"Lest We Forget": A Guide to Civil War Monuments in Maryland (review)

book reviews269 from First Bull Run to Appomattox, with considerable emphasis on Gettysburg, the subject of sixteen pictures, alternate with meticulous studies of single figures dressed in the precisely rendered uniforms of their units. Every picture exhibits Troiani's painstakingly archaeological approach to his craft. Determined to "Paint it how it was," Troiani carefully studies the uniforms, weapons, and paraphernalia in his own extensive collection and visits historical museums to examine battle flags and the remains of uniforms before beginning a composition . Not surprisingly, an artist ofsuch conscientiousness has little patience with the work of earlier artists in the field such as Gilbert Gaul and William T. Trego, who frequently painted arms and equipment in a historically inaccurate manner. Born in New York City in 1 949, Troiani began to collect military equipment at age eleven, and his fondness for old uniforms became a passion when a year later, while on a family vacation in Paris, he spent an entire day by himself at the Musée de l'Armée. He received his first formal art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and then during subsequent summers at New York's Art Students League, but prejudices against realist art he encountered at those schools made it necessary for him to teach himself through an intense personal study of nineteenth-century art. Like Frederic Remington, another American illustrator with a commitment to historical accuracy, Troiani gained much from studying the work and working methods of the French military painter Jean-Bapriste Détaille (1848-1912). And like Détaille (and Remington, for that matter) Troiani often dresses and outfits his models from his own collection, sets their pose and photographs them, and uses the photographs as the basis for his compositions. This exacting scholarly approach, in which details are built up incrementally with a consistently sharp focus, often results in dry and static compositions that stand in sharp contrast to such stirring pictures as Winslow Homer's Inviting a Shot before Petersburg, in which details are subordinated to the total dramatic impact. But Civil War enthusiasts who have been reluctant thus far to invest in one or more of Troiani's limited edition prints will be pleased that a collection of dozens of his best pictures has been brought together in this handsome and affordable book. Ben Bassham Kent State University "Lest We Forget": A Guide to Civil War Monuments in Maryland. By Susan Cooke Soderberg. (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing Company, 1 995. Pp. xxx, 195. $29.95.) Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox may have ended the Civil War, but memories of the battles and the men who fought in them continue to persist. Marylanders, living in a border state and contributing soldiers to both sides as well as experiencing the actual ebb and flow of battle from 1 862 through 1 864, 270CIVIL WAR HISTORY have expressed their sorrow, elation, and the remembrance of that trauma in numerous memorials. Beginning with the erection of the first one in honor of Capt. John P. Gleeson in 1 866, some sixty-five have been dedicated, the last one in 1 993 in honorofGen. Samuel Garland, Jr. As Susan Cooke Soderberg asserts, "Monuments are testaments to the important events and people of our national past and how we interpret them affects our national identity" (xi). In "Lest We Forget" she chronicles that expression in a book designed both as a guide and as a historical reference for "people interested in Maryland and in architectural history, and social historians" (vii). Reflective of commemorative monuments from the late nineteenth century until the 1920s, they bear the imprint of a "Renaissance aesthetic of beauty" (xxiii). The most popular forms were the statue of the solitary soldier and the obelisk embellished with romantic and classical inscriptions. Larger monuments , in demanding more intricate sculptures, as Soderberg asserts, "gave new life to artistic sculpture in America" (xxiv). Contrary to the assumption that the "soldier-at-parade-rest" was mass produced, the statue was actually tailored from a standard model to meet local demands. By 19 15 the number of companies engaged in their production had grown to sixty-three. Soderberg sees three...