Edwin Forbes
Civil War etcher and pastoral painter
Edwin Austin Forbes was an American landscape painter and etcher who first gained fame during the American Civil War for his detailed and dramatic sketches of military subjects, including battlefield combat scenes. Forbes was born in New York, studied under Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, and began as an animal and landscape painter. During the Civil War, he was special artist for Frank Leslie's Magazine. Many of the spirited etchings he drew during the conflict were later presented by General Sherman to the government. They are now preserved in the War Office at Washington because of their historic value. After the war, Forbes painted landscape and cattle scenes, among which are "Orange County Pasture" (1879) and "Evening—Sheep Pasture" (1881). In 1877 he was made an honorary member of the London Etching Club. He died in 1895 in Brooklyn and is interred in Green-Wood Cemetery.
Artworks by this artist (357 total)
- Front Royal Va.–The Union Army under Banks entering the town 1862
- Old mill near Warrenton, Aug. 2, 1863 1863
- The battle of Gettysburg–Prisoners belonging to Gen. Longstreet’s Corps captured by Union troops, marching to the rear under guard 1863
- Winter camp near Culpepper Court House, Va. 1864
- The plains of Manassas, looking towards the Bull Run Mountains, from Gen. T.F. Meagher’s headquarters 1862
- Genl. U.S. Grant at Wilderness 1864
- An old soldier 1863
- Caisson and battery horses – near the grove of trees
- Foraging for hay outside of the lines in Virginia 1862
- On picket in the woods 1864
- Sketched on battlefield of Wilderness May 6th, 1864, 6 o’clock during Burnsides’ charge 1864
- St. Julien
- A Negro cabin. The old grist mill 1861-1876
- A rainy day on picket 1861-1876
- A tough customer. Army mule 1864
- After dress parade. 1876
- Off duty 1864
- Prisoners captured at Woodstock, Va. 1862
- Spotsylvania Court House, Va. 1864
- The Army of the Potomac on the march from the Chicahominy to the James River 1864