Defiance: Inviting a Shot before Petersburg

On the Petersburg lines a Confederate soldier climbs the earthworks and dares the Union sharpshooters to hit him — a real trench game from a war Homer covered as an illustrator. He paints the bravado and the puff of rifle smoke that answers it, and leaves the outcome one second outside the frame. It is one of the earliest honest pictures of the American war, made while it was still being fought.