ARMY SKETCHES. THE CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN VIRGINIA, 1861-62. [title supplied]; Sketched from nature & drawn on stone by J. Nep Roesler, Corpl. of Color Guard, Company G, 47th Regt. O[hio] V[olunteers

Cincinnati, Ohio: Printed by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co, 1862. First edition. Folio. 20 lithograph plates, each 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, picturing army life and operations in the campaign in western Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1861. Howes R-408. Dornbusch OH-242. America on Stone, p. 170. OCLC locates eight copies (Alabama, Virginia, Huntington, Cincinnati Public, West Virginia, Yale, Wisconsin Historical Society), only three of which (American Antiquarian Society, Cincinnati Public, West Virginia) seem to include the original portfolio. The only recent sales record we could find was the Reese copy, sold in 2022 by Christie’s ($11,340, lacking a plate). (truncated) All of the plates have been archivally deacidified and cleaned, one print remargined, minor tears and losses to margins mended and infilled with Japanese paper (not affecting images), several of the plates with small stab-stitch holes along the outer margins. Handsome plates, well restored. Housed in a replica of the publisher's portfolio, title label on upper board, “Album of the Campaign in 1861 in West Virginia / Drawn and lithographed by J. N. Roesler.”. Caption titles for the 20 black & white plates are as follows: (1) "Picket on New River, Camp
Anderson, W.V.," (2) "Picket on Lover's Leap (Road to the Log House), Camp Anderson, " (3)
"Fall near the Log House, Camp Anderson,"(4) "Pickets in the woods after the engagement,
near the Drill Ground, C Andrsn, " (5) "Advance in the woods, C Andrsn, " (6) "Skirmishing, New
River," (7) "Log House on Miller's Ferry, Camp Anderson," (8) "Crossing to Fayetteville," (9)
"Hawk's Nest, 800 feet high, on New River W.V.," (10) "View from Hawk's Nest, towards the
East," (11) "View from Hawk's Nest, towards the West," (12) "Pickets on the road fr Cp Andrsn
to Tompkin's Farm," (13) "Tompkin's Farm (Camp Gauley Mount.)," (14) "Fall on the road
between Tompkin's Farm and Gauley Bridge W.V.," (15) "Camp, Gauley Bridge," (16) "View
near Gauley Ferry," (17) "March to the landing," (18) "Crossing Little Birch River to Bulltown,"
(19) "Thunder-storm "(Big Sewell Mountain) (Reconnoissance), (20) "Battle at Carnifax Ferry."

J. Nep Roesler (1826-?), a Cincinnati resident, enlisted in the 47th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in
1861. A city directory for Cincinnati from 1861 lists Roesler's occupation as "lithographer, room
2, 4th & Walnut." The printers Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. shared this address, perhaps an
indication that Roesler worked with or for them. [Ehrgott & Forbriger were prominent
lithographers in Cincinnati, from the 1850's on. They were well known for their commercial
advertisements, sheet music, and military prints, and their work with color lithography]. Serving
in the campaigns in western Virginia, Roesler was discharged on disability after he lost an eye.
He transformed his eyewitness sketches of life as an ordinary soldier during the Civil War into
these bold pictorial lithographs. The landscape is a powerful character, the cold, forlorn picket is
shown against the dramatic backdrop of the western Virginia mountains and waterfalls.
According to Mark Neely and Harold Holzer in their book "The Union Image: Popular Prints of
the Civil War North" [UNC Press: 2000, p.67], Roesler has been undeservedly forgotten, partly
because the scenes he depicted were minor battles, early in the war, with a decidedly
infantryman's focus: "While other artists often featured portrait likenesses of the officers and
placed them in commanding positions, Corporal Roesler fixed his artistic gaze on the common
soldiers of the regiment … he was also remarkably forward-looking in his devotion to images of
soldiers on picket. The Union soldiers, huddled in big tunics, greatcoats, and cloaks, peering
under their broad-brimmed and tall-crowned hats, almost disappear in their loose clothing. They
generally appear cold and jam their bare hands into pockets or stick them under their blanket
rolls. These are military images but not militaristic ones. The soldiers by no means dominate –
nature does …. the portfolio of twenty prints thus contains but a single image with a flag in the
foreground and no image in which the flag is the focus … Roesler’s ability to escape patriotic
convention, as well as his real skills as a landscape artist, gave his portfolio a special place
among popular prints of the Civil War.”. (Inventory #: 59876)