ALEXANDER GARDNER National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. – October 31, 2014, through May 3, 2015 While we’re still three years out from this exhibition, this will be well worth a visit. The photographs produced by Gardner and the photographers who worked in his employ are some of the most iconic images ever produced. February [...]
(from 1911) EDITORIAL NOTE.—Right now the whole country is preparing to celebrate the Fourth of July (1911) in a manner befitting the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the great Civil War. Do you know how well the grateful nation remembers the veterans of that war? Not the pensioners—the veterans. Pensioners get $150,000,000 every year. [...]
Curious as to what to get that special someone who has a love of historic photography from the American Civil War for Christmas!? Check out our republication of photographer and entrepreneur Alexander Gardner’s 1866 photographic manuscript, “Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War” on the iPad. From The man who laid a war at America’s [...]
This set of photographs show the interior of Levin C. Handy’s photographic studio at 494 Maryland Ave., S.W. in Washington, D.C., where the Department of Education now stands. In the 1890s, Brady himself had worked and lived there, and Levin Handy resided there until his death in 1932. When he was only twelve, Mathew Brady’s nephew, [...]
He (Alexander Gardner) remained in Scotland until 1856, when he emigrated to this country and landed in New York in the spring of that year. He was at once employed in the leading photographic establishment of that city, and introduced, for the first time, “Imperial Photographs.” They were a new sensation to the professions as [...]
With the opposing armies locked in a protracted struggle around Petersburg and Bermuda Hundred, the James and Appomattox Rivers assumed added importance. In August 1864, Union Gen. Benjamin Butler began excavations at Dutch Gap. When completed, his canal would bypass nearly five miles of the James River. Several powerful Confederate artillery batteries menaced that stretch [...]
This film from 1914, was produced with titles, and shows the meeting of 40,000 Confederate war veterans in Jacksonville.They dance to fiddle music and many cars, horses, bands and flags are shown. The veterans are shown dining together in a mess tent. An electric street car goes by during a section titled ‘Sons of Confederate [...]
Publication of Civil War envelopes began as early as the mid-1850’s, when north-south divisions began to take shape, but ended prior to the war’s conclusion because most believed that it was too indulgent and expensive to continue production in a time of war. Envelopes of a more satiric nature utilized themes surrounding the military, executions, [...]
Photographs documenting the construction of the Passaic-class ironclad monitor, the USS Camanche circa 1864, in San Francisco harbor. Prefabricated in Jersey City, N.J. by the Secor Brothers, Co., the Camanche was salvaged after its transport ship, the S.S. Aquila sank in the waters off San Francisco while en route to the city. The ship was [...]
An interesting story about a Confederate P.O.W., held at the Prisoner of War Depot on Johnson’s Island in Ohio, and how he created a makeshift camera in order to photograph his confinement. From the January 1909 edition of Confederate Veteran Magazine, page 28: Lieut. G.B. Smith, of Bristol, Tenn., had his lens with him when [...]
Reproduction of a political cartoon depicting Uncle Sam arguing with a woman while a slave on the right tiptoes by the couple. Uncle Sam holds a newspaper marked “WANTED,” while the woman has a newspaper behind her back marked “STATES.” (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress/Tehrkot Media)
From the Personal Papers Collection at the Library of Virginia, an interesting collection of sketches, and the story behind them, from a Confederate soldier’s notebook, depicting his company’s movements throughout the Commonwealth. In May 1863, a team of Confederate topographical engineers surveying and mapping Louisa County were surprised by Union cavalry. All but one of [...]
regblogged from taber: This case report, included as one among many cases detailed in the section on “Gunshot Fractures of the Skull by Contre-Coup” in the U.S. government’s extraordinarily detailed official report on medical care in the Civil War, is unremarkable but for one small detail: “Case A.L., aged 56 years” was Abraham Lincoln. You can infer [...]
On the evening of Sunday, June 16, 1861 Lowe met with President Lincoln and performed a demonstration, sending a telegraph to the Commander in Chief from a height some 500 feet above the White House: Dated…Balloon Enterprise…1861 Washington, June 16 1861, …o’clock, …min. M. To President United States, This point of observation commands an area near [...]
Photograph of the Southern Plains delegation, taken in the White House Conservatory on March 27, 1863. The interpreter William Simpson Smith and the agent Samuel G. Colley are standing at the left of the group; the white woman standing at the far right is often identified as Mary Todd Lincoln. J.G. Nicolay, secretary to President [...]
Publication of Civil War envelopes began as early as the mid-1850’s, when north-south divisions began to take shape, but ended prior to the war’s conclusion because most believed that it was too indulgent and expensive to continue production in a time of war. These Civil War envelopes, some of which have been called early versions [...]
