Off Topic---The Soldier As Artist: Eyewitness To The Battlefields in WWI

Secret Artist Of Great War Is Unmasked In New Book, Jerome Taylor, The Independent, October 8, 2008.

A British artist who risked his life to draw intricate sketches of enemy front lines during the First World War was finally unmasked yesterday more than 30 years after his death. Len Smith, a sapper and espionage expert with the Royal Engineers Special Branch, would hide in no man's land for days on end, sketching enemy positions with remarkable accuracy. Now a book of Sapper Smith's drawings has been released to the public. Armed with little more than a set of coloured pencils Mr Smith, who was from Essex, returned to no man's land day after day to create drawings of German troop positions.


In one of the most astonishing feats of counter-espionage Mr. Smith crawled within metres of an enemy HQ and drew a battle-scarred tree so accurately that on his return to the trenches British Army chiefs were able to recreate a perfect, hollow steel replica. Without the Germans knowing, sappers replaced the real tree with the replica one in the dead of night. Tunnels were soon dug towards the steel hull, enabling soldiers to listen in on German positions night after night undetected. Many of the sketches displayed in the book, The Pictures and Diary of a Wartime Artist, show detailed drawings of the Vimy Ridge, a five-mile-long escarpment to the north-east of Arras where Canadian and British forces became bogged down in trench warfare.

Despite his bravery Mr. Smith, who died in 1974, was never decorated. His great-nephew, Dave Mason, compiled the book using excerpts from Mr Smith's diaries. Mr Mason, 62, of Woodford Green, Essex, said: "I was amazed when I read the diary to find out how much he had been involved in the Great War. He talks of his friends and how most of them were killed, of the narrow escapes he had. Len, like most of his generation, was a humble man who did not boast or revel in what he had been through during the war. He always said, 'I would rather have a WC than a VC'."

Text and Photo Source: The Independent October 8, 2008

Art Source: Great War Artist

CWL: I am intrigued by soldier artists. After searches on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, World Cat and scholar.google yielded no results I found the book is in a wide google search. It is a virtual book offered for download at greatwarartist.com

Battlefield Artist---Charles Wellington Reed

In August 1862 Charles Wellington Reed, after completing his education, joined the 9th Massachusetts Volunteer Artillery Battery as chief bugler and served until the end of the war. In November 1864, he was placed on detached service and became an assistant topographical engineer on the staff of Gen. Gouverneur Kemble Warren, commander of the Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac.

In the course of his service Reed participated in the battles of Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Petersburg, Hatcher's Run, and Five Forks. He was present when the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865. Reed received a serious sabre cut on his right hand in the 1864 raid on the Weldon Railroad south of Petersburg, Virginia. Luckily, Reed was left-handed.

Lt. Reed described his war experiences in numerous letters to his family. However, his words did not reveal nearly as much about the average soldier's everyday life as did his drawings, which appeared both in letters and in two large sketch books. What Reed could not say, he drew, and obviously, the drawings speak volumes. His sketch of Lincoln visiting the Army of the Potomac during the Petersburg-Richmond Campaign captures the president's physical appearance, including his clothing and facial features, his respect for common soldiers, and the effect of his presence on the rank and file.

Reed's letters chronicle events, from the most common to the extraordinary, with simple yet thoughtful eloquence. His drawings capture a wide variety of events to which he was not only an eyewitness but also a participant. His talent was considered equal to that of leading newspaper artists of his day, and his drawings were used to illustrate Hardtack and Coffee in 1887. His illustrations also appear through the Buell and Johnson series Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. It is fortunate that Reed's writings and drawings have been preserved.

In 2000, Eric Campbell edited Reed's letters with their sketches. Campbell, a National Park Ranger at Gettysburg, provides a tour at the park of the battery's near destruction and Reed's winning of the Medal of Honor at the Abraham Trostle Farm on July 2nd. Reed rescued the battery's captain from between the battle lines; Reed was also wounded by shrapnel in the knee and chest.

Sources
Grand Terrible Drama: From Gettysburg to Petersburg: The Civil War Letters of Charles Wellington Reed, Eric A. Campbell, editor., Fordham Univesrity press, 2000.

'Slept In The Mud, Stood In the Mud, Kneeled In The Mud . . . ', Campbell, Eric A., America's Civil War, 15:6 (January 2003)

http://www.medalofhonor.com/CharlesReed.htm

www.fordhampress.com