Ericsson’s improvement in the construction of ordnance was one of many inventive achievements, including the design for the battleship U.S.S. Monitor during the American Civil War. In 1863 he was granted a patent for this improved gun carriage. It allowed the cannon to recoil backward in its tracks when fired and was made to be worked by fewer hands within a confined space such as a gun turret.
Charcoal and graphite sketch on paper. The sketch shows three sides of the main square of Montabaur, a town in Germany that is about 20 kilometers northeast of Koblenz. The drawing is framed on the left by the large Neo-Gothic Town Hall and several timber-frame buildings. People are walking along the square, and in and out of the gothic arches of the Town Hall. There are two automobiles in the square (the catalog card indicates that they are Army trucks). In the background, is the Schloss Montabaur, or castle of Montabaur.
The uniform of the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry (Duryée's Zouaves), 1861, consisted of a distinctive jacket, vest, sash, baggy trousers, and fez. The Zouave uniform adopted on both sides by many volunteer units during the first year of the Civil War was based on that of the elite Zouave battalion of the French Army, whose dashing appearance matched its fighting abilities. In their turn, the French Zouaves modeled their uniform and drill after the native dress and fearless tactics of their former Algerian opponents, encountered in the course of the colonial war of the 1830s.
Charcoal and crayon drawing on heavy textured cream wove paper. The work depicts two Allied aircraft burning and falling from the sky as two men descend in parachutes.
Charcoal and watercolor sketch matted on brown matte with blue inner border. Two freight ships at right are shown in the harbor at St. Nazaire, France. The ships are painted with brightly-colored dazzle camouflage in blue, white, green, and pink. To the left are docks and cranes. A rowboat with two people in it passes in front of the ships. Smoke is visible from the smoke stacks in the background. Signed at bottom left by the artist, "J. Andre Smith / St. Nazaire, July '18."
Crayon and charcoal on paper. The work depicts a tank overrunning a German machine gun emplacement. There are American soldiers behind the tank. In the foreground, two German soldiers, with multi-colored camouflaged helmets, man their machine gun. The German soldier on the right holds a rifle. A barbed-wire entanglement is visible on the right.
Rectangular wool bunting flag. White field with a large blue circle in the center of the flag. Reinforcement squares at both hoist corners. There is a patch in the upper fly corner and along the lower edge, near the fly. White hoist with a metal grommet at either end. Inscription on hoist reads "1ST ARMY/CORPS 3RD DIVISION".
Charcoal, pencil, and ink wash drawing on white card stock. The work depicts the interior of a locomotive shop near St. Nazaire, France. Men are working on the engines in the shop.
Rectangular wool bunting flag. Red field with blue union. Union has one white diagonal stripe, or bend. The white hoist has an inscription that reads "1st Div'n 4th Army Corps Dept. of Cumberland."
Charcoal sketch on white paper of Nieuport 28 planes with the 147th Aero Squadron, First Pursuit Group, taking off for battle. In the foreground, a Nieuport is being pushed into position by three men in uniform: one at each wing and one at the tail. The plane has American insignia on the wings and rudder and the number "11" is painted on the fuselage. The pilot is in the cockpit. In the background, two planes are just taking off and another plane is already in the air.
Wool bunting pennant flag. White field with a blue border around all three sides. In the center of the flag is a red circular cross. The cross resembles a Maltese cross whose outer edges are round, forming a circle. White hoist with no grommets. The inscription on the hoist reads "1st Div 3rd Brg 16 Army Corps R. C. Toy 49 N. 9th Phila."
Late in the American Civil War (1861–1865), veterans of the Union Army of the Cumberland, believing that General William S. Rosecrans had been unfairly removed from command in 1864, engaged William D. T. Travis to paint a documentary of the general's career. As a staff artist for Harper's Weekly and the New York Illustrated News, Travis had followed the army, seeing and sketching much of what he later painted. This scene, the first of 32 on the huge panorama produced by Travis, represents the young soldier's farewell to home and family. Each scene is 8 feet high and 16 feet long, on a single roll of canvas over 500 feet long. When he finished in May 1865, Travis took the panorama on tour. The artist narrated from a prepared script as the canvas was wound from one of two great spindles to the other. From 1865 to 1871, in lecture halls and churches throughout the Midwest, Travis displayed the panorama to considerable acclaim.
At 24 years old, Solomon Conn, a son of a hotel keeper in Minamac, Indiana, enlisted as a private in Company B of the 87th Indiana Infantry on July 26, 1862. He purchased this violin in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 1, 1863. Conn carried the violin while serving, although his family admitted that he never learned to play. Written on the back of the instrument are the names of places where the soldiers of the 87th were either on duty or engaging the enemy. More place names are written along the left and right edges of the sides. Among the more well-known battles the 87th took part in were the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863 and Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864. By the end of the war, the 87th Volunteers had lost 283 men, most of them to disease.
This object stands as a unique memento of the common soldier during the Civil War.