
The Brush Harrow 1865
Boys without fathers … some heroic men come home broken or not at all. Some battlefields are revisited from one year to the next. Veterans tease new recruits on spring campaigns with the bones of men left to winter over in thick forests.
“About 625,000 men died in the Civil War. That’s more Americans than died in both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam combined. This amounted to 2 percent of the population at the time, which would be the equivalent to about 6 million Americans dying today. Battles weren’t as deadly as disease, however..
An estimated 40% of the dead were never identified.”[1]

A Visit from the Old Mistress 1876
Slavery is a human condition we have not come even close to eradicating. Sex trafficking in children is alive and well. Where are the abolitionists now? There are some brave souls but mostly we are just as ignorant of human suffering as we ever were. Willfully so.
Civil War Art
The picture above is so ambiguous. Are the former slaves happy to see their former mistress? Are they ashamed that with freedom not much seems to have changed for them? Were any of them house slaves who saw themselves as superior to field hands?
And what of the mistress? Is she visiting old friends? Is she discussing payment for field work? Did they once pray together? Are they all victims of a world system they did not create? I’ve often heard that impoverished people enjoy life more. I think people are people. We live in a spiritually impoverished world.

Cotton Pickers 1864
There is a war somewhere out there. There is a war in our hearts right here. Freedom is a wonderful but scary thing. Is this beautiful woman brooding about her present? Is she anxious about her future? Is she bitter? Will she forgive life’s unfairness? Choices we all must make.

Prisoners from the Front 1866
Surrender. Surrender is not about giving up. At war are powers greater than humans can usually perceive. We are all slaves to a master. We choose the master no matter our place in this material world. Sometimes we are victims, but if we are honest with ourselves, we realize we are so often making war with others for our own selfish desires and out of a place of fear.
“There is no fear where love exists. Rather, perfect love banishes fear, for fear involves punishment, and the person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love.“ 1 John 4:18
LOOK AT HOW THE FILM MAKERS PAID HOMAGE TO HOMER’S PRISONERS PAINTING:
3 REASONS WHY AMERICAN ARTISTS RARELY PAINTED THE CIVIL WAR
EMBEDDED WITH TROOPS DURING THE CIVIL WAR: WINSLOW HOMER
12 STUNNING CIVIL WAR FACTS [1]