The Civil War Negatives: Arrangement and Online Access

Glass Negative Series

In organizing the glass negatives, the Library grouped them by source (Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection or Brady Handy Collection), size, and broad subject areas. In 2002 the Library scanned those groups that consist primarily of original glass plate negatives. The groups that consist primarily of duplicate and copy negatives were not scanned. Online catalog records were made for negatives that were scanned.

LC-B811

• fortifications in Yorktown and Petersburg
• dead soldiers on the battlefield at Gettysburg and Antietam
• portraits of officers and their staff
• ambulance corp on the battlefield
• city views of Atlanta, St. Augustine, and Savannah
• Libby Prison, Richmond, and a slave pen in Alexandria
• Grand Review of the Army marching in Washington, D.C., May 1865.

LC-B813

3,028 original wet plate negatives and some copy negatives made for the production of cartes de visite, cut from larger plates, primarily 2-1/4 x 3-1/2", 1860s. Some negatives are uncut and contain two portraits.

• Studio portraits of Union and Confederate soldiers, including Gens. G. T. Beauregard, Burnside, Grant, E. A. Hitchcock, Hooker, Robert E. Lee, Sickles, and Sherman.
• Also includes a few group portraits, such as the Sanitary Commission and a group of sailors.

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LC-B814

321 original wet plate negatives made for the production of cartes de visite, three exposures per negatives, 4 x 10," 1860s.

• Primarily studio portraits of Union soldiers, including Generals Belknap, Abner Doubleday, Hunter, and Montgomery C. Meigs.
• The series also includes a few portraits of military wives with their husbands and a man holding a satchel of newspapers.
• Some images show sitters posed in front of various painted backdrops. The Brady studio was not known to use such backdrops. Brady may have purchased these negatives from other studios.

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LC-B815

670 original wet plate stereo negatives in pairs, 4 x 10"; made between 1862-1869. These images will not display in three dimensions unless the left and right halves are transposed. (For information on resources for viewing digitized stereographs in 3-D, see "Viewing Online Stereographs in 3-D," in the "About the Stereographs" section of the online catalog.) Negatives by Alexander Gardner, Timothy O 'Sullivan, and James Gibson. Many of these negatives were listed in Alexander Gardner's 1863 Catalogue of Photographic Incidents of the War. Mainly war views, the negatives document:

• Burnside Bridge, Antietam, Maryland
• contrabands; fortifications at Petersburg, Virginia
• Richmond in ruins
• soldiers in camp, near Yorktown, Virginia
• the Grand Review of the Army, Washington, D.C., 1865

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LC- B817

758 original wet plate negatives, 8 x 10", 1862-1865. Negatives by Timothy O’Sullivan, Alexander Gardner, and others. Includes:

• group portraits of soldiers
• camps and forts, especially Brandy Station and Petersburg, Virginia
• numerous views of military personnel and government buildings in Washington, D.C.
• portraits of the Lincoln conspirators and their execution

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LC-B8155

4 original wet plate glass negatives, approximately 5 x 7", 1860s.
Includes a portrait of General Robert E. Lee by Julian Vannerson and portraits of Maj. Gen. W. S. Harney and Gen. W. H. French.
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LC-B8156

44 original and copy negatives, 4-3/4 x 7-1/2", 1863.
Union soldiers at Folly and Morris islands during the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, photographed by Haas & Peale.
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LC-B8175

3 original glass plate negatives, 8 x 10" or smaller, 1864-1865.
Portraits of Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant.
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LC-BH822

25 original wet plate stereo pair negatives. These stereo negatives are sequenced so that the images can be viewed as three-dimensional ("3-D") images when seen through a viewer. (For information on resources for viewing digitized stereographs in 3-D, see "Viewing Online Stereographs in 3-D," in the "About the Stereographs" section of the online catalog.) Negatives by Samuel A. Cooley and others.
Civil War views:

• Union officer groups
• camp fortifications
• naval operations, etc.

LC-BH831

168 original wet plate glass negatives, 8 x 10", 1860-1865.
Civil War military and naval officers, with several portraits of General Robert E. Lee. Included in this series are Union generals C. C. Augur, Wm. F. Barry, Samuel S. Carroll, George Custer, Francis Blair and staff, Gordon Granger, Judson Kilpatrick, Ed. McCook, Alfred Pleasonton, Phil Sheridan and staff, and Admiral D. D. Porter.
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LC-BH84

10 wet plate negatives, 8 x 10" or smaller, 1860-1865.
Civil War views in:

• Alexandria and Petersburg, Virginia
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Washington Navy Yard

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Film Copy Negatives and Transparencies Made by the Library of Congress

LC-B8171

8 x 10 film copy negatives made by the Library from low contrast black & white prints from negatives in series B811, B815, and B817.
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LC-B8172

8 x 10 film copy negatives made by the Library from low contrast black & white copy prints made from original negatives in series LC-B813 and LC-B814.
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LC-B8184

8 x 10 film copy negatives made by the Library from prints from various sources.
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LC-USZ61

5 x 7 film copy negatives made by the Library from file prints.
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LC-USZ62

8 x 10 film copy negatives made by the Library from file prints.
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LC-USZC2

2 x 2 color slides made by the Library from file prints.
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LC-USZC4

4 x 5 color film transparencies made by the Library from file prints.
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LC-USZC6

8 x 10 color film transparencies made by the Library from file prints.
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