Cannonading on the Potomac, October, 1861

This landscape is by Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, an artist who captured American Civil War battle scenes for publications such as Harper's Weekly and the Illustrated London News. Thompson composed both engraved illustrations and paintings. This particular painting depicts the October 20, 1861 cannon fire across the Potomac River near Ball's Bluff and Leesburg in Virginia and Harrison Island and Edwards Ferry in Maryland that was a precursor to the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21st.