The Civil War, Part 2: The People
Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, a milestone commemorated by The Atlantic in a special issue. Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. As brother fought brother and the nation's future grew uncertain, the public appetite for information was fed by these images. Today's collection is part 2 of 3, covering the people of the Civil War: the generals, slaves, civilians, politicians, and soldiers that lived through those turbulent years. Tomorrow, in part three I'll be sharing some of the amazing three-dimensional stereographs of the war. (Be sure to see part 1 as well.) Keep in mind, as you view these photographs, that they were taken 150 years ago -- providing a glimpse of a United States that was only 85 years old at the time.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, in a head-and-shoulders portrait taken by photographer Alexander Gardner on February 5, 1865. Traditionally called "last photograph of Lincoln from life", this final photo in Lincoln's last photo session was long thought to have been made on April 10, 1865, but more recent research has indicated the earlier date in February. The crack comes from the original negative, which was broken and discarded back in 1865. The entirety of the American Civil War took place while Lincoln was in office, starting a month after he was elected, and ending just days before his assassination in April of 1865. (LOC)
Jefferson Davis, a former United States Secretary of War and Senator from the State of Mississippi, served as the President of the Confederate States of America from 1861-1865. After the war, he was captured, indicted for treason, and imprisoned for two years -- after which he was freed on bail. His case was eventually dropped in 1869, and he lived another twenty years, passing away at the age of 81. (Mathew Brady/NARA)
Confederate General Robert E. Lee poses in a late April 1865 portrait taken by Mathew Brady in Richmond, Virginia. By the end of the war, Lee had been appointed as general-in-chief of all Confederate forces, having led numerous armies into battle against Union forces during the conflict. It was Lee's surrender to General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 that signaled the end of the war.(NARA)
Three different photographs of Peter, a slave from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ca. 1863. The scars are a result of a whipping by his overseer Artayou Carrier, who was subsequently fired by the master. It took two months to recover from the beating. These photographs were widely distributed in the North during the war. Also called "Gordon", Peter later enlisted in the Union Army. (NARA)
William Mahone was a civil engineer, railroad executive, and ardent supporter of the secession of the South. In 1861, after Virginia seceded, Mahone -- still a civilian -- orchestrated the capture of the Gosport Shipyard in in Portsmouth, Virginia, driving an empty passenger train loudly into town, bluffing the Federal troops into abandoning the shipyard. He later took a commission as a colonel in the Confederate Army. After the war, Mahone served a term as the U.S. Senator from Virginia, in 1881. (NARA)
Rose O'Neal Greenhow, "Wild Rose", poses with her daughter inside the old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. Greenhow, a Confederate spy, used her social ties in the Washington area to help her pass information to the South. She was apprehended by Allan Pinkerton in 1861, and held for nearly a year. She was released, deported to Richmond, Virginia, and welcomed heartily by southerners. She served as a diplomat for the Confederacy, traveling to Europe, and profiting from a popular memoir she wrote in London in 1863. In October of 1864, she was sailing home aboard a blockade runner, pursued by a Union ship near North Carolina. Her ship ran aground, and Greenhow drowned during an escape attempt, after her rowboat capsized. (LOC)
William Tecumseh Sherman, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, served as a General in the Union Army, commanding several campaigns. Perhaps best known was his capture of Atlanta, Georgia, after which his troops began "Sherman's March to the Sea", inflicting massive damage to military and civilian infrastructure during a month-long march toward the coast, ending with the capture of Savannah, Georgia. (Matthew Brady/NARA)
Union General Herman Haupt, a civil engineer, moves across the Potomac River in a one-man pontoon boat that he invented for scouting and bridge inspection in an image taken between 1860 and 1865. Haupt, an 1835 graduate of West Point, was chief of construction and transportation of U.S. military railroads during the war. (AP Photo/Library of Congress, A.J. Russell)
General James Scott Negley of Pennsylvania. At the start of the war, he was appointed brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Militia, and went on to command troops in several battles. After his division narrowly escaped disaster during the Battle of Chickamauga, Negley was relieved of command. Negley served several administrative posts, retiring from the army in January of 1865. (LOC)
Robert Smalls was born a slave in South Carolina. During the Civil War, Smalls steered the CSS Planter, an armed Confederate military transport. On May 12, 1862, the Planter's three white officers decided to spend the night ashore. About 3 am, Smalls and seven of the eight enslaved crewmen decided to make a run for the Union vessels that formed the blockade, as they had earlier planned. Smalls dressed in the captain's uniform and had a straw hat similar to that of the white captain. The Planter stopped at a nearby wharf to pick up Smalls' family and the relatives of other crewmen, then they sailed toward Union lines, with a white sheet as a flag. After the war, he went on to serve in the United States House of Representatives, representing South Carolina. (LOC)
Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. Considered a shrewd tactician, Jackson served in several campaigns, but during the Battle of Chancellorsville he was accidentally shot by his own troops, losing an arm to amputation. He died of complications of pneumonia eight days later, quickly becoming celebrated as a hero in the South. (LOC)
Soldiers of the VI Corps, Army of the Potomac, in trenches before storming Marye's Heights at the Second Battle of Fredericksburg during the Chancellorsville campaign, Virginia, May 1863. This photograph (Library of Congress #B-157) is sometimes labeled as taken at the 1864 Siege of Petersburg, Virginia (LOC)
General George Armstrong Custer, a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Custer built a strong reputation during the Civil War, and afterwards he was sent west to fight in the Indian Wars. Custer was later defeated and killed at the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn in in eastern Montana Territory, in 1876. (LOC)
Sgt. James H. Harris, a Marylander and member of Company B, Thirty-eight Fifth U.S. Colored Troops, in a photograph taken between 1864-1898. Harris was one of 23 black Union soldiers, who served with such distinction during the Civil War that he received the Medal of Honor. (AP Photo/Library of Congress)
Union General Isaac I. Stevens, seated on a porch in March of 1862, near Beaufort, South Carolina. Stevens, formerly the first governor of Washington Territory, was killed in action at the Battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862 after picking up the fallen regimental colors of his old regiment, shouting "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!" Charging with his troops while carrying the banner of Saint Andrew's Cross, Stevens was struck in the temple by a bullet and died instantly. (LOC)
Portrait of Brigadier General Robert Huston Milroy, officer of the Union Army. Milroy most noted for his defeat at the Second Battle of Winchester in 1863. He later became Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Washington Territory. Milroy died in Olympia, Washington in 1890, at the age of 73. (LOC)
Stage actor and Confederate sympathize John Wilkes Booth, in a portrait taken some time before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Booth and a group of co-conspirators planned to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward, hoping to assist the Confederacy, despite the earlier surrender of Robert E. Lee. After he shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, he fled to a farm in rural northern Virginia, but was tracked down 12 days later, and killed by a Union soldier. (NARA)
John L. Burns, the "old hero of Gettysburg," with gun and crutches, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. During the Battle of Gettysburg, Burns, a 70-year-old civilian living nearby, grabbed his flintlock musket and powder horn and walked out to the battlefield to join in with Union troops. The soldiers took him in, and Burns served well as a sharpshooter. During a withdrawal, Burns was wounded several times and left on the field. he managed to get himself to safety, his wounds were treated, and his story elevated him to the status of National Hero briefly. (LOC)
Conspirator Lewis Powell (Payne), in a sweater, seated and manacled in the Washington Navy Yard, Washington D.C. in April of 1865. Powell attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate United States Secretary of State William H. Seward in his home on April 14, 1865. he was soon caught, and became one of four people hanged for the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. (Alexander Gardner/LOC)
Union General George Stoneman, in a camp near Fair Oaks, Virginia in June of 1862. Stoneman was a career Army officer, and took part in several campaigns throughout the war. Afterwards, he moved first to Arizona, then to California, where, in 1882, he was elected governor of California and served a single four-year term. (James F. Gibson/LOC)
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