The Heroic Journey of Albert Bierstadt by David M. Delo

Author:David M. Delo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: american history, american west, american artists, rocky mountains, new bedford, yosemite valley, albert bierstadt, american art history, american landscape artists, emmanuel leutze, malkasten, nineteenth century artists, sanford robinson gifford, south pass, thomas starr king, william haseltine, worthington whittredge
Publisher: David M. Delo

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Chapter 14 1863: The Majesty of Yosemite

“If the reports are true,” wrote Fitzhugh, “we are going to the original site of the Garden of Eden, a place that surpasses the Alps in its waterfalls and the Himalayas and its precipices. We are going to the vale whose giant domes and battlements had months before thrown their photographic shadows through Watkins’ camera.” Once again our hero will be among the first to capture the sublimity of a new wilderness.

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Albert and Fitzhugh shared a huge bed in a posh room of gold, silver, and maroon, embellished with crystal and French-designed furniture. Exhausted from their trip, they were slow to get up their first morning in town, and finally ordered breakfast in their room about mid-day.

Fitzhugh was delighted by the Occidental’s elegance, attendance, and excellent cuisine. He was also the first to grab the morning newspaper whose headlines screamed, NEW YORK TORN BY RIOTING. By 1860, one of every four of New York City's 800,000 residents was an Irish-born immigrant. They were the city’s main source of cheap labor. When President Lincoln freed new competition from the shackles of slavery by proclamation, the act trapped the Irish between low wages, lack of work, and new competition.

Then the Union Government passed the National Conscription Act which subjected single men between the ages of twenty and forty-five, and married men up to thirty-five to a draft lottery. If you did not want to go you could have another person stand in for you or pay the government a three hundred-dollar exemption fee. The average Irishman made $500 a year. As a result, on July 14, Irish anger exploded like a bad pressure cooker. Armed to the teeth, they burned the Armory, several homes of New York City policemen, and Horace Greeley’s New York Daily Tribune because it was the most pro-Republican paper in town. Peace was restored only when the fury died down three days later.

“Well, Albert,” said Fitzhugh, having finished the first page, “you didn’t miss anything in New York except perhaps getting killed.”

“That bad?” asked Albert. He was looking at his mail which contained a notice to register for the draft or pay a $300 exemption fee.

“Hmmm,” said Fitzhugh, turning to another column on page two. “The police killed more than five hundred in the rioting. Mostly Irish. One of the worst clashes between the Irish and the police occurred on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue.” He barked. “That’s only four blocks from the Tenth Street Studios.”

On that first day, the duo headed for the lookout tower on Russian Hill where, buffeted by a salt sea breeze from the Narrows, they glimpsed the entirety of San Francisco and the bay. The sky was clear save for a few clouds and a band of fog that crept over the first set of shoreline hills to the north.

Looking toward the bay, they saw the landscape was crisscrossed by rudimentary streets that signaled new areas of development. Beyond the shore, the bay was packed with vessels at anchor.

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