One of the lasting impressions of the Civil War was the image of"The Army of the Potomac - A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty" done by Winslow Homer. Homer was a young painter at the time of the war and was detached to the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaing for sketches of the proceedings there. This illustartion shows a lone sharpshooter up in a tree training his heavy target rifle on some unsuspecting enemy off in the distance. You can see how the sharpshooter uses a branch to prop up the barrel of the rifle to help steady the aim. Contrast this image with the many others of masses of men fighting and you get a feel for the evolving nature of warfare. While traditional battle pictures usually depicted, as in the words of a contemporary, “long lines…led on by generals in cocked hats,” Homer instead shows a solitary figure who, using new rifle technology, is able to fire from a distance and remain unseen by his target.The image was a lithograph published in Harpers Weekley as well as committed to oil paint and canvas.
The two versions are presented here as well as a question: what item in the lithograph is missing in the painting?
The answer is the canteen. another differences to note is that the cap badges differ a bit.
Some years after the lithograph and painting were produced, Homer reflected on the experience in a letter to George G.Briggs, and it apparent that Homer was shaken seeing a Rebel in the crosshairs of the telescopic sight of a taget rifle and came to the realization how easy it would have been fora civilian like himself to kill the person in his sights.Homer stated that it "struck me as being as near murder as anything I could think of in connection with the army & I always had a horror of that branch of the service.” This sentiment of Homer's was common among many in the military that time that those in the sharpshooter units were murderers. Despite public admiration for sharpshooters' skill, ordinary soldiers looked upon them as cold-blooded, mechanical killers who took any avaialble cover or would lie prone on the ground instead of facing off like real men.
The connection to the Berdans Sharpshooters in this painting is that there was a mention of them in his letter to Mr. Briggs and was likely the inspiration to for his painting and lithograph. Of the sharpshooters, Homer wrote:
" I never knew that Berdans Sharp Shooters were from Mich[igan], I looked through one of their rifles once when they were in a peach orchard in front of Yorktown in Spring 1862."
