‘Civil War and American Art’ puts the battle in the background

The largest and most dramatic paintings in “The Civil War and American Art” don’t have anything particularly warlike in them, no cannons or gun smoke or bayonets glistening in the morning sun. Rather, there are landscapes, mountain vistas, seaside idylls and views of the night sky. Even some of the explicitly military scenes, such as one 1862 canvas showing soldiers gathered to hear Sunday prayers, is more about the grass, trees and a distant, rolling river than it is a narrat...