Graves of the Highlanders
date: label: Date made
content: 1864
name: label: maker
content: Hart, Charles
label: artist
content: Young, Hugh
notes: label: Description
content: Before the Civil War, Americans adhered to the Victorian treatment of death and dying. One hoped for the ideal Christian “good death,” passing from old age at home surrounded by family members. Loved ones observed private rituals of mourning and the dead were buried at a church graveyard or private plot. The carnage that the Civil War produced completely shifted the American experience of death. Men were killed far from home, and often buried in the fields upon which they perished. The universal trauma of losing a loved one in battle turned death into a public affair. This 1864 picturesque lithograph of a wartime cemetery at Knoxville, Tennessee, offered families a means to mourn relatives who were killed in combat. Prints such as this also coincided with a growing interest in rural, park-like cemeteries. These bucolic settings offered visitors an escape from the nuisances of city life, and also replaced the fear of death with a sensation of hope.
label: Description
content: Among the graves depicted in this print are those inscribed with the names of 13 members of the 79th New York Volunteer Highlanders, who were organized in 1858 as a regiment for the United States Militia. It was comprised of emigrant Scots and Scottish-Americans. Before the war, the regiment was a parade and ceremonial troop, but saw combat at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. Later, the regiment was assigned to Major General Ambrose E. Burnside during the Knoxville Campaign in Eastern Tennessee. Although soldiers were often reburied by their families after the war, all of the Highlander men commemorated in this print remain buried in Knoxville National Cemetery.
label: Description
content: The lithograph’s image was taken from a sketch done by one of the men in the regiment, Hugh Young, who was discharged from the unit in 1865 with the rank of First Lieutenant. The lithographer of the work, an Englishman named Charles Hart, became an apprentice with the firm of Endicott & Co. in 1839. He remained an employee of that business until 1859 and later established a firm of his own.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Chronology: 1860-1869
label: Subject
content: Uniforms, Military
label: referenced
content: Death
label: referenced
content: Civil War
label: related event
content: Civil War
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: American Civil War Prints
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.2614
label: catalog number
content: 60.2614
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: image: 15 1/8 in x 21 1/2 in; 38.4175 cm x 54.61 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 20 1/2 in x 27 in; 52.07 cm x 68.58 cm