Final Assault upon Fort Fisher, North Carolina

Xanthus Smith was the son of the popular Philadelphia landscape and genre painter Russell Smith, and the brother of Mary Smith, who successfully produced sentimental images of farmyard animals. He was trained in his youth by his father, both at home and during family trips to Europe, and at the Pennsylvania Academy in the late 1850s. Smith was well qualified to paint "Final Assault upon Fort Fisher", having served in the Union Navy during the Civil War. The scene, one of some dozen very well received battle subjects he painted, depicts an encounter at sea near Cape Fear, North Carolina, which culminated in the fall of the fort to the Union forces in 1865. In addition, it stands as a graphic symbol of the technological changes occurring in America at this time. In this complex panoramic work, the sail-powered ships at the right are assisted by the newer ironclad seen at the center. Civil War subjects had great public appeal in the decade following the conflict when photography of these events was rarely available. When another one of Smith's battle paintings was exhibited in the window of Philadelphia's Earle's Gallery in 1874, crowds blocked the entire length of the street, eager to see the war drama.