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RELATED RESOURCES AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESSMany rich resources relating to the Civil War exist in a variety of formats and locations at the Library of Congress. Selected holdings of the Prints and Photographs Division are highlighted below, as well as some of the resources (particularly online offerings) of other Library of Congress Divisions. Other institutions with strong Civil War holdings are also mentioned.Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)
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Photographs by Andrew J. Russell
Captain Andrew. J. Russell, of the 141st New York Infantry, was the first U.S. Army photographer. He worked under the direction of General Herman Haupt. General Haupt worked as chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad before he was appointed to the post of chief of construction and transportation for the United States Military Railroad during the Civil War. His troops repaired war-damaged railroad lines quickly, in order to facilitate the movement of soldiers and supplies.
Russell’s photographs document railroad maintenance and construction in Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Other views include military facilities in and around Washington, D.C., Maryland, and in Virginia, from Alexandria to Richmond and Petersburg.
Albumen and salted paper prints documenting the work of the United States Military Construction Corps between 1861 and 1865 have been scanned (281 images) and are available in the LOTs (groups) described below.
LOT 9209
82 salted paper prints showing military
construction and transportation in Northern Virginia
and other locations, attributed to Andrew J. Russell.
The photographs document some of Gen. Haupt’s
unusual designs for troop and supply conveyances
and show laborers, including African American
workers. [View
images and descriptions | View
group description]
LOT 4336
64 large-format albumen photographs made by Captain Andrew J. Russell for the U.S. Military Railroad Construction Corps., 1861-1865. Photographs are on their original mounts. Includes views related to the Civil War and images of Washington, D.C.; Alexandria, Virginia; and the surrounding area. Civil War views include troops near Fredericksburg and Falmouth, Virginia; the headquarters of Generals Meade and Beauregard; a telegraph station at Manassas; and scenes along the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. [View images and descriptions | View group description]
LOT 11486
146 albumen silver prints and 1 salted
paper print by Andrew J. Russell made under the direction
of Herman Haupt. Some images
are variants of those found in LOT 4336. Images
were mounted by the Library of Congress
many years ago. Some
of the images are accompanied by Gen.
Haupt's handwritten text.
Highlights include:
[View images and descriptions | View group description]
Other Groups of Photographs (LOTs)
LOT
4196
44 albumen silver prints by Haas & Peale in an
album entitled "Siege
of Charleston Illustrated: Views on Morris Island."
The lot also contains 23 mounted albumen silver prints
that duplicate images from the album and a complete
set of copy prints made by the Library.
LOT 4321
5 large-format albumen prints documenting troops, batteries, and artillery
in Port Hudson, Louisiana, 1863.
LOT 6271
12 cartes de visite, including a group portrait
of General Dodge's staff and headquarters, views
relating to the execution of a rebel spy, and studio
portraits of military personnel. Photographs by
George Armstead and Armstead & White
of Corinth, Mississippi.
LOT 6440
17 albumen cartes de visite from the series Views of the Rebel Capital
and Its Environs, copyright by Levy & Cohen. Includes views of the ruins
of Petersburg Bridge, Galego Flour Mills, and the Arsenal; residence of General
Lee; and Libby Prison.
LOT 6592
General John White Geary's carte de viste album. Geary served
as a general in the Civil War, commanding troops at Gettysburg. His album includes
numerous portraits of military personnel who served during the Civil War including
Nathaniel Banks, Henry A. Barnum, Jefferson Davis, Joseph Hooker, and a group
portrait of General Geary and his staff at Harper's Ferry.
LOT 7863
14 cartes de visite portraits of Confederate leaders, including Daniel
Coleman De Jarnette, James M. Mason, and Louis T. Wigfall
LOT 8751
Adolph G. Metzner's carte de visite photograph album. The album
contains 78 portraits, primarily members of the 32nd Indiana Infantry Regiment.
LOT 10432
An album with portraits of 44 U. S. Army officers who served during
the Civil War, including Generals Heintzelman, Lyon, and Sherman.
LOT 13461
47 Civil War stereographs of Charleston, Fort Sumter, and Fort Moultrie,
South Carolina, from the papers of Orlando M. Poe. Photographed by George N.
Barnard. Photographs show ruins and surviving structures in sections of Charleston;
houses along the Battery; street views, one taken at Vendue Range another at
Meeting Street; churches, including Catholic Cathedral and Circular Congregational
Church; cemeteries; ruins of a railway depot. Also includes exterior and interior
views of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie; one view of Fort
Beauregard
(taken from Fort Moultrie) and one of Fort Johnson.
LOT 13464
34 Civil War stereographs of Atlanta, Georgia, and Lookout Mountain,
Tennessee, from the papers of Orlando M. Poe. Attributed to George N. Barnard.
Includes views of Lookout Mountain; Umbrella Rock and Pulpit Rock; Rock Creek
Falls; one view of Orlando Poe and O.E. Babcock at Ft. Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn.
Views of Atlanta include Union and Confederate fortifications and entrenchments;
also some ruins of buildings; railroad facilities; the site where General McPherson
was killed; two views of Fort McAllister. Also includes one photograph of a grove
of oak trees at Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, Ga.
Brady Handy Collection
The Brady Handy Collection includes portrait photographs of individuals prominent during the Civil War period, sometimes taken after the Civil War. Military officers are sometimes depicted in uniform and sometimes in civilian clothes.
Case Books
Books, serials and published, bound portfolios assigned to the Prints and Photographs Division because they contain original
photographs, engravings, and other kinds of graphic materials. Among those relating to the Civil War are:
Gardner, Alexander. Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of
the Civil War.
Washington: Philp and Solomons, 1866.
The 100 photographs contained in Gardner's Sketch Book are
presented chronologically showing the major sites of conflict in Virginia,
Maryland,
and Pennsylvania. Every photograph is accompanied by a lengthy caption.
The photographers responsible for exposing the negatives as well as the
people who worked in
the darkroom to make the prints are credited.
Three copies of this two-volume set are in the collection of the Prints & Photographs
Division; the prints are identical with the exception of a few variants.
Call number: E468.7 G19 P&P Case; E468.7 G2 [P&P Case Y]
Barnard, George N. Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign.
NY: Press of Wynkopp & Hallenbeck, 1866.
Barnard's 61 photographs of Army operations in Tennessee, South Carolina,
and Georgia, document important places, notable battlefields, and military
works, such as bridges and fortifications along the route of Sherman's
campaign
to capture Atlanta, the railhead of the Confederacy.
Call number: E476.7.B24 [P&P Case Z]
PH Filing Series
9 panoramic photographs by George N. Barnard documenting Atlanta, Georgia,
before the fire and Civil War forts and bridges in Tennessee, 1864
[retrieve
items]
LOT 10618-5
14 nineteenth-century tobacco labels depicting battle scenes, zouaves,
and Union soldiers saluting the flag.
LOT 10618-6
11 nineteenth-century tobacco labels depicting Civil War generals, including
Anderson, Corcoran, Farragut, Grant, Joseph E. Johnson [i.e., Johnston], McClellan,
Sherman, and Stanley
Civil War Drawing Collection
The Civil War Drawing Collection contains more
than 2,000 sketches by the “Special Artists” who drew for the nation's
illustrated newspapers. Records for all the drawings, many accompanied by digital
images, are available online in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog as
part of
the Drawings (Documentary) group.
Popular Graphic Arts
The Popular Graphic Arts Collection comprises prints and illustrated
broadsides of historical, graphic and/or documentary importance.
Records for a large proportion of the collection
are available in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (see Popular
Graphic Arts Collection); many are accompanied by digital images.
The Civil War Maps collection contains approximately 2,240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks. They depict battles, troop positions and movements, engagements, and fortifications. Also included are reconnaissance maps, sketch maps, coastal charts, and theater of war maps. The collection contains printed, photoreproduced, annotated, and hand-drawn maps made between 1861 and 1865, and also maps made later to illustrate or explain specific events, movements, and battles of the war. The vast majority of the maps were prepared by Federal forces or by commercial firms in the North, but there are also a substantial number by Confederate military authorities and a few by Southern publishers. A portion of the collection may be viewed is available online as Civil War Maps.
The Manuscript Division holds more than one thousand collections relating to the Civil War, including the papers of Gen. George B. McClellan. Among their relevant online offerings are:
Washington
during the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865
Presents
three manuscript volumes, totaling 1,240 digital images, that document
daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson
Taft (1806-1888),
an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office. The diary details events in
Washington during the Civil War years including Taft's connection with
Abraham Lincoln
and his family. Of special interest is Taft's description of Lincoln's
assassination, based on the accounts of his friends and his son, who
was one of the attending
physicians at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, on April 14,
1865. Transcriptions
for all three volumes have been made by Library of Congress staff and
are available online along with the digital images.
James
Wadsworth Family Papers - Civil War photograph album, ca. 1861-65
John Hay, a personal secretary to President Abraham Lincoln
who later had a successful diplomatic and political career of his
own, is thought to have assembled the cartes de visites in this album.
Many of the two hundred individuals represented
in Hay's album, including numerous army and navy officers, politicians, and cultural
figures, were undoubtedly visitors to the Lincoln White House. Others, such as
Confederate president Jefferson Davis and generals Robert E. Lee
and James Longstreet, were unlikely to have called at
the Executive
Mansion. The album pages and the individual cartes de visite they contain are
available
as digital images as part of the Manuscript Division's Words and Deeds
in American
History.
The Gettysburg Address Drafts
Of the five known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address, the
Library of Congress has two.
Among the division's online offerings is Band Music from the Civil War Era, which makes available examples of a brilliant style of brass band music that flourished in the 1850s in the United States and remained popular through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War. This online collection includes both printed and manuscript music (mostly in the form of "part books" for individual instruments) selected from the collections of the Music Division of the Library of Congress and the Walter Dignam Collection of the Manchester Historic Association (Manchester, New Hampshire). The collection features over 700 musical compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded examples of brass band music in performance.
The Main Reading Room provides general reference assistance, particularly with the Library of Congress's book and periodical collections. Among their online reference aids is U.S. Civil War Regimental Histories in the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress does not maintain these sites. Users should direct concerns about these links to their respective site administrators or webmasters.
The National Archives, which is the repository for official government records, has extensive Civil War photograph holdings, some of which overlap with those of the Library of Congress.
Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer (Record Group 111) - In 1940 the National Archives acquired several thousand glass plate negatives by Mathew Brady and his associates. These negatives were originally purchased by the War Department from the Brady studio. The collection includes portraits of well-known Union and Confederate commanders of the war, President Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet officers, congressmen and senators, and other noted personalities of the time. In addition, the collection includes Union and Confederate naval vessels, railroads, supply dumps, hospitals, views of daily life in camp, and troops on the move.
Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs (Record Group 165) -- Includes photographs from Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War and images by Andrew J. Russell, Sam A. Cooley, and George N. Barnard.
The Smithsonian Institution houses an extraordinary array of Civil War artifacts in its museums and archives. They range in interest from personal effects—Abraham Lincoln's black beaver top hat—to examples of uniforms and weapons, some of which were manufactured in the tens of thousands. Topics included in their Web site are:
The New-York Historical Society's online Civil War resources include Civil War Treasures--materials drawn from twelve archival collections that are presented as part of the Library of Congress American Memory/Ameritech offerings. The online materials include:
The Museum has a large collection of copies of Civil War photographs found in Library of Congress and National Archives holdings. It also holds more than 310 "cased image" photographs of Confederate soldiers and Southern civilians.