Duplicate Illustration of "Custer Attacking Early's Infantry at Hupp's Hill".
This is a reproduction of the illustration "Custer Attacking Early's Infantry at Hupp's Hill," by the famous 19th century artist J.E. Taylor. This image was created in 1898 from Taylor's 1864 battlefield sketches. It includes images of two of General George Armstrong Custer's Civil War flags carried at the Battle at Hupps Hill (Stickley's Farm), in Virginia in 1864.
James E. Taylor was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. A Notre Dame graduate at the tender age of 16, he enlisted in the Tenth New York Infantry (National Zouaves) in 1861. A gifted artist, he began making battlefield sketches during his military service. In the era of wet plate photography, photographs had a long exposure time, making action photographs impossible. This made a skilled "combat" artist invaluable. Taylor began sending his sketches to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and when he left army service in 1863, he was hired as a "special artist". For the rest of the war, Taylor traveled with the Union Army in Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, sketching panoramas of battles and the settings of the war.
The original of this illustration is in the Western Reserve Historical Society. Taylor made this drawing from that sketch in 1898. Two of the flags carried by General George Custer can be seen in the scene; flags now in the Zaricor Flag Collection. These flags are: Custer's 3rd Division designating flag (ZFC0489) and the young general's 3rd Personal Guidon (ZFC0490), made for him by his wife Elisabeth.
Provenance:
- Acquired by purchase from Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, in 2002.
ZFC Significant Flag
Item is Framed
Sources:
Index to Illustrations in "With Sheridan up the Shenandoah Valley, Western Reserve Historical Society, 19 November 2011, from:
http://ipac.wrhs.org
James E. Taylor (1839-1901), The Becker Collection, 19 November 2011, from: http://idesweb.bc.edu/becker/artists/taylor
The Engagement at Stickley's Farm or Hupp's Hill, The Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley, 19 March 2011, from:
http://www.angelfire.com/va3/valleywar/battle/stickley_farm.html
The James E. Taylor Album, Drawings of the Western Frontier, 19 November 2011, from: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/taylor/taylor.htm
Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection
