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Book of photos that tell the Civil War story

Posted in Photos

The magazine-size book was tucked beneath a group of other papers. I found it because I always troll through ephemera at auction. For me, it’s like peeling back the layers of a mystery; I never know what will turn up.

What turned up on this day was a book with so much writing on the front I could barely figure out who published it. The title was in bigger letters so it stood out: A History of the Civil War. Brady War Photographs. 1861-1865.

A history book on the Civil War waiting to be auctioned.

I recognized the name Brady, a photographer famously known for his photos of battles and men during the Civil War. I flipped through the book, interested because the country is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the war fought over the fate of my ancestors.

The rest of the text on the cover seemed to blend together in my mind, one stacked atop the other, endlessly, it seemed: War Department. Sixteen Sections. Great Battlefield Series. Section 1. War Memorial Association. New York.

The first inside page noted that this was a chronological summary and record compiled from the official records of the War Department commemorating the 50th anniversary of the “Great National Struggle.” This was a recounting of the history of the war using reproductions of photographs by Mathew B. Brady. It was written by historian Benson J. Lossing and published around 1911.

As usual, I flipped through the book to see if there were any photographs of African American soldiers but didn’t come across any prominent ones. There were a biography and photo of Brady, and a photo of Abraham Lincoln and the text of his Gettysburg Address.

Also included was an 1864 photo of Confederate lines north of Atlanta. The text beneath it was headlined “The New South.”

A photo of the Confederate lines near Atlanta and a speech about the "New South."

“There was a South of slavery and secession – that South is dead,” Atlanta newspaper editor Henry W. Grady pronounced in a speech recounted on the page. “There is a South of union and freedom – that South, Thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour.”

Grady made the speech before the New England Club in New York in 1886, according to the book. At the time, he was using his influence to create and promote a new refurbished image of the South after the war. (Too bad not enough of his compatriots agreed with him.)

Among war photographers, Mathew Brady was the most noted, but he had a counterpart in the South. That man was George S. Cook, who was born in Connecticut but settled in Charleston, SC, in 1849. Cook was said to have captured the country’s first war photograph of a group of Union gunboats firing on Fort Moultrie, SC, in 1863. He was inside Fort Sumter at the time. The images, however, are fuzzy and unfocused.

Mathew B. Brady in an 1875 photo.

Photography was not new to the country. It had been around for years, but the war brought it into prominence. Images of gruesome battle scenes brought the Civil War-era population face to face with the stench of war just as TV footage of the Vietnam War would do the same for us 100 years later.

The New York Times wrote in 1862, a month after the Battle of Antietam: “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it.”

One account said more than 3,000 photographers covered the war, most of them freelancers who mostly did studio portraits of soldiers in uniforms. A few such as Brady and his workers ventured out into the field. In fact, Brady’s eyesight was so bad that most of the photographs attributed to him were done by the workers he supervised, such men as Alexander Gardner and Timothy H. Sullivan, among others. Many of the photographers sold their works to newspapers and magazines.

The book also contained other Brady’s photos:

Slave pen next to building at far right that sold Africans into slavery.

A Slave Pen in Alexandria, VA. The sign on the building next to it says “Price Birch & Co. Dealers in Slaves.” Alexandria was a center of the slave trade during the 19th century, sending Africans to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and other cotton-producing states, according to a history of the city. It had one of the country’s largest slave-trading firms, Franklin and Armfield.

President Lincoln at a Union camp.

President Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton (left) and Maj. Gen. J.A. McClearnand. Pinkerton was founder of the country’s first detective agency and is said to have prevented an assassination attempt on the president’s life in 1861.

Mathew B. Brady (far right) with Union soldiers.

Mathew B. Brady (far right) with Gen. Potter and staff. Robert Brown Potter fought at Antietam, helping to dislodge Confederate troops at what became known as Burnside’s Bridge.

The 15-inch Rodman gun from the Civil War.

 Largest gun mounted in the war. This is a photo of the 15-inch Rodman cannon at Battery Rodgers in Alexandria, VA.

2 Comments

  1. Jim Higgins
    Jim Higgins

    I recently came in possession of these 16 sections in the Great Battlefields series. They belonged at one time to my great-grandmother whose husband fought in the Connecticut regiment during the Civil War. All the pages are loose but the sections are complete except for 2 missing pages in Section 10. There are some mold stains on a few but for for the most part the photos and text appear in relatively good shape. We are in the process of airing them out as best we can. Any suggestions on airing old magazine pages and archiving them will be appreciated.
    I have no sense of the value of this collection though I am not likely to sell it as it is my ancestral link to the War.

    You referred to it as a book so perhaps they bound all 16 sections into one book. Mine are all separate and each section’s back cover carries a “teaser” for the next installment. The first 4 sections are in Roman Numerals and have no dates. The remaining 12 sections all have numbers and copyright dates of 1902 to 1918. I am curious about the history of these publications.

    August 14, 2011
    |Reply
    • sherry
      sherry

      Hi Jim. I didn’t buy the book so I don’t have it in hand, but it was likely one section, Section 1. Lucky you to have all 16 of them. As for value, eBay is a good place to start, then Google to find other sites where it’s being offered for sale or was sold. I wrote a blog post with tips to determine what your items are worth: http://loricase.com/faq.html.

      Here’s what I found on the website of the University of Missouri extension service about airing out the pages. Also, if there’s a shop in your town that sells antique prints, folks there may be able to offer more suggestions on airing, preserving and archiving them. The key is not to store any papers or documents in a damp basement:

      “Remove any dry, loose mold from paper with a clean, soft cloth. If mildewed paper is damp, dry it first in an airy place. … ‘Fan out’ pages of books to increase air circulation. If the books are very damp, sprinkle cornstarch or talcum powder between the leaves to absorb the moisture. Leave starch or powder on for several hours, then brush off.”

      I came across this info on storing papers: http://loricase.com/faq.html.

      Hope this helps,

      Sherry

      August 14, 2011
      |Reply

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