Civil War Art December 12, 2008

The paintings in the collection dealing with the Civil War reflect the time during the war from 1861 to 1865 and the Reconstruction period afterward. The hostilities, which began with the first shots fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, destroyed the optimism of the antebellum period. The Confederate States lost a war that would forever alter the landscape of the South. Their men had been killed and their once booming economy shattered. Yet, while the conflict between the federal government and the Confederate States devastated the South, it also strengthened a new Southern identity. The paintings in the Morris Museum's collection reflect a Southern perspective on the War.