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Winslow Homer
(American, 1836 - 1910)
Pay-Day in the Army of the Potomac
1863
15 3/4 × 20 13/16 in. (40 × 52.9 cm)
2003.2.56
Gift of Jane Collette Wilcox, 2003
Not on view
Money to buy any small comfort or to send home to family was always anxiously anticipated. Soldiers' pay, however, was meager, out of balance with inflation, and its arrival was highly erratic. When the paymaster did come, the occasion, as reported by one soldier, would "produce more joy in camp than is said to have been produced in heaven over the one sinner that repenteth."
