Winter Around the Capital

Tonight I had a little fun browsing Civil War photographs on the Library of Congress website, which I do from time to time. Here's an interesting albumen print depicting the 2nd Maine Infantry drilling over a wintry landscape. Viewed at a high resolution (which you can download here), the image yields a number of interesting details.

First - the presence of Sibley tents confirm that this photograph was taken in the winter of 1861-1862, as they were not generally used later in the war.

The layout and built environment of the camp - including evergreen boughs and festive arches arranged amongst the tents, several log structures, and large banners hung reading "2nd Maine" and what appears to be "Camp Jameson" - suggests that the 2nd Maine had inhabited this location for some time.

This photograph appears in volume one of Francis Miller's The Photographic History of the Civil War. The caption for the photograph in part reads:

This picture shows the Christmas Day parade of the Second Maine Infantry at Camp James near Washington, 1861.

Despite this caption, I am inclined to believe that this image was not captured on Christmas Day, but certainly sometime around Christmas. Searching for weather conditions around the capital in December of 1861, I found the diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, a Patent Office examiner, on the Library of Congress website. Taft's diary reveals weather above freezing and no snow on Christmas Day 1861, and nothing that would create a snow covered field in the days leading up to Christmas. Taft reported snow on December 23rd, but, in his own words, "not enough to remain on the ground." Taft's account does indicate snow during the first week of January, 1862. He reports extremely cold weather and a light covering of snow on the ground. Perhaps the photograph was captured at that time.

Further evidence supporting a photograph date close to Christmas is derived from Maine In the War for the Union by William E.S. Whitman and Charles H. True. This book, published in 1865, provides details of the 2nd Maine's winter encampment at Camp Jameson on Hall's Hill in Arlington, Virginia, within sight of the United States Capitol. The description reads:

The men while at this post took great pains to make their quarters neat and comfortable, and they were models in this respect which were not surpassed. At Christmas the encampment was decorated with evergreens, arches and other ornaments, and presented a very picturesque appearance.

Either way, a fascinating image of a full Civil War regiment early in the war. The 2nd Maine served two years with the Army of the Potomac, returning home after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Many of the regiment's men who enlisted for three years instead of two famously served in the 20th Maine after the regiment disbanded.

Visualizing Artillery on the Battlefield

I've always found this photograph fascinating.

Original LOC Caption: "Antietam, Maryland. Captain J.M. Knap's Penn. Independent Battery 'E' Light Artillery."
Photographed by Alexander Gardner. To view and zoom in on a high res version, go here.

Taken by Alexander Gardner on September 19th, 1862--just two days after the battle of Antietam--it depicts Captain Joseph M. Knap's Independent Battery E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery on the battlefield.

This is an important Civil War photograph. The exact location of this scene was first identified by William Frassanito in his book Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day, published in 1978. With Frassanito's discovery, this photograph became a tremendous resource for historians. It presents a panoramic view of a broad expanse of the terrain over which the battle raged on the morning of September 17th, 1862. The photograph provides documentation of what the terrain looked like at the time of the battle. Behind the battery stretches the fields of David R. Miller's farm, including the bloody cornfield. In the distant background of the photograph, the North Woods loom on the horizon.

I enjoy this photograph for another reason though: it provides a visual reference for what a battery looked like on the field of battle.

When touring battlefields, I find that visualizing the action can sometimes present a challenge, especially when I am leading others with limited knowledge of the Civil War. This applies especially to to the role and appearance of artillery. At most NPS sites today, cannon dot the landscape to mark where batteries deployed. Occasionally, you will find a full compliment of caissons, guns, and limbers to mark out a battery's location. Cushing's battery at Gettysburg and the guns at Hazel Grove come to mind in particular. Yet while the guns provide helpful information in locating a battery position on the field, they don't give us an adequate idea of what a battery in action would look like.

Each gun in a battery was hooked to a limber and pulled by six horses. Each gun then had a caisson, also hooked to a limber, and also pulled by a six-horse team. Therefore, each gun in a battery had typically 12 horses. For a six-gun battery, that's 72 horses, not counting replacements and officer mounts. Each battery also had a traveling forge, a battery wagon to carry tents, supplies, and tools, and usually six more caissons carrying reserve ammunition. That all adds up to a lot of horses.

When deployed for action, regulations suggested that the nose of the lead horse of each limber would be six yards behind the trail of its gun, and the lead horse pulling the caisson should be about 11 yards behind the limber. According to Jack Coggins' wonderful book, Arms and Equipment of the Civil War, a gun, its limber, and its caisson would take up a depth of almost 50 yards. Meanwhile, artillery manuals called for 14 yards in between each gun, meaning that a six-gun battery would occupy a front of more than 80 yards.

Another great image of an artillery battery, this one attributed to army photographer Andrew Russell. This photograph was likely taken during the Chancellorsville campaign. Here's a great blog entry exploring the photograph in detail. To view and zoom in on a high res version, go here.

I find all of that difficult to imagine when I stand on a battlefield looking at a couple of guns flanking a monument. Luckily, Gardner's photographic documentation of Knap's battery at Antietam, and many other similar photographs taken during the war, can help to create an image in your mind of what a battery would look like on the field of battle.

The Postal Service Unveils a Stamp, and Attempts to Unravel a 150 Year Mystery

This past week, the Gettysburg Foundation and the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a stamp commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. The back of each sheet of stamps will show Matthew Brady's iconic photograph of Confederate prisoners on Seminary Ridge.

As part of the ceremony unveiling, the Postal Service had originally invited a Virginia barber named Clate Dollinger to speak at the ceremony, after they were informed that he was a descendant of not one, but all three of the prisoners pictured. Apparently, family lore had identified the man on the right as Dollinger's Great-Great-Grandfather, Andrew Blevins, a soldier in the 30th North Carolina. Dollinger claims that the soldier on the left is Ephraim Blevins, Andrew's son and a soldier in the 37th North Carolina. The middle soldier, Dollinger related, was John Baldwin, another relative and a member of the 50th Virginia.

If this story sounds too good to be true, there's a good reason for that. Within hours of the first article hitting the web numerous commentators poked big holes in Dollinger's story. Perhaps the biggest was the fact that Andrew Blevins died in June of 1863 of wounds received at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Dollinger responded to critics of his story by producing some photographic "proof", though I don't think William Frassanito would be impressed with his argument.. Al Mackey has covered the story very well on his excellent Student of the American Civil War blog, and includes a number of different links exploring the full story.

What I would like to know is who originally vetted Mr. Dollinger's story - did the Postal Service make this invite on its own or did The Gettysburg Foundation have any role. The Foundation eventually declined to have him speak, as they wanted to conduct more research into his story, but that decision seems to have come very late in the game.

Oral tradition has its role in history, but we should always be careful in putting too much faith in such stories. In my own family, I've been told for years that my Great-Great-Grandfather rode for the Pony Express. My Grandmother and my Great-Aunt always insisted that they had a newspaper clipping that told the whole story, but that they had lent it to someone who never returned it once upon a time. I've tried to verify as much of the story as possible through genealogical research, but I've turned up nothing. That being the case, I'm more inclined to doubt the full accuracy of the family story than to credit it.

What do you think?

The Civil War Monitor Catches up with Met Curator Jeff Rosenheim

Following up on my review of the Met's new exhibit on Civil War photography - you can view a nice interview with curator Jeff Rosenheim over at the Civil War Monitor. Worth a look.

Photography and the American Civil War

I have always found that April is a great time to visit New York City, as spring arrives there a few weeks before it stretches northward to Cooperstown. On a trip to the City this past weekend, in addition to enjoying the beautiful weather I also managed to make it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its Photography and the American Civil War exhibit. I have looked forward to seeing this show for quite some time, and it did not disappoint. We arrived at the museum in the middle of Saturday afternoon. For those of you who have never been to the Met, the middle of a Saturday afternoon in springtime is probably not the best time to go. The place was packed, and Photography and the American Civil War seemed like the exhibit everyone wanted to see. In the first few rooms I had to move slowly in a line from photograph to photograph. Luckily, this exhibit is a large one, and I found that as I proceeded, museum fatigue set in amongst other visitors, creating a bit more space.

Utilizing an impressive array of over 200 photographs, Photography and the American Civil War analyzes the role of the camera during the Civil War, and explores the personalities and artistic contributions of some of the most prominent men behind the camera. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of historical content in this exhibit. As someone interested in history and admittedly a novice when it comes to art, I often wish art museums would add more historical context to their exhibits. While the focus was most certainly art, the exhibit also contained a nice narrative structure that explained how the emerging medium of photography helped to shape the way Americans experienced, understood, and remembered the war. And while art museum labels are notoriously skimpy on details, no one could complain about the brevity of the labels for each photograph in this exhibit. Each of the more than 200 photographs had its own unique story. For that reason alone, one could spend hours immersed in examining each individual image. Most of these photographs come from the Met's own incredible collection, while important loans from public and private collections round out the show.
 
Photography and the American Civil War was a well designed exhibit. Canvas lined the walls in many of the rooms to replicate the feel of an encampment and Met curators imposed an effective thematic structure to the layout of each gallery. The first few rooms introduced the process and types of photographs, and explained the growing importance of photos to Americans of all classes. These rooms also showed the importance of images to the election of 1860, introduced visitors to Matthew Brady and his Washington Gallery manager, Alexander Gardner, and displayed photographs of Fort Sumter taken days after the start of the war. The next section featured a vast number portraits of all types and sizes. This room contained images of famous generals, unknown privates, women, and enslaved individuals. One particular image that caught my eye was a portrait of a Confederate officer with his enslaved body servant standing behind him in what appears to be a Confederate uniform. The caption explained that this portrait was one of only a handful of photographs known to exist of a slave in Confederate uniform.

As you advance through each room of this show, you begin to understand the importance of the camera to the way people experienced, recorded and remembered the war. In addition to the famous battlefield landscapes and death studies, other subjects received equal attention - including portraits, homefront images, ruined city landscapes, and gruesome photos of wounded soldiers taken for medical documentation. Throughout the exhibit visitors are introduced to the men behind the camera, and the exhibit attempts to engage the visitor in thoughts about what these cameramen were trying to convey. The show highlights the work of many photographers, especially the men who went to war under the employment of Matthew Brady and later Alexander Gardner. The works of Timothy O'Sullivan, James F. Gibson, and John Reekie receive a good deal of attention. Most of all though - the second half of the show focuses mostly on four individuals: Alexander Gardner, Andrew Joseph Russell, George N. Barnard, and Reed Brockway Bontecou.

A Harvest of Death, by Timothy O'Sullivan, was one of the images featured from Gardner's Sketchbook of the War.

Gardner takes center stage, a fact I enjoyed immensely. Nothing annoys me more than when museums identify photographs taken by Gardner and his corps of cameramen as Brady photos, especially when those photos were taken after the Gardner/Brady split. In this exhibit, the history of Gardner and his relationship with Brady is explained early, and the Scot is given his rightful due as perhaps the most important photographer during the war. The exhibit devotes an entire room to Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, published in 1866 and featuring 100 photos taken by Gardner and cameramen such as O'Sullivan, Gibson, and Reekie. Many of the labels here quote extensively from Gardner's own captions, and discuss how Gardner's Sketchbook utilized his photographs and captions to craft a narrative of the war that matched his own bias.

Another room focuses on Andrew Joseph Russell, the only photographer who also served in the Union army. A captain in the 141st New York, Russell was employed by Herman Haupt, and was eventually detached from his regiment to serve in the United States Military Railroad Construction Corps. Much of his work focused on Union engineering and transportation, but he also managed to capture other scenes, including incredible photographs taken just hours after the 6th Corps had captured Mayre's Heights during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

George N. Barnard's Battle Ground of Resacca, GA No. 1

In the section of the exhibit on George N. Barnard, visitors were asked to compare and contrast his work with that of Alexander Gardner. Both photographers published a collection of their work after the Civil War. Barnard's was Photographic Views of Sherman's March. Due to the pace of Sherman's advance through Georgia, Barnard did not have the opportunity to capture as much as he wanted along the route as the army's official photographer. To remedy this, Barnard traveled back across the route during the summer of 1866. While Gardner's work often included shots of individuals and groups and battlefield wreckage, Barnard often focused on landscapes devoid of any human life. For example, Barnard captured the wreckage of the Battle of Resaca by photographing shattered trees. He also superimposed clouds into the sky in his photographs. And whereas Gardner framed his reader's interpretation of his photographs by preceding each with his own caption, Barnard chose to let his photos stand on their own, publishing his own commentary separately.

Perhaps the most powerful photographs of the exhibit were contained in the room devoted to work of Dr. Reed Brockway Bontecou. Here visitors saw photographed soldiers with horrific wounds. Bontecou captured these images and collected them as a medical teaching album. Many of the photographs feature hand-drawn arrows indicating the path of a bullet or projectile as it entered and exited human flesh. Around this gallery the curators placed quotes from poet and nurse Walt Whitman, explaining that the "real war will never get in the books."

I could comment on many other facets of this exhibit, but I am afraid I still could not do it justice. If you live near New York City, or happen to have an opportunity to visit, this exhibit is well worth setting aside a few hours for. Jeff L. Rosenheim, the Met's curator of Photography, along with the rest of the curatorial staff, has put together an excellent exhibit. Photography and the American Civil War remains on view through September 2nd.

Great NPR Story

I missed this one with all of the other coverage of the 150th anniversary the other day. It's a great story: Same Camera, Different Story: Capturing Civil War Sites, 150 Years Later.