Artists traveling with the Union army had more chances to observe day-to-day routines than battles. Homer excelled at depicting camp life, balancing effective composition with observed detail. When prints such as this do not illustrate particular articles in the magazine, they suggest that Homer was simply submitting work about subjects that interested him.
The sign “Sutler” indicates the tent belonged to a civilian vendor who followed the army and sold food and drink more conducive to celebration than ordinary army rations. Thanksgiving had long been a fixture in American life but Lincoln only formalized it on a particular day the year after this print was made.
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