Chapman, The Fifty-ninth Virginia Infantry—Wise’s Brigade, ca. 1867
This rare view of a Confederate army camp was painted by a Confederate soldier. Conrad Wise Chapman was raised in Rome and was taught to paint by his father. Although he had never lived in the South, young Chapman was sympathetic to its cause and returned from Italy to fight for the Confederacy. It was while he was serving with the Fifty-ninth Virginia Volunteers that he made the field sketches he combined later to create this scene, which shows troops encamped in the swampy lowlands along Diascund Creek near Williamsburg.
Conrad Wise Chapman, The Fifty-ninth Virginia Infantry—Wise’s Brigade, ca. 1867. Oil on canvas. 2001.7, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas.
