Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection

The largest proportion of the online Civil War Photographs are from the Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection. It contains negatives taken during the war under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady and Alexander Gardner and passed through many owners.

During the war, Brady transferred many negatives to the photographic supply firm of E. & H. T. Anthony & Company to pay for his debts. Anthony & Co. published these images in its "War Views" series.

In 1879 the negatives were purchased by Colonel Arnold A. Rand and General Albert Ordway, veterans of the war, and collectors of war memorabilia. Their collection also included approximately 2,000 negatives by Alexander Gardner and his team of photographers. Gardner had originally managed Brady's Washington studio, but he left Brady's employment in November 1862 to set up his own business.

Rand and Ordway sold the entire collection to Civil War veteran John C. Taylor, who published lantern slides and stereo views during the 1880s and early 1890s under the imprints Taylor & Huntington and the War Photograph & Exhibition Company.

In 1907 Edward B. Eaton bought the negatives. He used them in several books he published on the Civil War. The most notable of these was the ten-volume work, The Photographic History of the Civil War.

In 1916 the collection was placed in storage, where it remained until the Library purchased it in 1943. The Library's acquisition included 7,500 original glass plate negatives and about 2,500 glass and film copy negatives, providing a total of about 3,750 different views and about 2,650 different portraits.

The Library of Congress selected 1,047 of these images for publication as a microfilm in 1961. The introduction to the microfilm includes a table of contents that indicates how this portion of the collection was organized into five major sections and numerous subsections. The catalog records for these 1,047 negatives contain more information and subject headings than the catalog records for the remainder of the negatives. (See Cataloging the Collection for further details; see the Search Tip for information about strategies for searching the records effectively.)

The Library grouped the negatives into series by size and broad subject area. Each negative series has a distinct numerical prefix. The general content of each of the negative series is outlined in the section, The Civil War Negatives: Arrangement and Online Access.

Brady-Handy Collection - Three Negative Series

Some negatives from the studio of Mathew B. Brady came into the hands of his nephew, Levin C. Handy, who operated a photographic studio in Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress purchased the L.C. Handy Studio negatives in 1954. Negatives from this source are distinguished by the prefix LC-BH8. Three Brady Handy negative series have been incorporated into the Civil War Photographs because of their close connection to the other items in this pool of records and images. The content of the three negative series is outlined in the section, The Civil War Negatives: Arrangement and Online Access. (The remainder of the Brady Handy negatives, which deal primarily with post-Civil War subjects, are available separately as the Brady Handy Collection.)

Civil War Photograph LOTs - Some Copy Negatives

The Civil War Photograph LOTs consist of photographic prints arranged by subject matter into LOTs (groups). The Library acquired the prints from three main sources:

• In 1905 the Library purchased gelatin silver prints from John C. Taylor.
• In 1948 the Library purchased a large group of mounted albumen prints from General Ordway’s son.
• In the 1950s and 1960s, the Library's Photoduplication Service made prints from the glass plate negatives.

Civil War Stereograph Collection - Some Copy Negatives

The Civil War Stereograph Collection consists of stereographs published by a variety of firms including E. & H. T. Anthony & Co. and The War Photograph & Exhibition Company acquired through various means. The Library has made copy negatives from some of these stereographs to respond to requests for reproductions.

Glass negatives of Union soldiers at Folly and Morris Islands during the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, photographed by Haas & Peale.

Philip Haas of Company A, 1st New York Engineers, and Washington Peale photographed General Quincy A. Gillmore's efforts to capture Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863. This small batch of negatives show Union troops patrolling the islands off the Carolina coast. The Library acquired Haas and Peale's original glass plate negatives in 1966.

Images of Enlisted Men

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Library copied approximately 50 images of enlisted men from daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes in private collections. (The resulting negatives are in the B8184 series.) The original photographs were returned to their owners, but the Library did not retain a record of the collector's names and addresses. Any information on the provenance of these original photographs would be welcomed. Please write to the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-4730 or contact us through our Ask-a-Librarian form.