Browse the Collection
Search the Collection
View Finding Aids
Edwin Forbes Civil War Etchings Finding AidAbout the Collection
Edwin Forbes (1839-1895) was an American landscape painter and etcher best known for his sketches of military life during the American Civil War (1861-1865). As a staff artist for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Forbes traveled with various contingents of the Union Army and was particularly interested in common soldiers' daily lives as well as more traditional subjects like generals and battles. Following the war, Forbes published two volumes of his military etchings: Life Studies of the Great Army: A Historical Art Work in Copper Plate Etching Containing Forty Plates (1876), whose plates comprise this collection; and Thirty Years After: An Artist's Story of the Great War Told and Illustrated with Nearly 300 Relief-etchings after Sketches in the Field and 20 Half-tone Equestrian Portraits from Original Oil Paintings (1891). Both volumes were well-received, especially Life Studies, for which Forbes received a gold medal at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (1876). General William T. Sherman also purchased a set of the Life Studies plates for his office in the War Department. In 1919 the Library of Congress acquired a large collection of Forbes' wartime work, including drawings, plates and the original impressions from Life Studies.
Related Collections
Rights
Digital collections are available for research, teaching, and learning. These collections are not all part of the public domain even though they have been made publicly accessible. Moreover, even if a collection is in the public domain you should still cite where it came from and/or credit the author. For those collections under copyright protection, texts and images from the digital collections may not be used for any commercial purpose or beyond the normal “fair use” guidelines without prior permission from Penn State University and/or those parties who own the copyright. Where copyright is of concern in any material in question, that right is owned either by Penn State University, or by the original creators of the object, or their descendants. Therefore, when using any of this material, it is your responsibility, as the user, to secure permissions and adhere to the stated access policy, copyright laws, and educational fair-use guidelines.
For more information, please consult the Penn State University's Copyright Portal.