A Bit of War History: The Contraband

Thomas Waterman Wood American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 762

This work, painted at the close of the Civil War by a White Vermont-born painter, forms a narrative triptych (84.12a, b, c) of African American military service. In The Contraband (84.12a) a self-emancipated man appears in a US Army office, eager to enlist. The Recruit (84.12b) represents him as proudly ready for military service. In The Veteran (84.12c) he is depicted as an amputee possibly seeking his pension or returning to military service. By the war’s end, Black American men made up more than ten percent of the so-called US Colored Troops in the nation’s Army and Navy.

A Bit of War History: The Contraband, Thomas Waterman Wood (American, Montpelier, Vermont 1823–1903 New York), Oil on canvas, American

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