Crest of Pine Mountain, Where General Polk Fell, from "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)"

Artist Kara Walker (b. 1969)

Date2005

MediumOffset lithography and silkscreen on Somerset Textured paper

DimensionsSheet Dimension: 39 × 53 in. (99.1 × 134.6 cm)
Frame Dimension: 41 × 55 × 1 3/4 in. (104.1 × 139.7 × 4.4 cm)

ClassificationsLithograph

Credit LineStephen B. Lawrence and Bette Batchelor Memorial Acquisition Funds

Terms

Object number2019.4.1

DescriptionFrom "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)"; AP 3/10 (edition of 35 + 10 AP)

In 1864, Union troops entered the heart of Georgia in a campaign to take the strategic city of Atlanta. This print depicts Pine Mountain, where one of the pivotal battles of the campaign took place. During the battle, Confederate General Leonidas Polk was killed by a Union artillery round, in a serious blow to the Confederate cause.

The original Harper’s illustration depicts at its center four prominently-lit tree stumps, in a poetic evocation of loss. Walker’s version of the image is dominated by a woman whose figure and kerchief link her to the pervasive “mammy” stereotype, and who lifts her arms as if in praise or lamentation. Behind her, a girl swings an ax—a reference, perhaps, to all those fallen in the war.

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