JULIAN SCOTT

Wandering unsuspectingly into a Confederate position at Chantilly, Virginia, on September 1, 1862, the one-armed Union general Philip Kearny was spotted, shot and killed. Out of respect for this Mexican War veteran and soldier of fortune who had fought on three continents, the enemy placed him on a stretcher and held aloft a white flag of truce so his body could be reclaimed by federal forces “Poor Kearny,” Confederate general A.P. Hill lamented when he saw the body of his one time friend. “He deserved a better death than that.” Scott captured the moment when Kearny’s body was being covered, and added a poignant detail in the general’s blood-spattered effects lying in the mud in the foreground. But inevitably the composition focused on the noble Confederate officer signaling to the Union, his expression reflecting both the satisfaction of the kill and the respect due to a fellow soldier in death. Scott, who lived in New Jersey, probably produced this work on commission to honor his fellow New Jerseyite, for whom a city in his home state was soon named.