"Union Prisoners at Salisbury, N.C.”
Major Otto Boetticher
c. 1863
Baseball was in its infancy during the American Civil War. As soldiers traversed the country, they carried with them this beloved game. How has baseball affected the lives of Americans during other wars? (Potential link to the sire about baseball during WWII)
Boetticher was an artist from Prussia who came to the states around 1850. He worked in drawings, paintings, and lithographs. Lithographs are a form of printing usually using a metal plate. He was imprisoned while serving in the Union army. The same style was used to depict less friendly images of the war during this time including this image titled “Seventh Regiment on Review, Washington Square New York, 1851.” Notice how the images relate. The figures maintain the same style, but the tone of the two drawings vastly differs. One is strict and regimented with harsh lines, while the other flows around the central image of the baseball diamond; the POWs grouped in clusters around the painting. How might the lack of order in the baseball image be a metaphor for the state of the country during this time?
c. 1863
Baseball was in its infancy during the American Civil War. As soldiers traversed the country, they carried with them this beloved game. How has baseball affected the lives of Americans during other wars? (Potential link to the sire about baseball during WWII)
Boetticher was an artist from Prussia who came to the states around 1850. He worked in drawings, paintings, and lithographs. Lithographs are a form of printing usually using a metal plate. He was imprisoned while serving in the Union army. The same style was used to depict less friendly images of the war during this time including this image titled “Seventh Regiment on Review, Washington Square New York, 1851.” Notice how the images relate. The figures maintain the same style, but the tone of the two drawings vastly differs. One is strict and regimented with harsh lines, while the other flows around the central image of the baseball diamond; the POWs grouped in clusters around the painting. How might the lack of order in the baseball image be a metaphor for the state of the country during this time?
