Johnson was thirty-six years old when the Civil War began. Although he did not serve in the Union Army, he followed the Union troops in search of subjects that would appeal to a pro-Union audience. He also painted pictures of the homefront. —PH
Hills, 2021: Don Richard Lauter of Disputanta, Virginia, and a Civil War buff, suggested to me that Johnson's inspiration for the scene in The Field Hospital was General Francis Channing Barlow, who was confined to a field hospital, where his wife, Arabella Barlow, nursed him, following the battle at Antietam on September 17, 1862, when he was badly wounded. As noted in Hills 1986, Baur placed Johnson at Antietam at that time. Barlow is also the figure in Homer's Prisoners from the Front.
New York Times, May 14, 1868, p. 5, review of National Academy of Design exhibition: "Mr. Eastman Johnson is more liberal toward the public [than J. F. Weir]. He sends three pictures—two of which are in his peculiar style, and the other somewhat out of it. The latter is called 'The Field Hospital,' (No. 250). It is, of course, a meritorious work, and certainly the best of those exhibited by this gentleman. The subject is simple and quickly conveyed. A young soldier lays [sic] wounded on a hospital couch beneath a pleasant shade of a grove of trees. By his side and in the act of transcribing a letter from his dictation is a young lady. The background is filled up with huts and sentinels. The story is very tender and touching and is told with much frankness. Mr. Johnson avoids the common error of harrowing up the feelings by mere ghastliness. The good-looking lad, with his honest sun-burnt face and still expression, excites the sympathy of the beholder from the sheer reality of his misfortune."
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