Frederic Edwin Church - Our Banner in the Sky (1861)

Title: Our Banner in the Sky
Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)
Date: 1861
Medium: Lithography
Dimensions: 19 x 29 cm
Location: Multiple locations including at Smithsonian American Art Museum
Photo credit: Zeete on Wikimedia in 2013

Frederic Edwin Church's 1861 painting, "Our Banner in the Sky," is a powerful, small-scale oil sketch created in direct response to the outbreak of the American Civil War. A leading figure of the Hudson River School, Church transformed a dramatic sunset into an allegorical depiction of the Union flag. Streaks of illuminated red and white clouds serve as the tattered stripes, while a deep blue patch of night sky, dotted with stars, functions as the flag's star field. A lone, crooked tree trunk stands in the foreground, acting as a makeshift flagpole that defiantly holds the celestial banner aloft. This fusion of landscape grandeur and political symbolism cast the struggle for the Union in divine terms.

The inspiration for this work was the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, which initiated the Civil War conflict. The bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, by the South Carolina militia, came four months after the declaration of secession by South Carolina from the Union on December 20, 1860, after which its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. The attach ended with the surrender of the fort by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.

The image resonated with the popular patriotic outrage and fervor caused by the firing upon the Union flag at the fort. Church intended the painting to be a rallying symbol for the North, suggesting that the Union cause was not merely political but morally and divinely sanctioned. The "tattered" nature of the cloud-flag symbolized the nation torn by war but resilient and ultimately supported by a higher power.

Recognizing its immediate propaganda value, the New York art firm Goupil & Co. quickly commissioned the original sketch for reproduction. By June 1861, the image was widely circulated as an inexpensive chromolithograph (color print). This mass distribution made "Our Banner in the Sky" one of the most visible and emotionally resonant pieces of art supporting the Union effort during the early years of the war, transforming Church's landscape vision into a potent and accessible symbol of national endurance.

At Smithsonian American Art Museum: Exhibition on American Civil War