The Museum of the Confederacy's collection of the 31 paintings of the harbor and defenses of Charleston, South Carolina, by Conrad Wise Chapman (1842-1910), is now available on the Museum's website for viewing.

Chapman, who had joined the Confederate Army, was commissioned in 1863 by the chief of staff to General P.G.T Beauregard to make sketches of Charleston Harbor for Beauregard's use in planning its defense. After completing the sketches the artist, who had lived in Europe prior to the American Civil War, left the army in March 1864, and returned to Europe to live in Rome. Using the sketches, Conrad Chapman and his father, John Gadsby Chapman who was also an artist, completed the paintings of the harbor over the following year.

Each of the paintings on the website is accompanied by Chapman's comments.

The website for the Museum of the Confederacy is www.moc.org and the link to the Chapman paintings page is found in the middle of the home page. This exhibition on the web is a special presentation of the paintings offering high definition photographs by Alan Thompson viewable in increasing detail by using Adobe's Zoomify processing.