Wasted Effort

While we were on the topic of looking at paintings of different American wars, I thought this would be an interesting image to look at.  This is an image of the Civil War, with Union and Confederate forces harshly battling each other.

Notice all the different flags from both sides show up in many places of the artifact, which shows pride, something that has come up a lot in American war images.  In the case of the Civil War though, it bothers me to think that these two opposing forces had pride in killing their own country.  We have gone over many times what sort of instigated the war, slaves and the cotton gin and everything, but I feel like the artist who made this artifact is making a profound statement.  I believe that this can be interpreted in a satirical means, and that the artist is showing the stupidity of the Civil War in this piece.

We talked about the ignorant and arrogant pride present in this image, but not yet about the plain brutality of it.  Look at the gruesome battle at hand, and then ask why it is happening?  Over a crop, a race?  It hardly seems worth many thousands of lives, and that is what the artist is trying to portray here.  That the Civil War, and possibly even war in general is pointless if you juxtapose what is lost and what is gained.  Also, that maybe if the prideful people put all the effort that is being put into war into something more important and productive, then we would be better off in the end.