Life in Camp, Part 2: Teamster

Art Historical Context

Created in 1864 during the height of the American Civil War, *Life in Camp, Part 2: Teamster* offers a into the everyday realities of military life. Winslow Homer, who served as a special artist-correspondent for *Harper’s Weekly*, captured scenes from Union encampments that were later reproduced as color lithographs by Louis Prang & Co. and Beadle & Co. This small print (just over four by two inches) depicts a teamster guiding horses, highlighting the essential yet often overlooked roles of support personnel who kept armies supplied and mobile. As a color lithograph, the work reflects the growing popularity of affordable printed imagery that brought the war home to Northern audiences. Homer’s straightforward, observational style emphasizes the human and animal labor behind the conflict rather than battlefield heroics. Part of a larger series on camp life, the print belongs to the Jefferson Burdick Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, preserving a vivid record of mid-nineteenth-century American experience through popular graphic media.

About the Artist

Winslow Homer|Louis Prang & Co.|Beadle & Co. · 1836–1910

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was one of America's greatest painters and a preeminent figure in 19th-century American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career as a commercial illustrator and Civil War correspondent for Harper's Weekly before becoming renowned for his powerful marine subjects and landscape paintings. His mastery of both oil and watercolor, combined with his uncompromising reali...