Gibbon, former Army commander of Vancouver Barracks, illustrates site's role in American history
By Tom Vogt, Columbian
Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: May 23, 2015, 5:00pm
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A 12-foot section of the 377-foot-long "Battle of Gettysburg" painting shows Gen. John Gibbon on horseback, waving his sword as his troops blunted Pickett's Charge. Gibbon did have one accuracy issue: "I am represented on a prancing sorrel. I rode a grey," he wrote.
• Four Gettysburg cycloramas were painted. One is on display at Gettysburg National Military Park; one was donated to Wake Forest University; one was cut up and used for tents on a Shoshone Indian reservation in the early 1900s. The fate of the other is unknown.
• The Portland Cyclorama was the centerpiece of a city block bounded by Third, Fourth, Pine and Ash streets in Portland. The building that housed it was demolished in 1910 to make way for the Multnomah Hotel building.
As the 25th anniversary of Gettysburg approached, the commander at Vancouver Barracks went to Portland to relive that pivotal battle.
Gen. John Gibbon and a dozen or so of his officers, including some fellow Civil War veterans, entered an exhibition hall in 1888 to see “The Battle of Gettysburg” — a painting that was about 350 feet long. It was the 19th-century equivalent of an IMAX movie, and the virtual-reality entertainment system of its day.
And among all those thousands of combatants painted on canvas, Gibbon could show his Vancouver Barracks companions where he was on July 3, 1863: There! He’s astride a horse, the sword above his head pointing the way forward, as his soldiers blunted the Confederate assault known as Pickett’s Charge.
Even for someone who had participated in that epic three-day battle, it was a sight to behold. Gibbon had seen another version of the painting in 1883 in Chicago and had shared his impressions in a letter to Henry Hunt, who had commanded the Union artillery at Gettysburg.
“You may rest assured you have got a sight to see before you die. It is simply wonderful, and I never before had an idea that the eye could be so deceived by paint and canvas. … the effect is startling for apparently you look out upon the field of Gettysburg from a point just behind the middle of my Div. The perspective and representation of the landscape is simply perfect and I say nothing more than the truth when I tell you it was difficult to disabuse my mind of the impression that I was actually on the ground.”
“The Battle of Gettysburg” was a prime example of a cyclorama, a name that reflected its circular shape. The wrap-around display was mounted on the walls inside the exhibition hall and was viewed from the middle of the venue, where visitors could take in 360 degrees of battlefield action.
Seeing the big picture
Even though Gibbon took part in the battle, he likely had a better idea of what happened at Gettysburg after he saw the cyclorama version.
“He was so involved in the middle of the action,” said John Heiser, historian at Gettysburg National Military Park. Heiser said that veterans often recall a battle as a tunnel-vision experience. As far as seeing the big picture of the battle, well, the cyclorama on display at Gettysburg is an awfully big picture.
“It literally surrounds you with huge depictions,” Heiser said. “For Gibbon, it just brought so much back.
“Gettysburg was being touted as the turning point of the war, the high-water mark of the Confederacy. There was a certain amount of pride in Gibbon, that he commanded the troops that helped turn the tide,” Heiser said.
Gibbon missed the conclusion of Pickett’s Charge. A bullet broke his shoulder blade and he was taken from the battlefield while the fighting continued.
Gibbon stayed in the Army after the war, serving in a variety of roles. In 1872, he helped survey what now is Yellowstone National Park. (Gibbon River is one of the features named after him.)
In 1876, Gibbon was part of the Army’s campaign against the Sioux Indians, which resulted in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the deaths of Gen. George Custer and about 260 of his 7th Cavalry troopers.
Digging hasty graves
Gibbon’s soldiers had to bury their bodies a couple of days later. It was a ghastly assignment, and according to some accounts, many of Gibbon’s soldiers were vomiting as they hastily buried the victims. But Custer’s Last Stand was to influence the Vancouver phase of Gibbon’s career a few years later.
For much of the 1800s, Fort Vancouver was one of the bookends for America’s military presence in the West, along with Army and naval installations in California’s Bay Area. The fortunes of Fort Vancouver waxed and waned over the decades as a reflection of national concerns, National Park Service historian Greg Shine said. (It became Vancouver Barracks in 1879.)
The size of the Army was reduced after the war and Gen. George Crook said in 1870 that the U.S. Army should close Fort Vancouver.
Military leaders had to rethink that position following the death of Gen. Custer in 1876: particularly with the Army’s series of campaigns against Northwest tribes in the 1870s, including the Nez Perce and Modoc wars.
More money for construction was allocated in 1880, Shine said. Additional funding produced Officers Row and its most prominent structure, now known as the Marshall House. So, Vancouver Barracks was a prominent post in 1885 when Gibbon arrived as commander of the Army’s Department of the Columbia, said Shine, chief ranger at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
It also was a time when the nation started to look back at the Civil War, Shine said. Gettysburg generals like O.O. Howard, who was commander here from 1874-1881, and Gibbon were compelling voices in that discussion.
“To have these generals out here must have fascinated the local citizens,” said Shine.
The 1880s marked “the battle for the public memory of the Civil War,” Shine said. “What was this war about?”
Battlefield research
It became part of popular culture. Ulysses Grant (who had served here early in his career) was writing his memoirs. And some American businessmen, who saw ticket-selling potential in Gettysburg, commissioned a French artist to paint four panoramas of the battle.
Paul Philippoteaux spent several weeks doing research — sketching the terrain and hiring a photographer to document the site. He also interviewed veterans of the battle. One of them was the Union officer shown just ahead of Gibbon in the painting.
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“The officer on a white horse is Alexander Webb,” said Heiser, the Gettysburg historian. “Webb actually talked to Philippoteaux.”
When he returned to his studio in France, it took Philippoteaux and a crew of 20 artists about 18 months to paint the first cyclorama. When it went on display in Chicago, the exhibit included props in the foreground — shattered trees, pieces of fence, broken gun carriages — that produced a 3-D effect.
One version was on display in Portland from December 1887 to February 1892; the 16-sided display hall was in an area bordered by Third, Fourth, Pine and Ash streets.
There was an extra treat for people who visited the Portland cyclorama during an April 1888 display: Those visitors got to see genuine Gettysburg veterans on the day Gibbon and his officers from Vancouver Barracks attended.
• Four Gettysburg cycloramas were painted. One is on display at Gettysburg National Military Park; one was donated to Wake Forest University; one was cut up and used for tents on a Shoshone Indian reservation in the early 1900s. The fate of the other is unknown.
• The Portland Cyclorama was the centerpiece of a city block bounded by Third, Fourth, Pine and Ash streets in Portland. The building that housed it was demolished in 1910 to make way for the Multnomah Hotel building.
As the Vancouver Independent reported on April 18, 1888, a group that included “Gen. Gibbon, Gen. Ingalls, Col. Sumner, Major Wikoff and Lt. McClernand” … “was the center of attraction while in the building.”
War legacy on display
Some of them had distinguished careers of their own. Lt. Edward McClernand was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1894 for combat against the Nez Perce in 1877. He also served in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and retired as a brigadier general.
Col. Charles A. Wikoff, who had lost an eye at Shiloh in the Civil War, was the highest-ranking American officer killed in the Spanish-American War; Wikoff died on July 1, 1898, during the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba.
On that same day, Brig. Gen. Samuel Sumner won a Silver Star at San Juan Hill for conspicuous gallantry in action.
The 1898 war against Spain was another one of those national events that left its mark on Vancouver Barracks, Park Service historian Shine said. You can still see its effects today, in a row of iconic white structures that face Officers Row. Three double-sized infantry barracks buildings and a smaller post headquarters were built at the start of the 1900s. They’re the most visible properties the National Historic Site acquired in 2012 when the Defense Department turned the campus over to the National Park Service.
Those turn-of-the-last-century buildings were a reaction to wars in Cuba and the Philippines, Shine said. “Now they define the Parade Ground” along Evergreen Boulevard.
Recently, community members had a chance to walk through one of the vacant barracks buildings to check out its suitability for civilian use.
So, those four buildings continue to represent another turn in the ebb and flow of Vancouver Barracks’ military role: its conclusion.
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