Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon

The Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon was an important site in Civil War–era Philadelphia. Located near the railroad that dispatched Northern troops south, this building offered hot meals to hundreds of thousands of Union troops headed to the front. Moran, who was best known as a marine painter, uses the tight brushwork he perfected to depict sails and rigging to carefully detail the men and women who volunteered at the saloon, and some of the soldiers—including the wounded man in the foreground—who took advantage of its services.

Painted in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, this work is one of the many paintings and photographs produced to commemorate military heroes and the citizens who served the troops on the home front. The lengthy (and at points almost illegible inscription) calls attention to the work’s intended function as a memorial.