Rebels Outside Their Works at Yorktown Reconnoitring [sic] with Dark Lanterns
May 17, 1862
![Rebels Outside Their Works at Yorktown Reconnoitring [sic] with Dark Lanterns by Winslow Homer, American, 1836â1910](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/smith/thumb/rebels-outside-their-works-at-yorktown-smith-918657-0.webp)
Medium
figures
Classification
figures
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of John Goldsmith Phillips, Jr.
Accession Number
1947-4-25
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
Winslow Homer, a pioneering American realist painter (1836–1910), captured the tense drama of the Civil War in *Rebels Outside Their Works at Yorktown Reconnoitring [sic] with Dark Lanterns*, dated May 17, 1862. Created during the Peninsula Campaign, this work depicts Confederate ("Rebel") soldiers stealthily scouting Union positions near Yorktown, Virginia, under cover of night with dim lanterns. Homer, then a young artist-correspondent for *Harper's Weekly*, sketched frontline scenes like this to document the conflict's raw human element, bridging journalism and fine art. Classified as "fig...