Confederate prisoners at Fort Norfolk, 1864: Infantryman

From a newspaper clipping inserted: The Art Work of a Southern Prisoner of War Possessed by Post Brown, G.A.R. Comrade A.P. Shearman of Post Brown, G.A.R., received the other day from J.W. Hosier of Suffolk, Va., as relics of the war five pictures of confederate officers and soldiers, wrought in crayon or india ink upon pasteboard evidently cut from boxes such as are common in dry goods stores. They were the work of a confederate soldier, a prisoner in Fort Norfolk during the war. The pictures are no common affairs but striking in pose, expression and minute details, giving evidence of no ordinary artistic skill. The history of them so far as can be ascertained is given in the following extract from Mr. Hosier's letter of Feb. 16: "I send you today by mail five cards which I got from an old colored woman. This history as she tells it is as follows: She with several others was engaged to clean out the prison at Fort Norfolk after it had been abandoned as a federal prison. With many other things she found these pictures, fifteen in all. Ten of them she sold 7 years ago. The supposition is that some confederate prisoner did this work while in prison. I asked my brother, who escaped the federal balls, if he saw anything of the kind while he was there. (This brother and his father were inmates of the prison fourteen months.) He said he did not remember, but he knew there was a soldier in the prison from South Carolina who was a great artist, and at his leisure was sketching everybody he saw. I would like to have got hold of the other ten pictures which she tells me were considered much better than these, and represented life in prison. Accept these from me as a gift to your post." Mr. Hosier is in a real estate agency at Suffolk. During the visit of veterans of the 112th to Suffolk at the time of the Washington encampment last year he spared no pains to make their stay pleasant and assist them to find localities familiar in the experiences of '62-'63. The gift will be highly prized by Post Brown. From a newspaper clipping inserted: The Art Work of a Southern Prisoner of War Possessed by Post Brown, G.A.R. Comrade A.P. Shearman of Post Brown, G.A.R., received the other day from J.W. Hosier of Suffolk, Va., as relics of the war five pictures of confederate officers and soldiers, wrought in crayon or india ink upon pasteboard evidently cut from boxes such as are common in dry goods stores. They were the work of a confederate soldier, a prisoner in Fort Norfolk during the war. The pictures are no common affairs but striking in pose, expression and minute details, giving evidence of no ordinary artistic skill. The history of them so far as can be ascertained is given in the following extract from Mr. Hosier's letter of Feb. 16: "I send you today by mail five cards which I got from an old colored woman. This history as she tells it is as follows: She with several others was engaged to clean out the prison at Fort Norfolk after it had been abandoned as a federal prison. With many other things she found these pictures, fifteen in all. Ten of them she sold 7 years ago. The supposition is that some confederate prisoner did this work while in prison. I asked my brother, who escaped the federal balls, if he saw anything of the kind while he was there. (This brother and his father were inmates of the prison fourteen months.) He said he did not remember, but he knew there was a soldier in the prison from South Carolina who was a great artist, and at his leisure was sketching everybody he saw. I would like to have got hold of the other ten pictures which she tells me were considered much better than these, and represented life in prison. Accept these from me as a gift to your post." Mr. Hosier is in a real estate agency at Suffolk. During the visit of veterans of the 112th to Suffolk at the time of the Washington encampment last year he spared no pains to make their stay pleasant and assist them to find localities familiar in the experiences of '62-'63. The gift will be highly prized by Post Brown.