Civil War Sinks
    • Deserted Confederate Camp
    • Gracie's Countermine
    • LIDAR Forts and Batteries
  • Articles, Papers, Presentations
    • Shiman: A Note on Maps
    • The Siege Landscape: Through Fire and Ice at Petersburg
    • "The Rebel in the Road"
    • "A Strange Sort of Warfare Underground"
    • Lost Trenches of Petersburg: June 17
    • Between the Lines
    • Combat Trenching: An Introduction
    • Lowe -- Post-War Topographical Survey
    • Civil War Maps and Landscapes -- Observations
  • Kittens, Puppies & Ponies
  • Executions!
  • Notes on Leveled Earthworks
  • Civil War Combat Trenching
  • Depot Hospital at City Point
  • Dimmock Battery 5 Photographs
  • Pontoon Bridges
  • The Great Pontoon Bridge Across James River
  • Appomattox Mill Photographs
  • Campbell Dinwiddie County 1864
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This painting by Charles W. Reed shows an artist at work in camp. It may depict Reed himself. Library of Congress 01234.

Artists in the ranks

PictureThis photograph, taken on July 6, 1864, at General Orlando B. Willcox's headquarters to the east of the Taylor house (Francis Knowles diary and scrapbook, page 134, UNC Chapel Hill Library) shows two young artists on the staff of General Willcox, Andrew McCallum and Francis Knowles, enjoying combat of a different sort (identification in Scott, 1999, p 573). Detail from Library of Congress 03895.
Some of the best known Civil War special artists assigned to newspapers and weekly periodicals illustrated the Petersburg campaign- men like the Waud brothers, Edwin Forbes and Winslow Homer. 

Three lesser known artists recorded what they saw in their capacity as participant observers- they were all enlistees in the Federal army and chronicled much that is of interest to us today from this vantage point.  As soldiers armed with paper and pencil, they were able to record scenes not available to the most intrepid journalistic artists and that were well beyond the purview of the bulky cameras of the day.   As other entries make clear, these artists may have copied each other on occasion, or the similarities of their scenes may be the result of sketching from the same locations, such as signal trees.

Charles Wellington Reed began service in 1862 as a bugler for the 9th Massachusetts Battery, attached to the Vth Corps.  He was awarded a Medal of Honor for saving his wounded captain from between the lines at Gettysburg.  His talents were further rewarded at Petersburg by assignment to the topographical engineers where he assisted the federal mapping efforts.  After the war, his illustrations for John Billings best-selling book Hardtack and Coffee contributed to 
its success.

Andrew McCallum was a private in the 109th NY Infantry [later transferred to 51st NY volunteers], was educated as an engineer in Scotland, and later became a patent lawyer and general counsel of the Eastern Railroad Association according to his obituary in the Boston Journal, January 16, 1891.

During the Petersburg campaign, McCallum was on the staff of General Orlando B. Willcox, divisional commander in the IX Corps.  A letter from Willcox to his wife states “I sent some time since some of McCallum's pencilings to Harper's Weekly to see if they could fetch anything for his benefit, with direction if Harper did not take them he would send them to you.”[1]

McCallum did many drawings during the Richmond-Petersburg campaign, some of which were published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and are in the Becker Collection at Boston College.[2]    Other McCallum drawings and maps are at the Library of Congress, the Virginia Historical Society and the U. S. Army Military History Institute.

Francis W. Knowles kept a scrapbook/diary, now at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and made drawings as a private in Company B of the 36th Massachusetts Volunteers, in the IX Corps.  At least one of Knowles’s sketches was published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and his map of troop deployment during the battle of Fort Stedman, March 25, 1865, was published in an account of the battle.[3]  Knowles was on the staff of General Orlando B. Willcox, commander of the 3rd Division, IX Corps, at Petersburg.  His diary makes clear that he and McCallum knew each other.  Knowles’s drawings, preserved in the diary/scrapbook, note that some images were copied by him, while others were originals.

[1] Robert Garth Scott, editor, Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals & Letters of Orlando B. Willcox, Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1999, page 546.

[2] Interestingly, a recent exhibition catalog of the Becker Collection Civil War artists titled First Hand has McCallum incorrectly identified as a different Scottish born landscape painter.

[3] The Battle of Fort Stedman (Petersburg, Virginia) March 25, 1865, by William H. Hodgkins. Boston, privately printed, 1889.  https://ia600409.us.archive.org/35/items/cu31924032281515/cu31924032281515.pdf



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