[1] The painting was donated by Adelaide Milton de Groot to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains today.

[2] This composition is among Homer's simplest, showing the veteran as the sole figure in a field of grain, holding a scythe.

[4] The only pieces of evidence that the figure is a Civil War veteran are the jacket and canteen in the lower right hand corner, in the downed wheat.

[3] Homer employs a Rückenfigur (a figure seen from behind), which obscures the man's identity and allows him to stand more generally for any soldier that fought for the Union.

[4] The jacket and canteen, however, specifically belong to the division that Homer accompanied during his time covering the American Civil War.

[8] The Veteran in a New Field has also been interpreted as an elegy to Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated the year the painting was finished.

Homer, however, may have deliberately simplified the scene to emphasize symbolic themes, such as the return to pre-war ideals of manly independence.

[5] The solitary, emotionless veteran may also imply that the soldiers will be forever marked by the experience of the Civil War.

[4] The painting also references a popular homecoming scene of a soldier returning from war to his family and farm.

The veteran continues to work on his field in the post-war era, showing a renewed sense of purpose for man as American society tries to come to grips with death and war.

[3] The Veteran in a New Field bears a resemblance to Prisoners from the Front, which Homer painted the following year.

Both paintings show Homer moving toward symbolic messages that address the ideological and political tensions of the Civil War.

Prisoners from the Front came to be regarded as Homer's greatest work from the period, and the standard for his other paintings.