Alfred Rudolph Waud was born in England in 1828 and studied at the Government School of Design at Somerset House in London. After immigrating to the United States in 1850, Waud drew illustrations for books and periodicals including The Carpet-Bag and The New York Illustrated News.
Becoming an Artist Correspondent
The New York Illustrated News assigned Waud to cover the First Battle of Bull Run in July of 1861 as a “special artist,” the term used for staff illustrators. Toward the end of the year, he joined Harper’s Weekly, the publication he would work for throughout the war. Waud covered battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Second Bull Run, Gettysburg and the Siege of Petersburg.
Although photographers including Matthew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan recorded images of the war, they were limited by the complex wet-plate method of exposing negatives and the slow shutter speed of the cameras of the time that rendered motion as a blur. In addition, the halftone process to print photographs in newspapers did not exist until the late 1890s. Artists who could rapidly sketch the unfolding action were the best option for newspaper illustrations.
Waud, like fellow illustrators Winslow Homer, Theodore R. Davis, Edwin Forbes and brother William Waud worked in pencil, ink and watercolor to capture eyewitness scenes from the front. They rushed drawings back to their newspaper offices as fast as possible by mail, messenger, boat or train. Skilled workers then laboriously copied the original art by engraving it onto blocks of wood in preparation for printing. Multiple blocks were needed to complete an entire illustration.
In his quest for accuracy, Waud got dangerously close to the action, braving fire from Rebel sharpshooters and enduring capture by Confederate forces at Second Bull Run. But soldiers were the artists’ fiercest critics. Even Waud was ridiculed early in the war for depicting infantrymen charging with rifles at shoulder arms. A Harper’s engraving of “Our Special Artist” shows keenly interested troops hovering over Waud while he draws.
Photographers and artists crossed paths on assignment and respected each other’s work. Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan were at many of the same battlefields at the same time as Waud. Gardner took studio portraits of Waud; O’Sullivan photographed Waud sketching on in the field at Gettysburg. Waud designed and illustrated the title page for Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War, although his name is listed as A. R. Ward.
Waud covered many important incidents throughout the war, including the final scene at Appomattox Court House. After waiting outside for hours, Waud sketched Robert E. Lee as he left the McLean house having just surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant. Waud’s poignant drawing captures the downtrodden Lee as he rides away on his beloved horse Traveller.
Surveying the Post-War South and West
One of Waud’s first post-war assignments for Harper’s was to survey the South. He documented scenes of reconstruction and daily life: the first vote by newly enfranchised African-Americans, the realities of plantation agriculture and views of the bustling port city of New Orleans.
In the 1870s, while on assignment for the illustrated weekly Every Saturday, Waud drew the remote bayous of Creole Louisiana as well as a number of other locations on the lower Mississippi between New Orleans and St. Louis. He and writer Ralph Keeler did not finish this series of travelogues, however, as they left hurriedly to cover the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Waud traveled west, submitting pictures of wagon trains and the transcontinental railroad to Harper’s. In 1876, he illustrated Custer’s Last Stand. Ironically, in this instance, the renowned battlefield observer was not an eyewitness to the fight. Mark Kellogg, the only newspaper reporter present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was killed along with Custer and his men. Illustrated periodicals – and Waud -- took artistic license to recreate the scene.
Waud contributed to major book projects, including William Cullen Bryant’s 1872 Picturesque America, a comprehensive post-Civil War record of the United States, followed by Battles and Leaders of the Civil War in the late 1880s. Published by the editors of Century Magazine, this four-volume, richly illustrated history included the works of 70 artists who had sketched the war. Waud’s images for Battles and Leaders are among his last.
Waud died of a heart attack in 1891 in Georgia while touring Civil War battlefields in the South.
Alfred Waud at Gettysburg
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1st Main Cavalry, 1863
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The Death of Reynolds, Gettysburg, 1863
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Longstreet's Attack at Gettysburg (drawing)
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Longstreet's Attack at Gettysburg (engraving)
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