{"id":4911,"date":"2011-09-21T11:23:13","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T15:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=4911"},"modified":"2011-09-21T11:23:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T15:23:28","slug":"history-made-personal-troops-by-the-hundred-were-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=4911","title":{"rendered":"History made personal: ‘Troops by the Hundred Were Passing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gene Pisasale, <\/strong>Special to UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

N.C. Wyeth's \u201cTroops by the Hundred Were Passing\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

N.C. Wyeth and Chris Sanderson were both born in the year 1882. Chester A. Arthur was President of the United States, having been sworn in after President Garfield succumbed to injuries related to his assassination. The South was undergoing Reconstruction, yet many people in the South still resented what they considered the \u201cBattle of Northern Aggression\u201d and the subsequent laws which changed their way of life. It would take several decades before the Southern states would regain a sense of normalcy and reach parity with their pre-Civil War status.<\/p>\n

Wyeth was asked to illustrate a book on the great conflict, titled \u201cSally Castleton, Southerner\u201d by Crittenden Marriott. The book describes a Southern girl who comes into contact with a Union spy in Virginia. She\u2019s been asked to turn him into authorities, but she has misgivings, due to her interaction with this attractive and interesting stranger. The oil painting \u201cTroops by the Hundred Were Passing\u201d is one Wyeth did for this book, first appearing as a serial feature in \u201cEverybody\u2019s Magazine\u201d in 1912. It hangs on the wall in the Battlefield Room of the Christian Sanderson Museum, near objects from many other wars this country has suffered through.<\/p>\n

Chris Sanderson collected numerous artifacts of the Civil War and this painting is a fitting tribute from a well known artist who often illustrated battle scenes, heroic struggles and epic conflicts. Wyeth became good friends with Sanderson and gave the painting as a gift to Chris\u2019 mother Hanna. Confederate soldiers are marching behind their commanding officer, who is on horseback as two young boys in caps run excitedly alongside the phalanx. The painting is awash in grey-blues and dust browns, the colors of the Confederacy, ones which clothed the brave young men who fought for a cause which was bound to fail. \u201cWar-hardened, lean, efficient troops, whose road-pace was eagerness itself\u201d forms the caption of this illustration. Loyal men were following General Robert E. Lee\u2019s orders to defend Lynchburg- for many, to their death.<\/p>\n

Several of N.C. Wyeth\u2019s paintings have an ethereal look to them, as if the scene is other worldly, part of a dream. In this painting, you get that same feeling- and the viewer is watching through a misty haze surrounding these young men, dedicated as they march, rifles on their shoulders with bayonets fixed, briskly along the dirt road, their eyes unblinking. One soldier stares straight at the young boys running up to him, knowing the tragedy of war as they only dream about it, his gaze also nearly capturing the eyes of the viewer as he marches steadfastly with his determined rebel comrades. Yet, if you look closely into their faces, you can see that some of them knew\u2026 they wouldn\u2019t be coming back. This would be their last march. It remains an enigma of war- of all wars- that people in later generations will be completely horrified and yet, fascinated by them\u2026 enraptured with man\u2019s continuous struggle\u2026 in one way or another, to be free.<\/p>\n

The painting is one of the many gems that await visitors at the Sanderson Museum – A Man’s Life, A Nation’s History at 1755 Creek Road (old Route 100) in Chadds Ford, PA just North of Route 1 or on-line at www.SandersonMuseum.org<\/a>. For information on the author of this article, visit www.GenePisasale.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gene Pisasale, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com N.C. Wyeth and Chris Sanderson were both born in the year 1882. Chester A. Arthur was President of the United States, having been sworn in after President Garfield succumbed to injuries related to his assassination. The South was undergoing Reconstruction, yet many people in the South still resented what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[588,512,186],"class_list":["post-4911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-featured","tag-cahdds-ford","tag-sanderson","tag-wyeth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}