ZOUAVE BATTALION AT FORTRESS MONROE, C. 1861.

James Earl Taylor ( Ohio/ New York , 1839-1901 ) " Zouave Battalion at Fortress Monroe," c. 1861, watercolor on paper, depicting the National Zouaves of the 10th New York Infantry at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. Taylor himself a National Zouave who was stationed at Fort Monroe between June 1861 and May 1861. Records the distinctive uniforms of the soldiers as they read the newspaper, doze, and lean against a large tree, and engage in other leisure activities. Signed in pencil, Lower right. With Kennedy galleries, New York, label affixed to backing. Housed under plexiglass in a giltwood frame with cream textile mat, gilt reveal, and brass nameplate. Literature: catalog number 17 in Harold Holzer and Frank J. Williams, " The grand Review: Lincoln, Grant & The Civil WAr and Artifacts," Orange, VA: Publisher's Press, 2014, p.35. Provenance: Private South Carolina Collection; ex-Heritage Auction, Nov. 12, 2011 lot 52132; Kennedy Galleries.
James Taylor was born in Cincinnati and graduated from the University of Notre Dame at the age of 16. By 18, he had painted panorama of the Revolutionary War. He enlisted in the Tenth New York Infantry ( National Zouaves ) in 1861. While soldier, he send his battlefield drawings to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and was hired as a "special artist" when he left the army in 1863. For the remainder of the war he travelled with the Union Army in Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina focusing particularly on panoramas of battles and the settings of the war. Taylor went on to cover Gen. Philip Sheridan's campaigns at the end of the war. After the war, taylor traveled to the West with the Indian peace Commission, and his drawings of the Medicine Lodge Council of the Peace Commission were published in leslie's in November 1867. His drawings " Branding cattle on the Prairies in Texas, " published in Leslie's in June 1867, was the first Illustration of the Western cattle industry printed in the national press. Leslie died in New York City. (sources: The Becker Collection: Drawings of the American Civil War Era (http://idesweb.bc.edu); Peter hastings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art).