Conrad Wise Chapman: Artist and Soldier of the Confederacy (review)

book reviews355 tional style foreclose the possibility of the narrative and interpretive breakthroughs achieved in the best recent studies of white units. Joseph P. Reidy Howard University Conrad Wise Chapman: Artist and Soldier of the Confederacy. By Ben L. Bassham. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi, 328. $60.00.) Even the most casual student of the Civil War is familiar with the artwork of Conrad Wise Chapman. His paintings ofthe camp of the 3rd Kentucky Infantry at Corinth and the defenses ofCharleston, South Carolina, have illustrated countless popular magazine articles and coffee table books. Thanks to the magnum opus of Kent State University art history professor Ben Bassham, Chapman's works are now the subject of their own coffee table book. Because Chapman's works are so numerous and familiar, it is difficult to quarrel with Bassham's declaration (ix) that "put briefly, Conrad Wise Chapman was the most important artist of the Confederacy." His thirty-one oil paintings of the Charleston defenses are both extraordinary artworks and invaluable documents of Confederate fortifications and naval innovations. Chapman served two and a half years as a Confederate soldier. While he was wounded at Shiloh and saw action in other engagements, his was not a career of constant hard campaigning. Initially with the "Orphan Brigade," Chapman transferred to Henry A. Wise's brigade stationed east of Richmond, then accompanied that brigade to Charleston. This service in three different theaters enhanced Chapman's importance as a soldier-artist, Bassham argues. Furthermore, Chapman sketched his subjects during the war, completing the paintings immediately after her left the army in 1864. Unlike other Confederate soldier-artists, such as William Ludwell Sheppard and Allen C. Redwood, Chapman's reputation does not rest on works produced for postwar magazines and books. In fact, Chapman failed entirely to exploit the postwar demand for the kind of art he was so qualified to produce. This failure is explained by Chapman's life story, which is the heart of Bassham's book. "Coony" Chapman was not a typical son of the South. His father, artist John Gadsby Chapman, had deep Virginia roots and loyalties, but took his family to live in Rome in the 1 850s. Conrad lived most of his life outside the United States and was on furlough "home" to Rome in 1864-65, then settled in Mexico, where he produced his finest paintings. Back in Europe, he was unable to secure commissions for heroic paintings of the Confederacy. Instead, he scratched out a living with menial artistic jobs, virtually giving away the products of his talent. A mental breakdown landed him in an English institution for three years. Assisted by close friends and a devoted second wife, Chapman lived until 1910 and, fittingly, died in Virginia. 356CIVIL WAR HISTORY Bassham relates Chapman's life story with skill and compassion. Author and publisher give the artworks the attention they deserve, with 133 illustrations and 20 color plates. The book does have weaknesses. Chapman's rival soldierartists warrant more analysis than they receive. An aggregation of consistent little errors (misspelling the names of John Breckinridge, Frank Vizetelly, and others and referring to John Slidell as Benjamin Slidell) and a relatively weak secondary source bibliography remind the reader that Bassham's training is not in Civil War history. This is, nevertheless, the definitive book on Chapman and a pleasure to read and peruse. John M. Coski The Museum of the Confederacy Lessons ofthe War: The Civil War in Children's Magazines. Edited by James Marten. (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1999. Pp. xviii, 259. $55.00, cloth; $18.00, paper.) The Civil War coincided with the spread of literature, periodicals and magazines propagating middle class Victorian values and perspectives. This book presents the efforts of Civil War-era editors and authors to provide children with their own "literary community," a space to offer young readers "sympathy and encouragement for . . . facing the challenges of the war" (xi). Lessons of War supplies excerpts from period children's publications along with introductory commentary from the book's editor, James Marten, associate professor of History at Marquette University. James Marten previously published the well-regarded The Children 's Civil War in 1998...