![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/CivilWarpainting-scaled-1-1200x900.jpg\")
Vermont Country Store owner and avid collector of Vermont art, Lyman Orton, and members of the Civil War Hemlocks stand in front of Justin Scott\u2019s 1872 painting, \u201cThe 4th Vermont Forming Under Fire,\u201d during its Oct. 29 unveiling in the Cedar Creek Room of the Vermont Statehouse. Photo by Mary Admasian\/The Bridge<\/p>\n
This story by Tom McKone was first published<\/a> in The Bridge on Nov. 6, 2025.<\/p>\n While doing research about the Civil War, Champlain Valley Union High School social studies teacher Tyler Alexander found an image of an 1872 painting by Julian Scott titled \u201cThe 4th Vermont Forming Under Fire,\u201d which he hoped to include in a new book.<\/p>\n The problem was, at least initially, it appeared that no one in Vermont knew the painting even existed.<\/p>\n Internet searches were no help, and it was a few months before Alexander got his first good lead. Years ago, a Texas insurance company asked Vermont art historian Robert Titteron, who had written a book about Julian Scott, to appraise the value of the painting Alexander was seeking, and he still had the written communications. The last known owner was the University of Houston \u2014 and not only did the university still have the painting, it was about to auction it off.<\/p>\n Alexander quickly contacted David Schutz, the Vermont State Curator, who immediately contacted Vermont historians Howard Coffin and Kevin Graffagnino. With less than a week before the auction, there was no way to secure state money, so Coffin and Graffagnino asked Vermont Country Store owner Lyman Orton, who owns the largest private collection of Vermont art, for help.<\/p>\n Orton won the bidding for the painting and agreed to lend it to the state for display in the Statehouse\u2019s Cedar Creek Room, which already had four other Civil War paintings by Scott, including \u201cThe First Vermont Brigade at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Oct. 19th 1864,\u201d a 10-by-20-foot mural commissioned by the legislature and unveiled in 1874.<\/p>\n Skip forward 151 years, to Oct. 29, 2025, and an unveiling that brought Alexander, Orton, Coffin, Schutz, Graffagnino, a uniformed contingent from Vermont\u2019s Civil War Hemlocks, and scores of other Vermonters to the Cedar Creek Room.<\/p>\n Alexander read a vivid description of the battle from one of the letters in his book, Coffin described the battle portrayed in the painting, Orton talked about his affinity for Vermont art, and Schutz reminded everyone that the Statehouse opened only two years before the Civil War started, and was, in a sense, baptized by that event.<\/p>\n A native of Johnson, Vermont, 15-year-old Scott joined the war as a drummer and fifer. He made camp and battle sketches during the war, and after it, he became a trained artist. Not only is his newly discovered painting on display at the Statehouse \u2014 it is also on the cover of Alexander\u2019s new book, \u201cIf I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War\u201d (University of Nebraska Press 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vermont Country Store owner and avid collector of Vermont art, Lyman Orton, and members of the Civil War…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1029,228,226,227,118438,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-288345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-civil-war","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}