National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

From Fort Sumter to Bull Run

The Death of Ellsworth by Alonzo Chappel, 1862

By the end of June, 1861, much of the dirty work necessary to start a mighty civil war had been accomplished.  Fort Sumter had been fired upon the previous April.  The southern states, beginning with South Carolina in December of 1860, and then Mississippi less than a month later, had begun to secede.

Virginia and Tennessee—the states wherein the most battles of the war would be fought—were the final two states to leave, with Virginia abandoning her claim to the union in late May, 1861, and Tennessee on June 8.  Like the rest of the states, both north and south, Tennessee and Virginia would pay dearly, as tens of thousands of their sons would be lost in battle.

Tennessee and Virginia also suffered the additional burden of playing host to many of the most horrible moments of the war—Tennessee would see Shiloh and Stones River, as well as battles up and down the rivers that run the length and the width of the state, while Virginia provided the fields for First and Second Bull Run (Manassas), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and, ultimately, the surrender at Appomattox.

Also, by June of 1861, many of the leaders who were so integral to the war had assembled and had begun to prepare for a fight.  The impending war was becoming infused with its personalities.  The leadership in the north formed around the chief executive, Abraham Lincoln, whose election pushed the issue of secession to the front of the southern agenda.

The southern cause rallied around its own president, Jefferson Davis (right), a planter from Mississippi whose politics had carried him to the highest echelons of the American military prior to his arrival at the presidency of the confederacy.  Each of these men organized their needs around the strengths and potentials of their followers. Often, they chose wisely; almost as often, their choices disappointed them.

At the beginning of the war, the man in charge of the Union army was General Winfield Scott (above), an individual who was not much younger than the nation, itself.  Scott, born in 1786, was a soldier who had seen his more profound and active days.  By the summer of 1861, his advice was still good, but he was in no condition to command an army in the field.  After the first battle at Bull Run, Scott yielded his position to George McClellan, a man who would test Abraham Lincoln’s patience many times, eventually going so far as to oppose Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election.

In the south, Joseph Johnston was commander in chief of the rebel army of Northern Virginia until he was wounded and replaced by Robert E. Lee (right) in June, 1862.  Ironically, Lee had been Winfield Scott’s choice to take control of the Union army upon Scott’s retirement.

And even though the highest ranks on each side were filled with enough interesting and disparate personalities to launch the Trojan War, the American Civil War’s first major battle at Bull Run was preceded by a much smaller battle in Alexandria, Virginia, a battle that would provide each side a martyr and give the war further unneeded emotional impetus to begin.  Historian E. B. Long chronicles the events of May 24, 1861 in his tome, The Civil War: Day by Day:

As stealthily as partially trained troops could move, the Federals advanced across the Potomac at Washington and occupied Alexandria, Virginia . .  .  Added to the strategy and the thrill of the first advance, was tragic, dramatic death of youthful Elmer Ellsworth.  Twenty-four, organizer of a famous Zouave drill team, Ellsworth led the First Fire Zouaves, or Eleventh New York.

Colonel Ellsworth with a few companions rushing toward the center of Alexandria saw a secession flag flying from the Marshall House.  Ellsworth and two others dashed in to haul down the enemy flag.  Descending the stairs with the banner, Ellsworth was confronted by the hotel keeper, James Jackson.  Jackson blasted Ellsworth with his shotgun; Jackson was immediately fatally shot by Private Francis E. Brownell.

Ellsworth’s death plunged the North into a patriotic spasm of grief; the body lay in state in the White House.  A friend of the President, Ellsworth became a martyr for the Federal cause.  As the tears and cries of rage spread through the North, so, too, did Jackson become a martyr to the South.

Unlike the somewhat innocuous and blood-free fight at Fort Sumter, the clash at the Marshall House told the nation that the larger, imminent war would be viciously partisan, fierce, and horrible.  That larger war would begin at Bull Run.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

 

   

 

The Death of Ellsworth / Alonzo Chappel / Oil on canvas, c. 1862 / Chicago History Museum / Charles E. Gunther Collection

Jefferson Davis / Mathew Brady Studio / Modern albumen print from wet plate collodion negative, undated / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Winfield Scott / Mathew B. Brady / Albumen silver print, 1861 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Robert E. Lee / Edward & Henry T. Anthony & Company / Albumen silver print, c. 1861 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

 

Pop Quiz Trivia in the Courtyard: Tuesday, June 28th

Pencils up!

What do Raquel Welch and Michael J. Fox have in common?

Pencils down!

They are both stars of Hollywood cinema featured in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery! Come to the National Portrait Gallery Kogod Courtyard on Tuesday, June 28, to play our new collections-inspired trivia game, Pop Quiz.

This month’s Pop Quiz is based on our collection of portraits featuring the actors, directors, and producers of Hollywood.

Many of the trivia questions are taken from the label text of portraits that are currently on view in our "Bravo!" and "Twentieth Century Americans" exhibitions, so come early to explore the galleries and brush up on your trivia knowledge before getting into the swing of things before the game starts at 6:30 p.m. If you are a true movie buff, you might even head home with a prize! 

If you know who the “father of documentary film” is, or what 1975 film broke the record for box office sales then this evening will be right up your alley. To give you a head start, here’s a sneak peak of the bonus question, worth 10 points! 

Michael J Fox starred in the classic 1985 film Back to the Future, in which a DeLorean transports Fox through time.

Originally, a different device was going to be used for this time travel. Steven Spielberg, who produced the movie, and Robert Zemeckis, the writer and director, decided to change the device because they were afraid that children would climb into this common appliance and become trapped.

What was this machine?

Pop Quiz trivia occurs once a month in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard in the National Portrait Gallery. The next Pop Quiz is “From Hawthorne to Hemingway: American Literature” on Wednesday July 27^th from 5:30-8:00.  
 
—Liz Congdon, Public Programs Intern, National Portrait Gallery

 

Raquel Welch  / Frank Gallo / Epoxy resin, 1969 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
 
Michael J. Fox / Steve Pyke / Digital silver gelatin print, 2008 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

NPG Staff Profile: Victor Onireti, Budget Analyst & Funds Manager

Q: How long have you worked at the National Portrait Gallery?

A: I have worked at the Portrait Gallery since July 2008, and at the Smithsonian since December 2000, beginning at the National Museum of American History.

Q: What is your favorite thing about your job?

A: Being able to provide needed assistance and guidance to NPG staff on matters pertaining to finance and procurement.   

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: Reading, movies, table tennis, travel/sightseeing

Q: Where were you trained/where did you attend school to learn your job skills?

A: Training has been mostly on the job.

Education:

Master of Public Administration, American University, Washington, D.C.

B.A., Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Certificate in Financial Management, USDA Graduate School, Washington, D.C.

 

Who Is That Frenchman on Seventh Street? Part III: Appearance and Impact

Photo by Warren Perry

One of the most striking features of the Daguerre monument is the obvious difference in composition of the various sections. While the work's vertical sections are gray granite, the bronze that forms the ancillary figures and the garland provides a keen contrast and emphasizes the superterrestrial experience of the tribute.

The dramatic presentation of the wreath about both the planet and the head of Daguerre signifies the international importance of his invention. Daguerre’s head is placed between the eastern and western hemispheres and at the equator, meaning the effect of his work also transits the northern and southern hemispheres.

Another indicator of the significance of Daguerre’s achievement is in the location of the north pole directly above his head; this might be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious is that just as the north pole is marked by the polar star in the celestial sphere—which serves as a point of reference to all humanity—so the planet and all its humanity will forever have the work of Louis Daguerre as a point of reference.

Hezekiah McMichael, chairman of the monument committee of the Photographers Association of America, paid homage to this global impact of photography at the Daguerre monument’s dedication ceremony. The event was recorded in the September 20, 1890, issue of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine:

It was considered that the tribute, while losing nothing by dignity or elevation or sentiment, must present a simplicity in keeping with the camera, which, while one of the three greatest inventions of modern times, has likewise become the most universal over the earth, by very reason of its primitive character and processes of manipulation. Do we not see travelers coming home, day by day, from the remotest lands of barbarism—Stanley from the Dark Continent, Kennan from the dungeons of Siberia, Prejeralsky from Central Asia, and Nordenskjold from the Arctic Seas, with those mysterious regions laid before us in startling quality and realism—all because of the instantaneous victory of the camera, a triumph over complicated action as well as the reposeful spirit of the landscape.

The way the wreath drapes about the globe is not accidental. Not only does Daguerre’s head fall from it like an amulet on a planet-sized chain, but also the terminating points indicate two important locations on the monument. The left terminus drops to a label on the left side, while the right terminus drops at the base of the Daguerre relief.

Also, the sculptor, Jonathan Hartley, was certainly aware of how his materials would change appearance over the years. The patina that the bronze elements have achieved over the 120 years since the monument’s dedication enlivens the life forms of the work—the woman, who is an allegory of Fame, Daguerre, and even the wreath. These life forms became verdant with the aging and greening of the bronze.

The lively colors of the bronze statue pop against the granite behind it, just as photography popped into the world with images of a moment that would last, theoretically, forever. In 1915 Wilfred French discussed the monument and its relationship to the form of photography:

For grace and beauty of design, this tribute of esteem and affection is worthy the fame of the illustrious inventor, and speaks well for the taste and generosity of the projectors. The bronze likeness, modeled from a daguerreotype, has been pronounced an admirable one by distinguished connoisseurs; and as to the maiden, typically French in face and figure, she expresses the sentiment felt by every appreciative exponent of photography the world over.

The cultural impact of the invention of the photographic process is described in the writing  on the monument's lower pedestal:

PHOTOGRAPHY, THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, AND THE STEAM ENGINE ARE THE THREE GREAT DISCOVERIES OF THE AGE. NO FIVE CENTURIES IN HUMAN PROGRESS CAN SHOW SUCH STRIDES AS THESE.

Photo by Warren Perry

And if there were ever any doubt of the identity attached to the work, boldly carved into the middle of the acropodium is the single name:

DAGUERRE.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

 

Sources:

Wilfred A. French, “Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre,” Photo Era (November 1, 1915):  217.

Edward L. Wilson, “Pertaining to the Unveiling of the Daguerre Memorial,” Wilson’s Photographic Magazine (September 20, 1890): 545.

Who Is That Frenchman on Seventh Street? Part Two: The Monument's Creator and Its Early History

Photo by Warren Perry

J. Scott Hartley was a man who was not unused to praise. In his own day, Edward L. Wilson, publisher of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, called him “prolific, variable in idea and illustration and the number of his works, always bearing the signs of an individual genius.” As James M. Goode notes in his volume Washington Sculpture: A Cultural History of Outdoor Sculpture in the Nation’s Capital, Hartley’s works are in major collections all over America and in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the Daguerre monument on the Seventh Street side of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, Hartley was responsible for the busts of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Hawthorne that are located in the central pavilion of the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building.

An interesting aside to his career is the story of a critique he gave of the relatively new practice of photography in August 1890. This lecture occurred at the National Museum (the Smithsonian Castle) during a convention of the National Association of Photographers. According to a report of the meeting published in the New York Times, Hartley was quite frank in his discourse on photography:

Mr. Hartley . . . began by criticizing the first picture that flashed on the screen without any words of preamble or any general remarks about art and its relations. Here was a man shattering some of the most cherished ideals of the camera workers, who had very decided views as to backgrounds and “accessories,” and who thought that all the interest in a portrait should be concentrated at the face and shoulders without resorting to any of the innumerable little devices of which professional photographers are so fond, and it is not to be wondered at that some of his hearers finally began to resent this iconoclasm by criticizing Dr. Hartley’s criticisms in turn.

Hartley was described as a man “at the top of his profession” in an 1890 issue of Wilson’s magazine. However, it seems clear that Hartley’s appreciation of the visual art profession was more traditional and did not extend to this newer, more technologically oriented discipline. In short, Hartley was a sculpture man, not a picture man.

It is also interesting to consider Jonathan Scott Hartley's Daguerre monument more fully in light of the monument’s early location. At the height of the age of scientism, Photographic Times and American Photographer ran an article in September 1890 imploring their readers to fulfill their obligations to fund the commission of the work, which was unveiled before it was completely paid for by the photographic society. In the article, the writer cites various comments made about the Daguerre monument’s location:

The locale of the Daguerre monument is in Washington D. C., in which lordly city the Photographers’ Convention has this year been held. . . . No time was lost in having all in readiness for the Convention, and one day was set aside to be exclusively devoted to giving honor to the illustrious Frenchman. Indeed, the unveiling of the monument thus prepared seems to have been considered as the great event of the Convention. The work . . . was designed and modeled by the sculptor, Mr. J. Scott Hartley, New York. It stands sixteen feet high, and is placed in the Rotunda of the National Museum.

As of the unveiling, the monument was displayed in one of the preeminent places of cultural salute in the U.S. capital, anchoring the central rotunda of the building that held America’s National Museum. Truly, taking into account the fact that the newly unveiled Washington monument—at the time having only been open for five years—and also taking into account the fact that the Lincoln Memorial would not be dedicated until May 30, 1922, there was a thirty-two-year period in which one of the foremost monuments on display in the cultural nucleus of the United States capital did not portray an American, but a Frenchman.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Next week, the conclusion, Part Three: Visual Impact and Cultural Significance

 

Sources:

James M. Goode, Washington Sculpture: A Cultural History of Outdoor Sculpture in the Nation’s Capital (rev. ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

“The Daguerre Memorial,” Photographic Times and American Photographer (September 12, 1890): 20, 469.

Edward L. Wilson, “J. Scott Hartley.” Wilson’s Photographic Magazine (August 16, 1890): 508.

Who Is That Frenchman on Seventh Street? Part One

Photo by Warren Perry

The intellectual vanity at play in the late nineteenth century was infectious. As the ideas grew and as the periodic table filled in, the Victorians—soon to become the Edwardians—believed that peace was at hand and that libraries and museums would fill the world. Science ruled the day.

Medals were struck in commemoration of academic achievement, portraits were painted, and monuments were built. Scientism, the belief that all good things would arrive as a result of science and its practices, was the prevailing attitude of the progressive academy, and the mental and technological manifestations of science were lauded as previous generations had lauded accomplishments on the battlefield.

The Jonathan Scott Hartley monument to Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre at the National Portrait Gallery is a product of the philosophy of scientism.

Hidden in the shadows of the Penn Quarter activity on Seventh Street is the anomalous figure of an angel wrapping a wreath around a globe and a man’s head. The head belongs to one of the many non-Americans enshrined here in Washington, in this case, the French inventor of the photographic process, Louis Daguerre.

As an inventor, Daguerre is perfectly in place outside the walls of the former Patent Office Building, the Robert Mills–designed shrine that now houses the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. And although this work might seem at home in its current location, it traveled quite a lot before its arrival.

The journey that brought Hartley’s granite and bronze portrait to its present location is an interesting one, the first part of which is recorded in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year ending June 30, 1891:

On August 15, 1890, a bronze statue of Daguerre was unveiled in the rotunda of the National Museum building, by the Secretary of the Interior. This monument, in honor of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, was presented by the Photographers Association of America, which was holding its annual meeting in Washington at the time. Daguerre, in cooperation with Joseph Nicéphore Niepce, invented and perfected the daguerreotype, the announcement of which was made at the session of the French Academy of Sciences, in 1839.

From 1890 to 1897, Hartley’s Daguerre was inside the rotunda of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries building, the structure adjacent and immediately to the east of the Smithsonian Castle. Before the end of that century, the monument was to make another move, this one farther to the east. In 1897, the work was moved, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum Inventory of American Sculpture, “to the grounds on the east side of the Arts and Industries Building.”

The monument was to remain in this location until it was taken to storage in 1969, because the ground upon which it had sat for more than seven decades was the future site of the Hirshhorn Museum.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Photo by Warren Perry

Next week, Part II: The Monument’s Creator and Its Early History