Wargaming Media: Battleground - Part 1, Introduction

Battleground (1978) - Tyne Tees Television Series on Wargaming!

The Cover of the June 1978 edition of Battle magazine, in which there was an article by Terry Wise about the Battleground TV series.

Before I get started on my short series of posts about this venerable aulde TV series from the 1970s, I'd like to acknowledge all the interest in it that many other bloggers have shown, and through which I came to know of, and ultimately love, the programmes. At the end of the series I'll list everyone that I can think of to whom I'm indebted. And, where I can actually remember, I'll also acknowledge where some of the images came from. But to start off I'd like to express my profound thanks to DC, without whose help I certainly couldn't have written this: thank you, sir!

Battleground!

So, what exactly was Battleground? The chances are that if you're reading this, you might already know. But, if this is your introduction to the subject, please let me know via the comments. In essence it was, very simply, wargaming on the telly.

At the time, in an article that appeared in the June 1978 issue of Battle, Terry Wise (author, modeller and writer of rules) enthuses about 'this revolutionary series', with its 'cast of thousands', referring, of course, to the toy soldiers - '11,000 figures to be precise'. 

Battleground, produced for Tyne Tees Television would, 'for the first time give viewers the opportunity to see wargaming as it really is'. He further hoped, one might think rather optimistically, that 'the visually exciting side of the hobby should produce some favourable audience reaction for clubs.'

Terry Wise's article, as it appeared in Battle, June 1978. 

Well, truth be told, as several other bloggers on this topic have noted, it's quite difficult to make a wargame, which uses a collection of static models, visually exciting in the way TV, a medium of motion, is best suited to (Mind you, having said that, artist and wargamer Cristoph Mueller has recently done just this. See his short film here).

And actually, if we don our pedantry shako - as wargamers are all too often wont to do - and scrupulously dissect Wise's statements, they err a little, inasmuch as wargaming had already been given a starring role in mainstream TV, in the series Callan, and even in the spin-off movie of the same name.

Indeed, this was the reason the new series was presented by Edward Woodward, since he was the star of that TV series and the associated movie. 

When I first read about all this stuff, and even after seeing the Callan episode A Magnum For Schneider, I had wondered whether Woodward was genuinely interested in wargaming or not. This question was to be answered by watching the Battleground series, and researching this article, and I'll come back to it in due course.

Does this image answer the question I pose above, or is it just an early example of strategic marketing? I found the photo here, alongside some other great pics from the making of Callan.

I might argue that the scenes in A Magnum For Schneider, the original black and white 1967 episode from the TV series, and Callan, the 1974 movie (which was also based on the same plot as Magnum For Schneider), the latter perhaps most of all, do a slightly better job of making wargaming look like a dramatic and fun hobby. 

This is in part due to the games being embedded in a thriller about the shady world of hit-men and espionage, and not a little also to the presence of a very beautiful woman - actress Catherine Schell, in the role of Jenny, Schneider's moll - who looks on with a kind of bemused and indulgent half-interest!

Catherine Schell, sadly not very likely to be appearing at a wargames table near you! Actor Carl Möhner as Schneider perfectly captures the boyish grin toy soldiers bring out in a man.

So, whilst Wise is quite correct in enthusing over this debut for the hobby as a subject in itself, he is in error in the sense that wargaming had already been given a couple of airings at least, in the public eye. I would also argue that neither these Callan related instances, nor the Battleground TV series really show wargaming quite 'as it really is', rather, they show it 'as we might like it to be'.

What do I mean by this? Well, first of all there's the snazzy set, with backdrops, etc. - not to mention the future 'Equaliser' being on hand! - and then there's the fact that, with people like David Chandler and Peter Gilder as advisors, contributors and participants, the audience is treated to what were then the best of wargaming possibilities, in all sorts of respects, from the background research to the quality of the miniatures and terrain. 

Of course this was only right, the hobby, in the persons of all involved, did a good job of presenting itself in the best possible light.

But it's a bit like the gap between the best games one often sees in magazines or at shows, and, perhaps, one's own humble efforts: seeing a beautiful car, let's say a Porsche 356 (I just pick this car 'cause I've always rather liked the look of it! I'm not really much of a petrol-head, truth be told.) can make one more aware of and less happy about the fact one owns and drives, let's say, a Ford Focus! 

NB: that's not literally my car, it's just a generic pic off't web (altho' it is the same colour!).

Heck, I couldn't even justify running to this electric toy 356!

It wasn't just Terry Wise that was enthusing about the show in print at the time it came out, there was also a piece by Laurie Taylor, for the TV Times. I initially thought this might be the same Laurie Taylor who hosts BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed, but discovered the former - who had acted as a publicist for Tyne Tees TV at some juncture, hence the article - had passed on, whereas the latter is still going strong.

This is the TV Times spread, which, as far as I know, first came to light on't web here.

If you read the texts of both the Wise and Taylor articles, they are very nearly identical, which rather suggests they originate from the same source! There are small differences though, with Wise focussing, as a wargamer himself, on the players, noting that 'Despite the stresses of being filmed, it appears Peter Gilder and John Braithwaite engaged in quite a bit of their regular light-hearted banter, though other players were more tense because of the circumstances'. He also records the fact that 'Over a hundred wargamers were interviewed before picking the players, who had to be able to endure not only the pressure of the game, but the lights, effects, and cameras.'

What has this iconic BBC test card image got to do with the Battleground TV series?

In Taylor's piece, which I suspect, as he was the Tyne Tees publicist at the time, was the 'original', the little nugget that we glean, and which Wise leaves out, concerns one of the only members of the production team, besides the cameramen and other anonymous studio 'gaffers', who is not credited. 

I'd like to leave that, along with the above-pictured test card, as a bit of mystery, to be unveiled Agatha Christie style, at the end of my story. Can you guess what the connection is?

I quite agree with Wise when he says, right at the end of his article, that 'we all owe a debt to the team that has made this dream of recognition a reality.' He singles out the ladies involved, producer Alex Murchie and scriptwriter and researcher Barbara Sinclair, saying that they 'have shown that the female of the species is not after all afraid to enter into our male-dominated hobby'! 

Whether authors writing now would feel comfortable making such comments as this last observation, I'll leave open, but certainly I intend, at the end of this series of posts, to pay tribute to all involved myself, in some small way.
-----

The Art of War: David Greenspan's American Heritage ACW Battle Maps

The American Heritage Civil War Battle Maps of David Greenspan

The mysterious identity of the artist whose work has haunted me for three decades was answered when I received this book.

A couple of my previous posts have mentioned a series of battlefield maps that have haunted me for years - probably about 30 years in all - so quite a while! I always thought I'd originally seen these in the pages of National Geographic, as a result of which I eventually tracked down a series of articles that the NG ran, in the 1961-65 period, commemorating the centenary of that fateful conflict.

Whilst there were indeed a few maps of a type similar to what I recalled, only one of them really jibed with those golden memories. So, truth be told, I was rather disappointed. There was at least the consolation of being reminded of the great work of Frank Vizetelly, and the anonymous engravers who turned his sketches and notes into such tremendous images for the Illustrated London News. But still, as good as that was, it wasn't what I'd set out in search of.

A portion of Greenspan's Chickamauga artwork.

Fortunately for me, the interweb came to the rescue: I'd posted about tis whole affair on TMP, and a guy called Jeff replied, mentioning a couple of other publications I might be interested in. One of these was The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War (pictured at the top of this post), a big fat compendium of photographs, prints, sketches, paintings, maps, posters, in short all sorts of Civil War related visual material. And amongst all these riches - joy of joys - the very battlefield maps that had, at some distant point, been seared into my youthful synapses.

So, after all my searching, it wasn't actually the work of Robert and Dorothy Nicholson, who'd created the very similarly styled 'Surrender at Appomattox' artwork, that I was remembering, as I'd grown to believe. No, the works in question were the creations of one David Greenspan. At the time of writing this, I'm in something of a haze of joy, an almost drug-like euphoria, as I sit, with the American Heritage tome upon my lap, thumbing through it all, lingering especially on the works of Greenspan.

I haven't had much time to do any proper delving into the backstory yet, but what little time I've had, I've used. And so far I've established that the 'battle maps', as they're usually referred to, were probably specifically commissioned for the Picture History of The Civil War, and probably by none other than the editor of this great work, also a founder of American Heritage itself, a certain Mr Bruce Catton.

Spotsylvania (the American Civil War is littered with what great names, of battles, generals, etc.), in the inimitable Greenspan style.

Catton is well known and was, in his lifetime, much lauded Stateside. But here in the UK his is not a name I'd encountered before. And it's the same, but to an even greater degree, regarding David Greenspan, with the difference that the latter is also unknown, by and large, in his home country as well. I did, however, find quite a lot of people (mostly American, unsurprisingly) raving about Greenspan's artwork, many saying it was the very thing that had awakened a passion in them for history in general, and Civil War history in particular.

Now, I'm still perplexed as to where I first saw Greenspan's work. My memory is categorical: it was in issues of the National Geographic. And, whilst I recognise the Greenspans in the American Heritage Picture History, I don't believe I've ever seen the book as a whole before. Can anyone help unravel this conundrum?

All this sleuthing has meant I've also become aware of the work of Richard Schlecht which, whilst similar, is certainly not what I remember from my youth. I do have a Robert P Jordan title on order, which is also from National Geographic. Maybe that will shed some light on all this?

Another title that I've ordered is the one pictured above, in which Greenspan's work is, quite understandably, the star of the show. I believe the above Battle Maps publication simply reproduces the same stuff as the original Catton book. But hey, you can't necessarily have too much of a good thing, especially if, as Harry Pearson's chum says in Achtung Schwienehund, it's something you didn't really need in the first place!

Greenspan's Legacy:

If Greenspan's originals were commissioned in the 1950s, and we find the Nicholsons working in a near identical style in the mid 1960s, it seems fair to speculate that the former may well have influenced the latter. Richard Schlecht is currently very busy in the historical line, and some of his art is in a disctinctly similar vein, and there are other artists, such as Brian G. Kammerer, who are, by their own account, indebted to Greenspan for inspiration.

I contacted Kammerer via his ACW art website, as linked to above, and he kindly gave me permission to reproduce one of his artworks here. The above piece shows the Matthew's Farm Fight. It's great to see that Greenspan's legacy lives on! Indeed, many of modern computer based wargames use a very similar style of isometric bird's-eye view of the battlefield. I wonder if Greenspan's work fed into that world as well?

Wargaming Media: The Draughtsman - An Excursion In Art, by Cristoph Mueller

Browsing around the TMP message boards I stumbled upon a thread, in the American Civil War area of the message boards, about the above-linked video. The post was, I bleieve, from the creator of the movie, and apologises for the lack of polish. I watched it, enjoyed it enormously, and replied saying that, as far as I'm concerned it's very well done.

It's basically a short film by and about Christoph Mueller - whose name and accent suggest a European (Germanic?) location - concerning his interests and activities in wargaming and art, and incorporates both a 'vintage' style factual-TV type talk to camera (as should be apparent from the image in the above preview frame), with Mueller in a bow tie downing glasses of single malt whiskey and philosophising about wargaming, along with a brief animation of some of his ACW miniatures. Both elements are great.

Looking at Mueller's other interests, as displayed via his YouTube 'feed' (if that's the correct term?), is intriguing. I liked the various musical strands, and his artistic stuff, and was thrilled to also see a link to the venerable Bertrand Russell, especially so as it was regarding his excellent Why I Am Not A Christian, a book I own and have read, and entirely agree with. I've yet to tackle Russell's History of Western Philosophy, but this was a reminder to do so.

But the best things about this short film, for me, are that it mixes humour and philosophy with art and wargaming, in a sublimely enjoyable cocktail of delight. As Steely once said 'Ain't never gonna do it without the fez on'. Quite! Mr Mueller, as I slosh a shot of Bombay Sapphire gin across the portcullis, I doff my invisible fez to you!

The Art of War: From A Sketch By Our Special Artist

NB: THIS POST IS CURRENTLY STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS!

Frank Vizetelly's Illustrative Reportage of the America Civil War for the Illustrated London News.

The cover of the April 1961 edition of National Geographic, in which their first commemorative centennial Civil War features appeared, is graced by one of Vizetelly's many evocative images, as originally featured in the Illustrated London News.

In an earlier post I talked about my quest to rediscover a sequence of battlefield maps, produced by National Geographic (henceforth NG, for the sake of brevity) as part of their commemorative series on the centenary of The American Civil War. I was a little disappointed at the mismatch between my memories of these maps and the reality - a theme I will be returning to in a future post - but I was more than consoled by rediscovering the fabulous engravings made after sketches by British illustrator, journalist, and adventurer, Frank Vizetelly.

Frank Vizetelly, photographed by famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady.

Initially I thought of and referred to these fantastic engravings as 'the wonderful work of Mr Vizetelly', or words to that effect. Then I read the article 'Witness To A War', by Robert T. Cochran, in the above pictured April 1961 issue of NG. In Cochran's feature I learned that, in fact, Vizetelly sent over sketches and written accounts. Once these reached England a team of anonymous engravers was set to work, turning his reportage into the gorgeous graphics that graced that rather splendid organ of metropolitan edification, The Illustrated London News (henceforth ILN). 

Vizetelly was steeped in the booming tradition of illustrated news. Here's an extract of what brittannia.com says about the Vizetellys:

'Vizetelly family, originally spelled Vizzetelli, family of Italian descent active in journalism and publishing from the late 18th century in England and later in France (briefly) and the United States.' 

Frank's father, James Vizetelly, had published Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack, featuring the comic engravings of George Cruikshank [1], whilst his brothers Henry and James founded the Pictorial Times and Illustrated Times, short lived ventures aimed at competing with the ILN. Indeed, never one to be left out of the action, and prior to the American experiences depicted here, Frank Vizetelly had himself helped found a similar pictorial periodical, launching Le Monde Illustré in Paris.

(16) "The fight for the rifle pits in front of battery Wagner." Frank Vizetelly Drawings, 1861-1865 (MS Am 1585). Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

Above is Vizetelly's original sketch for The fight for the rifle pits in front of battery Wagner, the engraved version of which appears on the front of the NG April '61 issue.

The above image shows the original whole page context of this particular illustration, which also featured a depiction of action at Fort Sumter.

The NG cover is cropped and slightly colorised. So here, above, is the original engraved artwork in full.

'He excelled at his exacting trade because he threw himself without reserve into the stories he covered', enthuses Robert T. Cochran, even going so far as to compare Vizetelly to Virgil! Vizetelly certainly seems to have embodied one of Tom Waits' many memorable phrases, being something of a 'raconteur and roustabout'. A garrulous adventurer with a taste for living dangerously, he was able to charm his way into all sorts of situations, getting up fairly close (if not perhaps personal), to President Abraham Lincoln, in the White House, and later documenting 'government by the side of the road', as a witness to the end of Jefferson Davis' run as president of the Confederacy. And Vizetelly didn't just make a bee-line for the bigwigs, he would follow the armies, mixing with the rank and file, witnessing everything from domestic life to scenes of conflict and death, both on and off the battlefield.

This scene from Bull Run (also known as Manassas), in which overconfident Union troops ended up ignominiously taking flight, their rout becoming known as 'the great skedaddle', would land Vizetelly in trouble with his Union hosts.

Frank had arrived in Boston on the Liverpool packet, from there journeying south to join the Federal Army. Coming direct from England in what one supposes would be viewed as a semi-official position, decorum dictated he start out with the legitimate government. This he duly did, documenting troubling scenes in the powder keg period when New York itself temporarily turned into a macrocosm of what lay in the store for the country as a whole. With open war on the streets, vigilante lynchings, and attacks on an orphanage for black children, clearly not all Northerners were singing from the same hymn sheet! A little later on I'll explore where Vizetelly may have stood on some of these issues. But one thing's for certain, he didn't shy away from documenting every aspect of this highly contentious facet of the war.

Initially Vizetelly was covering the war from the Union end, here gaining access to the Prez himself, along with metropolitan dandies and buck-skin clad frontiersmen.

Vizetelly records 'Honest Abe' reviewing the troops in the early days of the conflict. Lincoln is stood by the flagpole; seated centre is the corpulent and elderly Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, at the time C-in-C of the Federal forces.

But despite meeting uncle Abe, seeing such exotic Union troops as the Fireman Zouaves heading off to war, and accompanying Union troops in various scenarios, Vizetelly wanted to get where the real action was. Like compatriot William Howard Russell, the Times' correspondent in America, Vizetelly was destined to suffer from the fall-out around coverage of the Battle of Bull Run. 

Russell had sent off a piece to the Times, disparaging Union efforts at this battle, earning himself the scornful nickname 'Bull Run Russell', and the disapprobation of Union authorities, who revoked his permit to accompany the Federal troops. Vizetelly also sent back coverage, including the 'skedaddle' scenario pictured above, and this lead to his credentials being cancelled as well. Hit I. Addition to this, after 'Old Fuss 'n' Feathers', Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, got the heave-ho, and Gen. George B. McClellan's star came into the ascendant, the irascible chancer Vizetelly saw clearly how the wind was blowing. 

As McClellan's large, well-trained and equipped army sat on its ass, Vizetelly, confined to the Washington DC locality, complained 'I am almost at a standstill for subjects for illustration', observing wryly that the only notable activity at the time was that of 'the greedy hordes of hungry contractors, who are determined to have their pound of flesh from the sorely pressed Union.' [2] Such forthright candour - which to a contemporary reader appears not inky unbiased, but even sympathetic to the North - did little to enamour him to powers within the Union at the time.

'Our special artist' (what a nice job title!) at the camp kitchen of the 2nd New York Regt. Concerning this picture, the ILN said 'we are happy to see, that he is able, amid the fears and anxieties consequent on a campaigning life, to attend in some degree to his creature comforts.' [3]

So by the time McClellan headed down the Virginia Peninsula, Vizetelly's 'credentials were cancelled, and he was left behind' [4]. So he headed West, for the Mississippi. Experiencing the enormity of the land through which he travelled, he exclaims: 'Oh! How many times since starting have I bemoaned the extent of this 'Almighty big country.'' [5]

After witnessing the crushing defeat of the Confederate Navy at Memphis, Vizetelly decided to slip across the lines and see if life with Johnny Reb might be more conducive to his taste for thrills and spills, and provide him with more exciting fodder for his newsfeed. According to his own reports of this cloak and dagger episode - he was hidden in a dug-out canoe amidst reedbeds for two days - Vizetelly managed to remain true to his bon vivant nature (he loved his food and drink!) dining on fresh oysters during this tense and potentially very dangerous escapade! He made his way to Richmond, and from this point onwards he stayed with the Southern team.

Destruction of the Confederate flotilla, off Memphis.

Once he'd made this switch, he couldn't very easily go back - some of the Union Generals were notorious for their views that all journalistic types were effectively spies, and ought to be treated as such, i.e. summarily shot! - besides which, I'm not at all sure he wanted to. Which brings us back to where he stood on the whole shebang. Considering a small selection of his images, some of which I reproduce below, we night plausibly infer or deduce some of the following: first, as suggested by the image below, Vizetelly implies that the slaves' lives in the South aren't so bad:

[image: (1) "'Barbarous' treatment of the Negro in the Confederate Camp, nights by the pine wood fire."]

Interestingly, Vizetelly was also able to depict such things as are shown in the next two images without, it would appear, connecting them in any way, ironic or otherwise, with the sentiment expressed in his 'Barborous treatment' artwork. For many modern viewers, less accustomed to seeing such things in daily life, these make for some rather unsettling viewing. In them African Americans become mere objects: objects to be sold, or objects to be withheld like property, as 'contraband of war', and lastly, as objects subjected to the expression of vengeful hatred.

A Southern slave auction.

A mob lynching. This scene is, oddly perhaps, and especially to those unfamiliar with the detail of the war, from the period of rioting in New York, just as the nation was sliding into full blown war. All kinds of mixed views, amongst which were both racism and anti-war feelings, manifested in the North as well as the South. 

As great a contribution as Vizetelly makes to the artistic heritage of this conflict, one does have to wonder about where he stood on some of the fundamental issues. Meg Thompson puts it well when she says, 'As often happens, the artist fell in love with his subject.' Perhaps in part this was because of some streak of that romantic penchant for the cause of the underdog, which, under the banner of seccession for States' Rights, could almost impart to the South's cause something of a noble libertarian patina. But if that liberty was to be bound up with the right to enslave others... well, that rather takes the shine off! I also rather suspect, with 'Contraband of War' as exhibit A, he may have partaken of less than forward looking views in terms of race relations.

'Contraband of War' is the title of this illustration!

Indeed, such was his sympathy with the South, that a book has been written entitled The Confederacy's Secret Weapon: The Civil War Illustrations of Frank Vizetelly, by Douglas W. Bostick. Vizetelly himself summed up his feelings with these words:

'The more I see of the Southern Army the more I am lost in admiration of its splendid patriotism, at its wonderful endurance, at its utter disregard for hardships which, probably, no modern army has been called upon to bear up against. Surrounded as I am by the Southern people, living in their midst, associating with their soldiers, I emphatically assert that the South can never be subjugated.'

It's interesting that someone like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Union General famous for his role in Gettysburg, shared Vizetelly's admiration for the spirit of the South, and for the prowess of its fighting forces. 

Beleaguered but bold, Confederate troops march through a burning wood.

But, apart from some undertones in a picture like 'Contraband', one doesn't get such a clear picture of how Vizetelly felt about the oxymoronic and frankly hypocritical position that lay at the heart of the Confederate stance: they wanted to preserve their liberty, via States' Rights, in order to deprive others of theirs, via holding onto slavery. Even staunchly Secessionist Confederate diarist Mary Chesnut could see, and lament, the hypocrisies inherent in the lifestyle of the South, although her observations hinged mainly on the way Southern 'gentlemen' treated womenfolk.

Mary Chesnut's diary, as featured heavily in Ken Burns' The Civil War. Yet more potential reading matter!

So, whilst his stance on racial issues and slavery is, perhaps, a little unclear, it is crystal clear that he became a Southern sympathiser. His stance on the respective sides can be further deduced by considering a pair of sketches, and the resultant prints, entitled 'Union Troops attacking Confederate Prisoners in the Streets of Washington', and 'Camp of Federal prisoners on 'Belle Isle' Richmond, Virginia'. The former shows Confederates being berated in the Northern capital, whilst the latter show Union troops at ease in a well appointed camp. The obvious implication here is that the North mistreats its prisoners, but the South doesn't. We can only assume or hope he was at this point unaware of Camp Sumter (also known as Andersonville Prison).

But putting such weighty issues to one side for a moment, as lovers of military history, we can certainly applaud Vizetelly for covering such a large and diverse range of the action. As the images reproduced here attest, we get the politicians, the generals, the soldiers, and the people. We also get the landscapes, from the prairies and plains to the woods, from the cities to the forts, and those temporary towns and cities of armies on the move. We get marine warfare, sieges, ambushes, snipers, picket duty, parades, infantry battles, cavalry engagements, artillery fire, meleés, supply trains, corporal and capital punishments, and all sorts of other scenes.

The following series gives the viewer a tase of the richness of Vizetelly's output, covering several 'genres', each illustrated by pair of images. Here we have two naval scenes, two 'sublime' landscapes, two figure settings, and finally two battle scenes. These images, rich and diverse as they are, and even when taking into account all the others by Vizetelly also shown here, still only represent a small fraction of the incredible output that resulted from his collaboration with The Illustrated London News.

The famous iron-clad duel, between the Merrimac and the Monitor, in the Hampton Roads.

A fantastic evocation of turbulent seas, both a literal illustration of a specific event (the passage of the Hatteras Bar), and a metaphor for a nation at war with itself.

And we ought also to pause to remember and celebrate those 'unknown soldiers', not just of the battles depicted, but in the engraving department, whose unsung toils bequest us these simply stunning images, some of which give Ken Burns' beautiful landscape shots a run for their money, and they do it without the benefit of stirring folksy music. Contemplate, if you will, the sublime and awful power of landscape and the elements in these two works.

It's worth noting that the Hatteras Bar illustration, above, depicts a scene in which Vizetelly, on board one of the boats shown pitching in heavy seas, was nearly lost overboard, and that during the thunderstorm he pictures below, which was the most violent he'd ever seen, he was aboard a ship carrying a large tonnage of munitions! As powerful as the images themselves are, if you imaginatively project yourself into his situations... well, he certainly didn't lack for courage!

A stormy night on the Mississippi: what a great picture!

Another instance of the sublime forces of nature as a setting for the tragicomedy of human life. Here, across the Great Falls of the Potomac, pickets can either pick each other off, or just enjoy the view. 'Soft falls the dew on the face of the dead, the Pickett's off duty forever.' [footnote: source]

[insert another pair of paired images, one showing smaller groups of figures, and another showing battlefield scenes]

Turning from the rich diversity of the art that resulted from Vizetelly's peregrinations, let's pause to look at his process. Almost all of the ILN engravings in my post are derived from an archive held in the libraries collections of the Beck Centre of Emory University, gathered in a project under the auspices of Sandra J. Still and Emily E. Katt. 

But these images are the work of the unknown engravers. To see what they worked from we need to look at images held in the Harvard Library, such as the sketches in the following series. In each instance I've paired an image sent back by Vizetelly with the resulting ILN engraving, and in one or two instances I've also shown the verso (or the back, in plain English) whereon Vizetelly has scrawled written info to supplement that which he's conveyed graphically.

(5) "Scene on the Tennessee River - Confederate Sharpshooters stampeding Federal waggons." Frank Vizetelly Drawings, 1861-1865 (MS Am 1585). Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

Above, the sketch for Scene on the Tennessee River - Confederate Sharpshooters stampeding Federal wagons. Below, the final engraved artwork as it appeared in the ILN.

(22) "Assault on Battery Wagner, Morris Island, near Charleston, on the night of the 18th July - The rush of the garrison to the parapet." Frank Vizetelly Drawings, 1861-1865 (MS Am 1585). Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

Above, the sketch for Assault on Battery Wagner, Morris Island, near Charleston, on the night of the 18th July - The rush of the garrison to the parapet. Below, the final engraved artwork as it appeared in the ILN.

(25) "Battle of Chickamauga - the Confederate General Hood receiving his wound." Frank Vizetelly Drawings, 1861-1865 (MS Am 1585). Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

Above, the sketch for Battle of Chickamauga - the Confederate General Hood receiving his wound.

Below, the final engraved artwork as it appeared in the ILN.

Having worked our way back from the cover of National Geographics centennial commemoration of the Civil War, via the engravings of the Illustrated London News, and finally to the original notes and sketches Vizetelly himself made, we can momentarily change the direction of our pursuit. 

Of course, before his images and text could be rendered as engravings and articles, the material had to get back to England. During his spell under the rubric of the Union he could do this via official channels, but once he'd switched sides, he had to smuggle his reports back. The situation demanded that, with a semi-piratical finesse he no doubt savoured, his missives 'run the blockade', something which he also did in person on occasion, as the picture below attests.

Vizetelly aboard the Lilian, running the blockade into Wilmington harbour.

Indeed, such was the potency of his work that it became a sought after form of contraband itself. Meg Thompson writes, as part of a series called 'Drawing The War', that 'The Union was aware of Vizetelly’s whereabouts, and a bounty was offered to the Union Navy if they captured his sketches aboard any detained ships.' As a consequence of this situation, there were occasions on which Vizetelly's work, haivng been intercepted, would appear, uncredited, in Northern publications, such as Harper's Weekly.

Robert Ketchum, in his introduction to Bruce Catton's American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War, says 'the original sketches by the artists who worked for these illustrated weeklies had a freshness ... the engraver never caught when he redrew their work on wood blocks.' Well, whilst there's undoubtedly something in this, as some of Vizetelly's sketches reproduced here may perhaps illustrate, I also think that the engravings have certain qualities, mostly to do with a higher level of finish and detail (and also a certain nostalgic aura), that give them their own merit.

What is more certain is that the engravers didn't face the same arduous and dangerous day to day situations that a 'special artist' did. Just like journalists in all eras, there was the risk of being taken for a spy, and it's known that special artist [NAME?] died whilst a prisoner of Qunatrill's Raiders, perhaps under such a pretext. Vizetelly himself came under fire on numerous occasions, at Fredericksburg being only feet away from a soldier decapitated by an exploding shell, and on another occasion eliciting cheers from his Southern companions, as he raced back to safety from a spot that was growing too hot.

When Vizetelly took up with the ILN it lead to close to a quarter century of work, often in war zones, and not just in America, but also in Italy, Spain, and Egypt. Sadly Vizetelly's gung-ho approach did eventually lead to his death, when he and another British journalist, along with around 10,000 troops of the Hicks Pasha expedition, were wiped out in a massacre in the Sudan. Some sources say the best guess for where and when this occurred is that it was sometime in 1883, somewhere in the Sudan. But I did find one online document that was more precise, giving the place and time as 'near El Obeid, on November the 5th, 1883' [6].

All in all, I think Vizetelly's exploits in America during the Civil War make for a fascinating story, and his artwork and writings are an invaluable resource, both in their rawer annotated sketch states, and also in their more fully realised ILN format, as engravings, often accompanied by his lively reports from the scene of the actions depicted. 

If you've enjoyed this article, please leave a comment. I would like to thank all the people involved in the online academic resources I used, in particularl the Harvard and Emory University archives. At the time of writing and posting, these were accessed here:

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00067

http://beck.library.emory.edu/iln/index.html

At the time of writing there is also a short piece on National Geographic's website:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/civil-war-sketches/katz-text

[1] Through the Cruikshank connection - George and his father Isaac - we can link this ACW-themed story to my normal sphere of interest, the Napoleonic era, as both Cruikshanks were formidable caricaturists, active in the golden age of satiricals prints, along with Gillray, Rownlandson et al.

[2] These two Vizetelly quotes appear in Cochran's April 61 NG 'Wintess To A War' article.

[3] This quotes comes from The Illustrated London News, vol. 38, no. 1096, pp. 601-602. 

June 29, 1861, 'The Civil War In America'. Retrieved from http://beck.library.emory.edu/iln/browse.php?id=iln38.1096.165 (8/10/2014)

[4] Cochran, Ibid.

[5] Cochran, Ibid.

[6] From 'Historical Dictionary of War Journalism', by Mitchel P. Roth. Accessed via books.google.co.uk (8/10/2014)

Book Review: Achtung Schweinhund - Harry Pearson

Unleash the geek! A wonderful book. No wargamers bookshelf is complete without it!

I absolutely lived this book.* I'm not normally one for slim populist looking paperbacks, give me a weighty hardback, or if it has to be in paperback, then make sure it's like an overweight newsreader, fat and factual. Nor do I necessarily normally warm to that kind of quick and ready journo-style wit Pearson has such facility for - I believe his chief income was derived, formerly, from working as a sports columnist and such like, for, amongst others, the Guardian - which, when it comes off as glib and facile, can as easily annoy me as tickle my funny-bone.

A Commando comic, such as I might've been reading in the early 1980s.

But thankfully his slick writing skills are balanced by a degree of self-effacement, and anyway, are here put to the service of a very noble cause, the unleashing of the geek. Ranging across quite a wide field of territories, taking in wargamers, figure sculptors, re-enactors and board-gamers, as well as model kits, war comics and war films, his central or axial concern is little toy soldiers.

I, like Pearson, or any other boy-man of at least moderate self-awareness and intelligence, might well baulk at the connotations of the term toy soldiers, and prefer, for example, miniature figurines, whose extra syllables and Latinate derivation sound altogether more mature. But, amongst the themes upon which Pearson harps, and I mean that in a sunny lyric Greek sense, is that of the earnestness of play, and our need for it.

One of the books chapters starts with a quote from French writer Anatole France: "Children worship their toys. They ask of them what Men have always asked of their Gods: joy and forgetfulness." An excellent little maxim, so good another wargamer is using it as the title of their blog!

A recurrent theme throughout Pearson's book is the history of the hobby, something I also get more and more interested in as I grow older.

My recent rebirth into some of the passions of my youth - which includes collecting and painting wargaming armies, building model kits, and reading vast amounts of military history - has had a radical effect on me, chiefly in my allowing myself to have some pleasure as an adult. And, like Pearson, I find I derive a strange yet powerful joy from my hordes of little men, and all that goes with them, from attending such bizarre gatherings as wargaming shows to buying endless books on Napoleon in Russia, 1812.

A personal favourite from my large-ish and ever-expanding 1812 library.

Not only does Pearson celebrate his present loves, there's also an element of social history, partly through autobiography, and partly through exploring the historical threads of his subject. And this latter aspect I absolutely love, being a kind of auto-didact intellectual archaeologist of sorts myself. As a writer of a classic album column, for over a decade, for Drummer magazine, I had long been developing an already latent proclivity for delving into the back stories of my interests.

Gilder in 1975. I found out in AS that he did some time in the clink! What for exactly appears to remain shrouded in mystery. Perhaps it was his dress sense?

And now that I was getting really into toy soldiers and military history again, I suddenly wanted to know about such figures as Peter Gilder and Marcus Hinton, the former a living legend in my youth, as I grew up reading Miniature Wargames, and the latter a shadowy semi-mythical figure I'd only recently discovered, combining aspects of Mr Ben, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and a Greek satyr. Pearson was already sleuthing his way down a trail that I wanted to follow, looking into the such tap-roots of the modern hobby as the Zinnfiguren of Germany, and H.G. Wells' Little Wars.

A particularly fine looking edition of this venerable auld classic.

The right reverend Wells doing his thing in the garden. In his book, Wells makes jocular mention of turfing his kids out of their play room to provide indoor space!

One thing that makes me a touch sad tho', in an abjectly sorry-for-myself kind of way, is that, compared with me, and despite his oft-professed tendency to separate this side of his life from other parts of it, such as his public persona, Pearson seems to have enjoyed (and I hope is still enjoying) a very richly connected life in wargaming and toy soldiering. Thus far I have always been, and remain, an almost entirely solitary figure, pursuing my path solo.**

A lonely looking Napoleonic type (sketch by Albrecht Adam).

In some ways this suits aspects of my persona, but I must confess, I am perhaps more than a mite jealous of the apparent bonhomie and camaraderie that Pearson appears to have enjoyed via the hobby - mind you, I recently chatted to a master figure-maker for over an hour on the phone, so things may be looking up in this area - even if, as he somewhat ruefully admits, his wargaming friendships may have been fairly narrowly constrained around the hobby itself.

Still, rather than putting away these childish things, as I thought I was doing when, about twenty odd years ago, I sold off my 15mm Minifigs French Napoleonic and Heroics & Ros 1/300th German WWII Ostfront armies, I'll do as Wellington did, according to his legend, and put away instead my tiny, broken violin, and bask in the virtual companionship this book has offered me.

I'm stepping out of the shadows, Humbrol enamel tinlets in hand, the geek... unleashed and lovin' it.

The ancient German tradition of Zinnfiguren - or 'flats' - lives on, in such work as this drummer, by Alexander Mitelev

But seriously, thank you Harry Pearson for a truly lovely book, I might even say a great book, that warmed the cockles of this peace-loving table top warmonger.

In case you're interested, Harry and a pal set up this site (they are no longer involved directly in the running of it), dedicated to the older wargaming figures they grew to treasure.

* That's a typo, fairly obviously, but such a serendipitous one I feel I ought to let it stand. One, because it's true, I not only loved this book, but part of why I loved it so much is that I have also, verily I say unto ye, lived it. And two p, because it gave me a rare but valid chance to use that awkwardly portentous word, serendipitous.

** Well, I did persuade few school friends to buy small collections of Minifigs to battle with, some 30 odd years ago! And we even started a Wargames club at my secondary school, albeit a rather short lived affair. I recently found out that one Russian contingent from that era is still at the family home, unpainted. Might see if that pal would either consider selling it to me, or perhaps even join me in reviving past passions, and get back into it himself.