The War for the Union, 1862 – A Bayonet Charge (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)

Winslow Homer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the summer of 1862 the Army of the Potomac mounted an assault on Richmond, Virginia, but was repulsed. This dramatic composition, designed by Homer, an artist-correspondent for Harper’s Weekly, describes fighting at Fair Oaks—or Seven Pines—on May 31, when Union forces were saved by last-minute reinforcements. One of Homer’s most ambitious war subjects, the dramatic composition represents soldiers in close combat roused to a fever pitch. The accompanying text stressed: Soldiers seldom actually cross bayonets with each other in battle. Before the regiment which is charging reaches its antagonist, the latter usually seeks safety in flight. All the strength and all the bravery in the world will not protect a man from being run through the body by a bayonet if he stands still while it approaches him. . . . At Fairoaks the rebels almost invariably broke and fled before our bayonets reached them. In one or two instances, however, there were hand-to-hand tussles. . . . One of them is realized in our picture.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art