Civil War at the Huntington Library and Art Museum

Tuesday was Members' Event and Viewing at the Huntington to see and experience the Civil War exhibits.  "A Strange and Fearful Interest:  Death, Mourning and Memory in the American Civil War" was on view at the Boone Gallery with the Huntington's collection of Civil War era photographs.

"A Just Cause:  Voices of the American Civil War" was exhibited in the West Hall of the Library.  These included original handwritten documents by Presidents, soldiers, statesmen, and their families express how they define "The Cause."

An actor portraying President Abraham Lincoln recited the "Gettysburg Address" outside the Scott galleries and a trio provided Civil War era music in front of the Boone...with ginger lemonade for sipping on a warm day.

The feeling of the exhibits was of sadness and a sense of tragedy...with opposing uncompromising sides gridlocked to the point that war seemed the only answer.  The problem was that no one had any idea of how horrible a war it would be with 3% of the American population killed or injured...720,000 dead and double that injured.  Some times it seems that our current political divide is about as bad as it was in 1861.

"But what was this just cause"  Both Northerners and Southerners believed that they were fighting a just war against an enemy's unholy crusade.  Both fought with equal tenacity and spurned compromise with equal determination.  Both believed that God and the Founding Fathers were on their side."

The iris were abloom...in October!  Amazing.

After his death, Lincoln became like a Saint in peoples eyes.  This painting by Stephen James Ferris shows George Washington  welcoming Lincoln to the afterlife who crowns him with a laurel wreath symbolizing victory.  This popular depiction, which was photographed and published widely, linked the two men in the public eye.  Now their monuments face each other across the reflecting pond on the Capitol Mall.

A former slave.

This drawing shows the Southern Women reacting to the results of war.

George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1707

"Breakfast in Bed" painted by Mary Cassatt in 1894.  She lived from 1844 - 1926 and although she was an American, she spent most of her life in France where she became friends with the French Impressionists.