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The Photographic' History of The Civil War

In Ten Volumes

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EViEW OF REVIEWS CO-

PREPARING FOR WAR— A COxNFEDERATE PHOTOGRAPH OF (il

Fliiriila Opens the Grim Game of War. On a sanily point at the entrance to Pensacola Bay over two hundred years ago, tlie Spaniards who so long held possession of what is now the Gulf coast of the United States had l)uiU a fort. On it.s site the United Slates Gov- ernment had erected a strong fortification called Fort Barrancas. Between this point and a low-lying sandy island directly opposite, any vessels going up to Pensacola must pass. On the western end of this island was the strongly built Fort Pickens. Early in 1881 both forts were practically ungarrisoned. This remarkable picture, taken by the New Orleans photographer Edwards, in l-'ebruary, ISei, belongs to a .series liitherto unpublished. Out of the deep shadows of the sally port we look into the glaring sunlight upon one of the earliest warlike moves. Here we see one of the heavy pieces of ordnance that were intended to defend the harbor from foreign foes, being shifted jireparatory to being mounted on the rampart at Fort Barrancas, which, since January 12th, had been in possession of State troops. Fort Pickens, held by a mere handful of men under Lieutenant Slemmer, still flew the Stars and Stripes. But the move of State troops under orders from Governor Perry of Florida, in seizing Fort Barrancas and raising the State flag even before the shot that aroused the nation at Fort Siniiter, inaj- well be said to have helped force the crisis that was impending.

^mi-Ci?ntennial Mtmt>v%ai

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The Photographic History of The Civil War

In Ten Volumes

Francis Trevelyan Miller - editoh-in-Chiep Robert S. Lanier

Managing Editor \

Thousands of Scenes Photographed

1861-65, with Text by many

Special Authorities

New York The Revie\v of Reviews Co.

1911 ^

'//

The Photographic History of The Civil War

In Ten Volumes

Volume One Tlie Opening Battles

Contributors

William H. Taft

I'resident of the United States

HeNKY WySHAM I.ANIER

Art Editor and Publisher

Eben' Swift

Lieutenant-Colonel, U. S. A.

FuEXCH E. Chadwick

Rear -Admiral, U. S. N.

George Haven Putnam

Major, U. S. V.

Marcus J. Wright

Brigadier-General, C. S. A.

Henry' W. Elson

Professor of History, Ohio University

James Barnes

Author of "David G. Farragut"

New York

The Review of Reviews Cd:''"'^"-* ''>:'' V ion

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC-LIBRARY

843384 4

ASTOB. LENOX AND

I TILDEN FOUNI R 1836

NOX AND j-NDATlONSl 36 t. \

Copyright, 1911, by Patriot Publishing Co., Springfield, Mass.

all rights reserved, including that of translation - into foreign languages, including the scandinavian

Printed in New York, U;S.A.

THE TROW PRESS NEW YORK

CONTENTS

PAGE

Map — Battle Grounds of the Civil War 2

Frontispiece — Preparing for War 4

FOREWORDS

Greeting 12

President Tuft

Dedication 13

Acknowledgment 14

The Publishers

Editorial Introductory 15

Francis Trcrchjun Miller

PREFACES

Photographing the Ci\il War 30

Henry Wysham Lanier

The Photographic Record as History 60

George Haven Putnam

The Federal Navy and the South 88

French E. Chadtvick

Records of the War Between the States 102

Marcus J. Wright

The Strategy* of the Civil War Leaders • .112

Eben Swift

Part I

THE FIRST OF THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS 137

Henry W. Elson

Bull Run — The Volunteers Face Fire 142

[9]

OlmttrutB

Part II

PAGE

DOWN THE ^MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 171

The Fall of Fort Henry axd Fort Doxelson ....... 178

Henry W. Eltson

Shiloh — The P'irst (Irand Battle 196

Henry IT. FA son

New Madrid and Island Number Ten . . . - . . . . . . 216

Henry IT. Elsun

New Orleans — The Navy Helps the Army ........ 226

James Burne.^

Fort Pillow and ^Memphis — Gunboats and Batteries ..... 236 Henry W. Ebon

Part III

THE STRUGGLE FOR RICHMOND .......... 251

Henry W. ELwn

YoRKTowN — Up the Peninsula . 254

Fair Oaks — In Sioht of Richmond 282

The Shenandoah and the Alarm at Washixoton 304

Seven Days — The Confederate Capital Saved . . . . . .311

Part IV

ENGAGEMENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR UP TO JULY, 1S(!2 . . . .345 Genrge A. Kilmer

Map — Theater of Campaigns in Virginia ......... 369

Photo(;raph Descriptions Throughout this \'olume Jatnes lirirnes

[10]

F O R E W O R D S

GREETING FR0:M PRESIDENT TAFT

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTORY

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINOTON

We have reached a point In this country when we can look back, not without love, not without intense pride, but without partisan passion, to the events of the Civil War. We have reached a point, I am glad to say, when the North can admire to the full the heroes of the South, and the South admire to the full the heroes of the North. There is a monument in Quebec that always commended itself to me - a monument to ccm- memorate the battle of the Plains of Abraham, On one face of that beautiful structure is the name of Montcalm, and on the opposite side the name of Wolfe. That always seemed to me to be the acme of what we ought to reach in this country; and I am glad to say that in ray own alma mater, Yale, we have established an association for the purpose of erecting v?ithin her academic precincts a memorial not to the Northern Tale men who died, nor to the Southern Tale men who died; but to the Yale jnen who died in the Civil War,

BeDicatcl)

FIFTY YEARS AFTER

FORT SUMTER

TO THE MEN IN BLUE AND GRAY

WHOSE VALOR AND DEVOTION

HAVE BECOME THE

PRICELESS HERITAGE

OF A UNITED

NATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

To Mr. Francis Trevclyan Miller the jjiihlishers of these books must confess an ohliKatioii quite apart from the usual editorial services. Seldom indeed has it been ])ossibIe to construct the text of such an extended history in accordance with a single broad idea. Yet it is true that the contributions throughout the entire ten volumes of the PiioTOORAi'Hic History are a direct outgrowth of the ])lan created years ago by Mr. Miller, and urged since by him with constant faith in its national importance — to emphasize in comprehensive form those deeds and words from the mighty struggle that strike universal, noble human chords. This was a conception so straightforward and so inspiring that the opportunity to give it the present embodiment has become a lasting privilege.

Readers as well as publishers are also indebted to the collectors, historical societies, and others who ha\'e furnished hundreds of long-treasured photographs, unwilling that the History should apjiear without presenting many important scenes of which no actual illustrations had ever before been available to the jiublic. Hence the Civil War-time photographs in the present work are not only several times as numerous as those in any previous publication, but also include many hundreds of scenes that will come as a reve- lation even to historians and sjjecial scholars — photographs taken within the lines of the Confederate armies and of the hosts in the Mississippi Valley, whose fighting was no less momentous than the Eastern battles, but in the nature of things could not be as (juickly or as fully heralded. With these additions to the "Brady-Oardner" collection — the loss and rediscovery of which ]\Ir. Henry Wysham Lanier's introductory narrates — it is now possible for the first time to present comprehensively the men and scenes and types of the American epic, in photograjAs.

Deep acknowledgment is due the owners of indispensable pictures who have so gen- erously contril)uted them for this purpose. Especial mention must be given to: Mrs. W. K. Bachman; Mr. William Beer; Mr. James Blair, C. S. A.; Mr. George A. Brackett; Mr. Edward Bromley ;^Ii. John C. Browne ; Captain Joseph T. Burke, C. S. A.; Captain F. M. Colston, C. S. A.; Colonel E. J. Copp, U. S. V.; Colonel S. A. Cunningham, C. S. A.; The Daughters of the Confederacy; Mr. Charles Frankel; Mr. Edgar R. Harlan; Colonel Chas. R. E. Koch, U. S. v.; Miss Isabel Maury; Mr. F. H. Meserve; The Military Order of the I-oyal Legion; Colonel John P. Nicholson, IJ. S. V.; General Harrison Gray Otis, U. S. V.; Captain F. A. Roziene, U. S. A.; General G. P. Thruston, U. S. V.; The University of South Carolina; The Washington Artillery, and the various State historical departments, state and government bureaus, military and patriotic organizations which courteously suspended their rules, in order that the photographic treasures in their archives should become available for the present record.

[HI

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTORY

ON this semi-centennial of the American Civil War — the war of the modern Roses in the Western World — these volumes are dedicatetl to the American people in tribute to the courage and the valor with which they met one of the greatest crises that a nation has ever known — a crisis that changed the course of civilization. We look back at Napoleon through the glamor of time, without fully realizing that here on our own continent are liattle-grounds more noble in their purport than all the wars of the ancient regimes. The decades have shrouded the first American Revolution in romance, but the time has now come when this second American revolution, at the turning point of its first half century, is to become an American epic in which nearly three and a half million men gathered on the battle-line to offer their lives for principles that were dear to them.

It is as an American "Battle Abbey" that these pages are opened on this anniversary, so that the eyes of the generations may look ujron the actual scenes — not upon the tar- nished muskets, the silenced caimon, nor the battle-stained flag, but upon the warriors themselves standing on the firing-line in the heroic struggle when the hosts of the North and the legions of the South met on the battle-grounds of a nation's ideals, with the destiny of a continent hanging in the balance. And what a tribute it is to American character to be able to gather al)out these i)ages in peace and brotherhood, without malice and without dissension, within a generation from the greatest fratricidal tragedy in the annals of man- kind. The vision is no longer blinded by heart wounds, but as Americans we can see only the heroic self-sacrifice of these men who battled for the decision of one of the world's greatest proljlems.

In this first volume, standing literally before the open door to the "Battle Abbey," in which the vision of war is to be revealed in all its reality, I take this privilege to refer briefly to a few of the intinuite desires that have led to this re\elation of The Photo- graphic History of the Civil War. As one stands in the library of the War Department at Washington, or before the archives of the American libraries, he feels that the last word of evidence must have been recorded. Nearly seven thousand treatises, containing varying viewpoints relating to this epoch in our national development, have been written —so Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian at the Congressional Library at Washington, tells me; while in my home city of Hartford, which is a typical American community, I find nearly two thousand works similar to those that are within the reach of all the American people in every part of the country.

With this great inheritance before us, military writers have informed me that they cannot understand why the American people have been so little interested in this remarkable war. Great generals have told how they led their magnificent armies in battle; military tacticians have mapped and recorded the movements of regiments and cor[)s with tech-

[15]

Ottflrial 31utr0burtnrij

nical accuracy, and historians have faithfully discussed the causes and the effects of this strange crisis in civilization — all of which is a permanent tribute to American scholar- ship. I have come to the conclusion that the lack of popular interest is because this is not a military nation. The great heart of American citizenship knows little of military maneuver, which is a science that requires either life-study or tradition to cultivate an interest in it.

The Americans arc a peace-loving people, but when once aroused they are a mighty moral and physical fighting force. It is not their love for the art of war that has caused them to take up arms. It is the impulse of justice that permeates the Western World. The American people feel the i)ulse of life itself; they love the greater emotions that cause men to meet danger face to face. Their hearts beat to the martial strain of the national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner" and they feel the melody in that old Mar- seillaise of the Confederacy, " Dixie, " for in them they catch mental visions of the sweep- ing lines under floating banners at the battle-front; they hear the roar of tlie guns and the clatter of cavalry; but more than that — they feel again the spirit that leads men to throw themselves into the cannon's flame.

The Photographic History of the Civil War comes on this anniversary to witness a people's valor; to testify in photograph to the true story of how a devoted people whose fathers had stood shoulder to shoulder for the ideal of liberty in the American Revolution, who liad issued to the world the declaration that all men are created politically free and equal, who had fornuilated the Constitution that dethroned mediseval monarchy and founded a new republic to bring new hope to the races of the earth — parted at the dividing line of a great economic j)roI)lem and stood arrayed against each other in the greatest fratricidal tragedy that the world has ever witnessed, only to be reunited and to stand, fifty years later, hand in hand for the betterment of mankind, pledging themselves to universal peace and brotherhood.

This is the American epic that is told in these time-stained photographs — an epic which in romance and chivalry is more inspiring than that of the olden knighthood; brother against brother, father against son, men speaking the same language, living under the same flag, ott'ering their lives for that which they believed to be right. No Grecian phalanx or Roman legion ever knew truer manhood than in those days on the American continent when the Anglo-Saxon met Anglo-Saxon in the decision of a constitutional princii)le that beset their beloved nation. It was more than Napoleonic, for its warriors battled for principle rather than conquest, for right rather than power.

This is the spirit of these volumes, and it seems to me that it must be the spirit of every true American. It is the sacred heritage of Anglo-Saxon freedom won at Runny- mede. I recall General Gordon, an American who turned the defeat of war into the vic- tory of citizenship in peace, once saying: "What else could be expected of a people in whose veins conuningled the blood of the proud cavaliers of England, the blood of those devout and resolute men who protested against the grinding exactions of the Stuarts; the blood of the stalwart Dissenters and of the heroic Highlanders of Scotland, and of

116]

©1)0 jpi)ntu9ra^jl|tr iifiBtDrg of tIn^ (Etuil Uar

the sturdy Presbyterians of Ireland; the blood of those defenders of freedom who came from the mountain battlements of Switzerland, whose signal lights summoned her people to gather to their breasts the armfuls of spears to make way for liberty. " It was a great battle-line of Puritan, of Huguenot, of Protestant, of Catholic, of Teuton, and Celt — every nation and every religion throwing its sacrifice on the altar of civilization.

The causes of the American Civil War will always be subject to academic controversy, each side arguing conscientiously from its own viewpoint. It is unnecessary to linger in these pages over the centuries of economic growth that came to a crisis in the American nation. In the light of modern historical understanding it was the inevitable result of a sociological system that had come down through the ages before there was a republic on the Western continent, and which finally came to a focus through the conflicting interests that developed in the upbuilding of American civilization. When Jeflferson and Madison construed our constitution in one wa.y, and Washington and Hamilton in another, surely it is not strange that their descendants should have differed. There is glory enough for all — for North, for South, for East, for West, on these battle-grounds of a people's tra- ditions— a grander cmijire than Ciesar's legions won for Rome.

To feel the impulse of both the North and the South is the desire of these volumes. When, some years ago, I left the portals of Trinity College, in the old abolition town of Hartford, Conn., to enter the halls of Washington and Lee University in historic Lexing- ton in the hills of Virginia, I felt for the first time as a Northerner, indigenous to the soil, what it means to be a Southerner. I, who had bowed my head from childhood to the greatness of Grant, looked u|)on my friends bowing their heads before the mausoleum of Lee. I stood with them as they laid the April flowers on the graves of their dead, and I felt the heart-beat of the Confederacy. When I returned to my New England home it was to lay the laurel and the May flowers on the graves of my dead, and I felt the heart-beat of the Republic — more than that, I felt the impulse of humanity and the greatness of all men.

When I now turn these pages I realize what a magnificent thing it is to have lived; how wonderful is man and his power to blaze the path for progress ! I am proud that my heritage runs back through nearly three hundred years to the men who planted the seed of liberty in the New World into which is flowing the blood of the great races of the earth; a nation whose sinews are built from the strong men of the ages, and in whose hearts beat the impulses that have insj)ired the centuries — a composite of the courage, the per- severance, and the fortitude of the world's oldest races, commingled into one great throb- bing body. It is a young race, but its exploits have equalled those of the heroic age in thfe Grecian legends and surpass Leonidas and his three hundred at Thermopylae.

In full recognition of the masterly works of military authorities that now exist as in- valuable historical evidence, these volumes present the American Civil War from an en- tirely original viewpoint. The collection of photographs is in itself a sufficient contribution to military and historical record, and the text is designed to present the mental pictures of the inspiring pageantry in the war between the Red and the White Roses in America, its human impulses, and the ideals that it represents in the heart of humanity.

[17]

lElittortal diutrolmrtoni

The military movements of the armies have been exhaustively studied properly to stage the great scenes that are herein enacted, but the routine that may burden the memt ry or detract from the broader, martial picture that lies before the reader has been purposely avoided. It is the desire to leave impressions rather than statistics; mental visions ai d human inspiration rather than military knowledge, especially as the latter is now so abun- dant in American literature. In every detail the contradictory evidence of the many authorities has been weighed carefully to present the narrative fairly and impartially. It is so conflicting regarding numbers in battle and killed and wounded that the Government records have been followed, as closely as possible.

The hand of the historian may falter, or his judgment may fail, but the final record of the American Civil War is told in these time-dimmed negatives. The reader may con- scientiously disagree with the text, but we must all be of one and the same mind when we look upon the photographic evidence. It is in these photographs that all Americans can meet on the common ground of their beloved traditions. Here we are all united at the shrine where our fathers fought — Northerners or Southerners — and here the generations may look upon the undying record of the valor of those who fought to maintain the Union and those who fought for independence from it — each according to his own interpretation of the Constitution that bound them into a great republic of states.

These photographs are appeals to peace; they are the most convincing evidence of the tragedy of war. They bring it before the generations so impressively that one begins to understand the meaning of the great movement for universal brotherhood that is now passing through the civilized world. Mr. William Short, the secretary of the New York Peace Society, in speaking of them, truly says that they are the greatest arguments for peace that the world has ever .seen. Their mission is more than to record history; it is to make history — to mould the thought of the generations as everlasting witnesses of the price of war.

As the founder of this memorial library, and its editor-in-chief, it is my pleasure to give historical record to Mr. Edward Bailey Eaton, Mr. Herbert Myrick, and Mr. J. Frank Drake, of the Patriot Publishing Company, of Springfield, Mass., owners of the largest private collection of original Brady-Gardner Ci\il War negatives in existence, by whom this work was inaugurated, and to Mr. Egbert Gilliss Handy, president of The Search-Light Library of New York, through whom it was organized for its present develop- ment by the Review of Reviews Company. These institutions have all co-operated to realize the national and impartial conception of this work. The result, we hope, is a more friendly, fair, and intimate picture of America's greatest sorrow and greatest glory than has perhaps been possible under the conditions that preceded this semi-centennial anniversary.

To President William Howard Taft, who has extended his autographed message to the North and the South, the editors take pleasure in recording their deep appreciation; also to Generals Sickles and Buckner, the oldest surviving generals in the Federal and Con- federate armies, respectively, on this anniversary; to General Frederick Dent Grant and

[18]

General G. W. Custis Lee, the sons of the great warriors who led the armies through the American Crisis; to the Honorable Robert Todd Lincoln, former Secretary of War; to James W. Cheney, Librarian in the War Department at Washington; to Dr. Edward S. Holden, Librarian at the United States Military Academy at West Point, for their con- sideration and advice, and to the officers of the Grand Army of the Repul)lic, the Military Order of the Loj'al Legion, the United Confederate Veterans, the Daughters of the Con- federacy, and the other memorial organizations that have shown an appreciation of the intent of this work. We are especially indebted to Mr. John McElroy, editor of the Na- tional Tribune; General Bennett H. Young, the historian of the United Confederate Vet- erans; General Grenville M. Dodge; Col;)nel S. A. Cunningham, founder and editor of the Confederate Veteran, General Irvine Walker, General William E. Mickle, and to the many others who, in their understanding and appreciation have rendered ^•ahlable assistance in the realization of its special mission to the American people on this semi-centennial.

This preface should not close without a final word as to the difficulty of the {)roblems that confronted the military, historical, and other authorities whose contributions have made the text of The Photographic History of the Civil W.\r, whose names are signed to their historical contributions throughout these volumes, and tlie spirit in which, work- ing with the editorial staff of the Review of Reviews, they have met these problems. The impossibility of deciding finally the difference of opinion in the movements of the Civil War has been generously recognized. With all personal and partisan arguments have been set aside in the universal and hearty effort of all concerned to fulfil the obliga- tions of this work. I ask further privilege to extend my gratitude to my personal assist- ants, Mr. Walter R. Bickford, Mr. Arthur Forrest Burns, and Mr. Wallace H. Miller.

And now, as we stand to-day, fellowmen in the great republic that is carrying the torch in the foreranks of the world's civilization, let us clasp hands across the long-gone years as reunited Americans. I can close these introductory words with no nobler tribute than those of the mighty warriors who led the great armies to battle. It was General Robert E. Lee who, after the war, gave this advice to a Virginia mother, "Abandon all these animosities and make your sons Americans," and General Ulysses S. Grant, whose appeal to his countrymen must always be an admonition against war: "Let us have peace."

FRANCIS TREVELYAN MILLER,

Editor-in-Chief.

Hartford, Connecticut, Fiftieth Anniversary Lincoln's Inauguration.

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FIRST PREFACE

PHOTOGRAPHING

THE

CIVIL WAR

the war photographer brady (wearing straw hat) with genekal burnside (reading newspa- per)— TAKEN while BURNSIDE WAS IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, EARLY IN 1863, AFTER HIS ILL-FATED ATTACK ON FREDERICKSBURG

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the wab photographer brady (wearing straw hat) with general burnside (reading newspa- per)— TAKEN WHILE BURNSIDE WAS IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, EARLY IN 1863, AFTER HIS ILL-FATED ATTACK ON FREDERICKSBURG

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THE FLANKING GUN

This remarkably spirited photograph of Battery D, Second U. S. Artillery, was, aeccjrding to the photof^rapher's aeeoiint, taken just as the battery was loading to engage with the Confederates. The order, "cannoneers to your posts," had just been given, and the men, running up, called to the photographer to hurry

his wagon out of the way unless he wished to gain a place for his name in the list of casualties In June, lS(i;i, the Sixth Corps had matie its third successful crossing of the Uappahannock, as the aflvance of Hooker's movement against Lee. Battery D at once took position with other artillery out in the fields near the

"COOPERS BATTERS " (SEE PACE :i'2J

This is another photograph taken under fire and shows us Battery B, First Pennsylvania Light Artillery, in action before Petersburg, 1864. Brady, the veteran photographer, obtained permis- sion to take a picture of "Cooper's Battery," in position for battle. The first attempt provoked the fire of the Confederates, 122]

who supposed that the running forward of the artillerists was with hostile intent. The Confederate guns frightened Brady s horse which ran off with his wagon and his assistant, upsetting and destroying his chemicals. In the picture to the left, Captain James H. Cooper himself is seen leaning on a sword at the

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niliis of the Mansfield house. In the rear of the battery the veteran \'iTmont brigade was acting as support. To tlieir rear was the li.mk of the river skirted l)y trees. The grove of white poplars to the right surrounded the Mansfield house. With characteristic coolness, some of the troops had already pitched

their dog tents. Better protection was soon afforded by the strong line of earthworks which was thrown up and occui)ied by the Sixth Corps. Rattery D was present ai the first battle of Bull Run, where the Confederates there engaged got a taste of its metal on the Federal left

READV TO OPEN FIRE

Copyriuld by Rtvit'W oj Reviews Co.

extreme right. Lieutenant Miller is the second figure from the left. Lieutenant Alcorn is next, to the left from Captain Cooper. Lieutenant James A. Gardner, just behind the prominent figure with the haversack in the right section of the picture, iflentified these members almost forty-seven years after the picture was

taken. This Pennsylvania battery suffered greater loss than any other volunteer I'niun battery; its record of casualties includes twenty-one killed and flied of wounds, anfl fifty-two wounded — convincing testimony of the fact that throughout the war its men stood bravely to their guns.

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A WASHINGTON BELLE IN CAMP

From Bull Run to Gettysburg the Federal capital was repeatedly threatened by the adwances of the Confederates, and strong camps for the defense of Washington were maintained throughout the war. It was the smart tiling for the ladies of the capital to invade these outlying camps, and they were always welcomed by the officers weary of continuous guard-duty. Here the camera has caught the willing subject in handsome Kate Chase Sprague, who became a belle of official society in Washington during the war. She was the daughter of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of tlie Treasury. At this time .she was the wife of Governor William Sprague, of Rhode Island, and was being entertained in camp by General J. J. Abercrombie, an officer of the regular army, well known in the capital.

[281

Copyright by Review of Reviews Co.

A HORSE AND RIDER THAT WILL LIVE

Here is an extraordinary photograph of a spirited charger taken half a century ago. This noble beast is the mount of Lieut. -Col. C. B. Norton, and was photographed at General Fitz John Porter's headquarters. The rider is Colonel Norton himself. Such clear definition of every feature of man and horse might well be the envy of modern photography, which does not achieve such depth without fast lenses, focal-plane shutters, and instantaneous dry plates, which can be developed at leisure. Here the old-time wet-plate process has preserved every detail. To secure results like this it was necessary to sensitize the plate just before exposing it, uncap the lens by hand, and develop the negative within five minutes after the exposure.

■

OM

-:ix.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE CIVIL WAR

By Henry ^^'^YSHAM Lanier

EXTRAORDINARY as tlie fact seems, the American Civil ^Var is the only great war of which we have an ade(niate history in pliotograjjhs: that is to say, this is tlie only conflict of the first magnitude^ in the world's history that can he really " illustrated." with a pictorial record which is indisjjutahly authentic, vividly illuminating, and the final evi- dence in any question of detail.

Here is a much more important historical fact than the casual reader realizes. The earliest records we have of the human race are purely pictorial. History, even of the most shadowy and legendary sort, goes l)ack hardly more than ten thousand years. But in recent years there have been recov- ered in certain caves of France scratched and carved bone wea])ons and rough wall-paintings which tell us some dra- matic events in the lives of men who lived probably a hundred thousand years before the earliest of those seven strata of ancient Troy, which indefatigable archeologists have exposed to the wondering gaze of the modern world. The jiictiu-e came long before the written record; nearly all our knowledge of ancient Babylonia and Assyria is gleaned from the details left by some picture-maker. And it is still infinitely more eft'ective an apjieal. How impossible it is for the average person to get any clear idea of the great struggles which altered the destinies of nations and which occupy so large a portion of world history! How can a man to-day really iniderstand the siege of Troy, the battles of Therniopylaj or Salamis, Han- nibal's crossing of the Alps, the famous fight at Tours ^vhen Charles " the Hammer " checked the Saracens, the Norman

' There have been, of course, only two wars of this description since 1865: the Franco-Prussian AYar was, for some reason, not followed by camera men; fiiid tlie marvellously exj)ert photographers who flocked to the struggles between Russia and Japan were not given any chance by the Japanese authorities to make anything like an adequate record.

[301

The indomitable war photographer in the very costume which math' him a faraiUar figure at the first battle of Bull Run, from whicli he returned precipitately to New York after his initial attempt to put into practice his scheme for picturing the war. Brady was a Cork Irishman by birth and pos sessed of all the active tempera ment which such an origin implies At Bull Rim he was in the thick of things. Later in the day. Brady himself was compelled to flee, and at nightfall of that fatal Sunday, alone and unarmed, he lost his way in the woods near the stream from which the battle takes its name. Here he was found by some of the famous com- pany of New York Fire Depart- ment Zouaves, who gave liim a sword for his defense. Buckling it on beneath his linen duster, Brady made his way to Washington and thence to New Y'ork. In the pic- ture we see him still proudly wear- ing the weapon which he was pre- pared to use for the protection of himself and his precious negatives.

CafiijrUlhl ha Re

BRADY, AFTER BULL RUN

of Reviews Co.

Below is the gallery of A. D. Lytic — a Confederate photogra- pher— as it stood on Main Street, Baton Rouge, in 180-1, when in the employ of the Confederate Secret Service Lytle trained his camera upon the Federal army which occu- pied Baton Rouge. It was indeed dangerous work, as discovery of his [)urpose would have visited upon the photographer the fate of a spy. Lytic would steal secretly up the Observation Tower, which had been built on the ruins of the capi- tol, and often exposed to rifle shots from the Federals, would with flag orlantern signal totheConfederates at Scott's Bluff, whence the news was relayed to New Orleans, and provision made for smuggling the precious prints tlu-ough the lines. Like Brady, Lytle obtained his photographic supplies from An- thony & Company of New York; but unlike Cook of Charleston, he did not have to depend upon con- traband traffic to secure them, but got them passed on the " orders to trade" issued ciuite freely in the West by the Federal Government.

Cnpyriiiht hy Reriew of Reviews Co.

THE GALLERY OF A CONFEDERATE SECRET-SERVICE PHOTOGRAPHER. BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, 1864

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[}iitti^v<x\i\}\na, tl^^ (Etittl War ^ -^ 4- ^

conquest of England, the Hundred Years' or Thirty Years' Wars, even our own seven-year struggle for liberty, without any first-liand picture-aids to start the imagination? Take the comparatively modern Napoleonic wars Avhere, moreover, there is an excejjtional wealtli of j^aintings, drawings, prints, and lithographs by contemporary men: iii most cases the effect is simjjly one of keen disappointment at the painfully evident fact that most of these worthy artists never saw a battle or a cam]).

So the statement that there have been gathered together thousands of plioto^raphs of scenes on land and Avater during those momentous years of 18(31 to 1865 means that for our generation and all succeeding ones, the Civil War is on a basis different from all others, is practically an open book to old and young. For when man achieved the photograph he took almost as important a step forward as when he discovered how to make tire: he made scenes and events and personalities immortal. The greatest literary genius might write a volume without giving you so intimate a comprehension of the strug- gle before Petersburg as do these exact records, made by adventurous camera-men under incredilile difficulties, and hold- ing calmly l)efore your eyes the very Reality itself.

To apply this pictorial principle, let us look at one remarkable photograph. Cooper's Battery in front of the Avery house, during the siege of Petersburg, of which we liave, by a lucky chance, an account from one of the men in the scene. The lifelikeness of the picture is beyond praise: one cannot help living through this tense moment Avith these men of long ago, and one's eyes instinctively follow their fixed gaze toward the lines of the foe. This picture y^as shown to Lieutenant James A. Gardner (of Battery B, First Penn- sylvania Light Artillery), who immediately named half a dozen of the figures est ( see pages 22 and 23

1 am, even at this late day, able to pick out and recognize a very large number of the members of our battery, as shown in this photograpli. Our battery (famibarly known as Cooper's Battery) belonged to the Fifth Corps, then commanded by Gen. G. K. Warren.

Our corps arrived in front of Petersburg on June 17, 1864, was put into position on the evening of that day, and engaged the Confederate batteries on their line near the xVvery house. The enemy at tliat time

[32

adding details of the most intimate inter-

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Here are two excellent views in which we see the conditions under which the array photographer worked in the field. The larger picture is of Barnard, the Government photographer under Captain O. M. Poe, Chief Engineer of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Barnard was engaged to take photographs of the new Federal fortifications being constructed under Captain Poe's direction at Atlanta, September-October, 1864. Captain Poe found the old Confederate line of defense of too great extent to be held by such a force as Sherman intended to leave as garrison of the town. Consequently, he selected a new line of much shorter development which passed through the northern part of the town, making necessary the destruction of many buildings in that quarter. Barnard is here at work sensitizing his plates in a light-proof tent, making his exposures, and developing immedi- ately within the tent. His chemicals and general supplies were carried in the w.Tgon showing to the right. Thus, as the pioneer corps worked on the forti- fications the entire series of photographs showing their progress was made to be forwarded later to Washington by Captain

I'HE PH()T(K;UAPIIEH with TIH. AK.\1\ nunvldby Re,.

Poe, with his official r(>|)ort. In the background we see the battle-field where began the engagement of July ii, 1864, known as the battle of Atlanta, in which General McPherson lost his life. Thus Brady and all the war photographers worked right up to the trenches, lugging their cumbersome tents and apparatus, often running out of supplies or carrying hundreds of glass plates over rough roads or exposed to possible shells. To the many chances of failure was added that of being at any time picked off by some sharpshooter. In the smaller picture appears a duplicate of Brady's " What-Is-It, " being the dark-room buggy of Photographer Wearn. In the back- ground are the ruins of the State Armory at Columbia, South Carolina. This was

RUINS OF STATE AUxMORY. COLUMBIA, 1865

burned as Sherman's troops pa.ssed through the city on their famous march through the Caro- linas, February, 1865. The photographer, bring- ing up the rear, has pre- served the result of Sherman's work, which is typical of that done by him all along the line of march to render use- less to the Confederate ar- mies in the field, the mili- tary resources of the South.

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was commanded by General Beauregard. That night the enemy fell back to tlieir tliird line, which then occupied the ridge whicli you see to the riglit and front, along wliere you will notice tlie ciiimney (the houses had been burnt down). On the night of the 18th we threw up the lunettes in front of our guns. This position was occupied by us until possibly about the 23d or !24th of June, when we were taken further to the left. Tlie position shown in the picture is about six Juuidred and fifty yards in front, and to tlie right of the Avery house, and at or near tliis point was built a permanent fort or battery, which was used continuously dur- ing the entire siege of Petersburg.

While occupying this position, Mr. Brady took the photographs, copies of which you have sent me. The pliotographs were taken in the forenoon of June 21, 1861;. I know myself, merely from the position that I occupied at chat time, as gunner. After that, I served as ser- geant, first sergeant, and first lieutenant, holding the latter position at tlie close of tiie war. All the officers shown in this picture are dead.

The movement in which we were engaged was the advance of the Army of the Potomac upon Petersburg, being the beginning of opera- tions in front of tjiat city. On June 18th tlie division of tlie Confederates which was opposite us was that of Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson ; but as the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Lee, began arriving on tlie evening of June 18th, it would be impossible for me to say who occupied the enemy's lines after that. The enemy's position, which was along on tlie ridge to the front, in the picture, where you see the chimney, after- ward became the main line of the Union army. Our lines were advanced to that point, and at or about where you see the chimney standing, Fort IMorton of the Union line was constructed, and a little farther to the right was Fort Stednian, on the same ridge ; and about where the battery now stands, as shown in the picture, was a small fort or works erected, known as Battery Seventeen.

When engaged in action, our men exhibited the same coolness that is shown in the picture — that is, wliilo loading our guns. If the enemy is engaging us, as soon as each gun is loaded tiie cannoneers drop to the ground and protect themselves as best they can, except the gunners and the officers, who are expected to be always on the lookout. The gunners are the corporals who sight and direct the firing of the guns.

In tlie pliotograpli you will notice a ]>erson (in civilian's clothes). This is j\Ir. Brady or his assistant, but I think it is Mr. Brady himself.

It is now almost forty-seven years since the photographs were taken, yet I am able to designate at least fifteen persons of our bat- tery, and point tliem out. I should have said tliat i\Ir. Brady took picture No. 1 from a point a little to the left, and front, of our battery ; and the second one was taken a little to the rear, and left, of the battery. Petersburg lay innnediately over the ridge in the front, right over past

[341

i^^^S^SSE:

ijright by Patriot I'uh. Co.

THE FIELD UARK-ROUM

Here we get an excellent idea of how the business of army pliotog- rapliy, invented by Brady and first exemphfied by him at Bull Run, had become organized toward the close of the war. In the lower picture we see the outfit with which Samuel A. Cooley fol- lowed the fortunes of the campaigners, and recorded for all time the stirring events aroimd Savannah at the completion of the March to the Sea. Cooley was attached to the Tenth Corps, United States Army, and secured photographs at Jackson- \ille. St. .\ugustine, Beaufort, and Charleston during the bom- bardment. Here he is in the act of making an exposure. Tin- huge camera and plate-holder seem to eyes of the present day far too cumbersome to make possible the wonderful defini- tion and beautiful effects of light and shade which charac- terize the war-time negatives that have come down to us through the vicissitudes of half a century. Here are Cooler's two means of transportation.

The wagon fitted to carry the THE CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHERS' IMPEDIMENTA

[a-31

supply of chemicals, glass plates, and the precious finished negatives includes a compartment for more leisurely developing. The litMe dark-room buggy to the left was used upon occasions when it was necessary for the army photographer to proceed in light marching order. In the smaller picture we see again the light-proof devel- oping tent in action before the ramparts of Fort McAllister. The view is of the exterior of the fort fronting the Savannah River. .\ few days before the Confederate guns had frowned

darkly from the parapet at Sherman's "bummers," who could see the smoke of the Federal gunboats waiting to welcome them just beyond. With Sherman looking proudly (in, the footsore and himgry soldiers rushed forward to the attack, and the Stars and Stripes were soon floating over ' this vast barrier between them and the sea. The next morning, Christmas Day, 1864, the gun- boats and transports steamed up the river and the joyful news was flashed northward.

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tlie man whom you see sitting tliere so leisurely on the earthworks tln'own up.

A notice in Humiihreifs Journal in 1861 describes vividly the records of tlie flight after Bull Run secured by the inde- fatigable Brady. Unfortunately the unicjue one in which the reviewer identifled " Bull Riui " Russell in reverse action is lost to the world. ]Jut we have the portrait of Brady himself three days later in his famous linen duster, as he returned to Washington. His story comes from one who had it from his own lips:

He [Brady] liad watclied the ebb and flow of the battle on that Sunday morning in July, 1861, and seen now the success of the green V \\\Ni\\\%^ Federal troops under General McDowell in the field, and now tlie stub- born defense of tlie green troops uniler that General Jackson who thereby earned the sobriquet of " Stonewall." At last Johnston, who witii Beauregai'ti and Jackson, was a Confederate commander, strengtliened by reenforcements, descended upon tlie rear of the l^nion troops and drove them into a retreat which rapidly turned to a rout.

The plucky photographer was forced along witli the rest; and as night fell he lost his way in the thick woods which were not far from tlie little stream that gave the battle its name. He was clad in the linen duster which was a familiar sight to those who saw him taking his pic- tures during that campaign, and was by no means prepared for a night in the open. He was unarmed as well, and had nothing with which to defend himself from any of the victorious Confederates who might hap- pen his way, until one of the famous company of " Fire '' zouaves, of the Union forces, gave him succor in the shape of a broadsword. This he strapped about his waist, and it was still there when he finally made his way to Washington three days later. He was a sight to behold after his wanderings, but he had come through unscathed as it was his fate to do so freinuntlv afterwards.

Instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but here is one more evidence of the quality of this ]jictorial record. The same narrator had from Brady a tale of a picture made a year and a half later, at the battle of Fredericksburg. He says:

Burnside, then in command of the Aniiy of the Potomac, was pre- paring to cross the Rappahannock, and Longstreet and Jackson, com- manding the Confederate forces, were fortifying the hills back of the right bank of that river. Brady, desiring as usual to be in the thick of things, undertook to make some pictures from the left bank. He placed cameras in position and got liis men to work, liut suddenly found hini-

[361

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THE CAMERA

WITH

THE ARMY

(above)

PHOTOGRAPHERS

AT BULL RUN

BEFORE THE

SECOND

FIGHT

IN RETREAT

AND

ADVANCE

The pliuky l!ni(ly-G.inliiir operatives stuck to the Union army in the East, wlutlicr good fortune or ill betidcd it. Aljove, two of them are busy with their primitive apparatus near Bull Run, while Pope's army was in retreat, just before the second battle on that fateful ground. Below is a [jhotograph- cr's portable dark-room, two years later, at Cobb's Hill on the Appomattox. Near here Grant's army had joined Butler's, and before them Lees veterans were making their last stand within the entrenchments at Petersburg.

(below)

PHOTOGRAPHERS

AT BUTLERS

SIGNALING

TOWER

1804

Itntngraplltutj tl|r (Etuil War ^ ^ ^ -^

self takintv a part very different from tliat of a non-coniI)atant. In the bright sunsliine his bulky cameras gleamed like guns, and the Confed- erate marksmen thought that a battery was being placed in position. Thev promptly opened fire, and Brady found himself the target for a good many bullets. It was only his phenomenal good luck that allowed him to escape without injury either to himself and men or to his apparatus.

It is clearly worth while to study for a few moments this man Brady, who was so ready to risk his life for the idea hy whicli he was ohsessed. While the war soon developed far bevond what he or any other one man could possibly have compas.sed, so that he is probably directly responsible for only a fraction of the whole vast collection of ]iictin-es in these vol- ^^' "^ ' umes, he may fairly be said to have fathered the movement; and his daring and success undoubtedly stimulated and in- spired the small army of men all over the war-region, whose unrelated work has l)een lal)oriously gathered together.

INlatthew B. Brady was born at Cork. Ireland (not in New Hampshire, as is generally stated) about 182.3. Arri\- ing in New York as a boy. he got a job in the great estab- lishment of A. T. Stewart, first of the merchant princes of that day. The youngster's good qualities were so conspicuous that his large-minded em])loyer made it possible for him to take a trip abroad at the age of fifteen, under the charge of S. F. B. JNIorse. who was then laboring at his epoch-making development of the telegraj))!.

Naturally enough, this scientist took his young compan- ion to the laboratory of the already famous Daguerre. whose arduous ex])eriments in making pictures by .sunlight were just approaching fruition; and the wonderful discovery which young Brady's recejitive eyes then l)eheld was destined to determine his whole life-work.

P^or that very year ( I8.'3!)) Daguerre made his " daguerre- otype " known to the world; and Brady's keen interest was intensified when, in 184-0, on liis own side of the ocean. Pro- fessor Draper produced the first photographic ])ortrait the world had yet seen, a likeness of his sister, which recjuired the amazingly short exposure of only niiiciij seconds!

Brady's natiu-al business-sense and his mercantile train- ing showed him the chance for a career which this new inven- tion opened, and it was but a short time before he had a gallery

^~^\ /i*"^ f 38 1

WASHING THE NEGATIVES

Photographers' Headquarters at Cold Harbor, Virginia. — In the lull before the fierce engagement which Grant was about to meet here in his persistent pushing forward upon Richmond, the cameraists were engaged in fixing, washing, and storing their negatives.

latutui

BEFORE SECOND BULL RUN

AT WORK IN SUMTER, APRIL, 1865

Brady's headquarters with his "What Is It?" preparing for the \t last the besiegers were in Charleston, and the L'nion photog- strenuous work involved in the oncoming battle. raphers for the first time were securing views of the position.

BRADY'S "WHAT IS IT?" AT CULPEPER, VIRGINIA

Copyright by Patriot Pub. Co.

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on Broadway and was well launched upon the new trade of furnishing daguerreotype poi-traits to all eoniers. He was successful from the start; in 18.31 his work took a prize at the London World's Fair; about the same time he opened an office in Washington; in the fifties he brought over Alexander Gardner, an expert in the new revolutionary wet-plate proc- ess, which gave a negative furnishing many ])rints instead of one unduiilicatable original; and in the twenty years between his start and the Civil War he became the fashionable photog- ra])her of his day — as is evidenced not only by the superb col- lection of notable people whose ])ortraits he gathered together, but by Brete Harte's classic verse (from " Her Letter ") :

Well, yes — if you saw us out driving

Each (lay in tlie Park, four-in-liand — If you S'lw poor dear mamma contriving

To look supernaturally grand, — If you saw papa's picture, as taken

By Brady, and tinted at tliat, — You'd never suspect he sold bacon

And flour at Poverty Flat.

Upon this sunny period of prosperity the Civil War broke in 18G1. Brady had made portraits of scores of the men who leaped into still greater jjrominence as leaders in the terrible struggle, and his vigorous enthusiasm saw in this fierce drama an o[)])ortunity to win ever brighter laurels. His energy and his accjuaintance with men in authority overcame every obstacle, and he succeeded in intei-esting President Lin- coln. Secretary Stanton, General Cxrant, and Allan Pinkerton to such an extent that lie obtained the protection of the Secret Service, and permits to make photographs at the front. Evervthing had to be done at his own expense, but M'ith entire confidence he equipped his men, and set out himself as well, giving instructions to guard against breakage by making two negatives of everything, and infusing into all his own ambition to astonish the world by this unheard-of feat.

The need for such permits appears in a " home letter " from E. T. Whitney, a war photogra])her Avhose negati\es. imfortunately, have been destroyed. This letter, dated March 13, 1862, states that the day before " all photographing has

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been stopped by general orders from lieadquarters." Owing to ignorance of this order on the ])art of the guard at the bridge, Whitney was allowed to reach the Army of the Poto- mac, where he made application to General JNIcClellan for a special pass.

We shall get some more glimpses presently of these ad- venturous souls in action. But, as already hinted, extraordi- nary as were the results of Brady's impetuous vigor, he was but one of many in the great work of picturing the war. Three-fourths of the scenes with the Army of the Potomac were made by Gardner. Thomas (r. Roche was an indefatig- able worker in the armies' train. Captain A. J. Russell, detached as official camera-man for the War Department, obtained many invaluable jMctures illustrating the military railroading and construction work of the Army of the Poto- mac, which were hurried straightway to Secretary Stanton at AVashington. Sam A. Cooley w^as attached to the Tenth Army Corps, and recorded the happenings around Savannah, Fort INIcAllister, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Beaufort, and Charleston during the bombardment; George M. Barnard, under the supervision of General O. ]M. Poe (then Captain in the Kngineer Corps), did yeoman's service around Atlanta.

S. K. Siebert was very busy indeed at Charleston in ISGo. Cook of Charleston, Edwards of New Orleans, and other unknown men on the Confederate side, working under even greater difficulties (Cook, for instance, had to secure his chemi- cals from Anthony in New York — who also supplied Brady — and smuggle tlicm through) , did their part in the vast labor; and many another luiknown, including the makers of the little cartes dc vi.sitc. contributed to the ])anorama which to-day un- folds itself before the reader.

One most interesting camera-man of luiique kind was A. I). I^ytle, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, \\ho made a series of views (covering three years and several campaigns — and conse(]uently scattered through the present M'ork) for the specific use of the Confederate Secret Service. That is to say, he was a " camera si)y," and a good one, too. He secured his chemicals from the same great firm of Anthony & Co., in New York, but instead of running the blockade with them, they were supplied on " orders to trade." In many cases, for in- stance, the necessary iodides and bromides masqueraded as

[42]

Copyright by Review of lUvieivs Cu.

A TRIUMPH OF THE WET-PLATE

It seems almost impossible tliat tliis photograph could have been taken before the advent of modern pho- tographic apparatus, yet Mr. Gardner's negative, made almost fifty years ago, might well furnish a striking exhiliit in a modern photographic salon. The view is of Quarles' Mill, on the North Anna River, Virginia. In grassy fields above the mill the tents of the headquarters of Grant and Meade were pitched for a day or two during the march which culminated in the siege of Petersburg. Among the prisoners brought in while the army was here in camp was a woman clad in Confederate gray, apparently performing the duties of a scout. She was captured astride of a bony steed and asserted that she belonged to a battery of artillery. This wild creature, with her tangled black locks hanging down her neck, became the center of interest to the idlers of the camp. At these she would occasionally throw stones with consideraljle accuracy, particu- larly at the negroes, who gave her a wide berth. As the faithful camera indicates, the river current at this point is strong and rapid. While General Thomas L. Crittenden's division of the Federal Ninth Corps was crossing the North Anna (June 24, 1864) by fording the mill-dam, many sturdy foot-soldiers as well as horsemen were swept over the falls. However, the division got across in good fighting shape and formed a line of battle around the ford on the southern bank just in time to head off a bold Confederate dash for the same coign of vantage. Crittenden's advance guard was hotly engaged in the woods beyond the mill and being roughly handled when the rear of the column reached the southern bank.

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quinine.' JNIr. Lytle's son relates that his father used to signal with flag and lantern from the observation tower on the top of the ruins of the Baton Rouge capitol to Scott's Blutt', whence the messages were relayed to the Confederates near New Orleans; but he found this ])rovide(l such a tempting tar- get for tlie Federal sharjjshooters that he discontinued the practice.

There are contemporary comments on the first crop of war photographs — which confirm several points already made. Humphrey's Journal in October, 1861, contained the following:

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PHOTOGRAPHS OF WAR SERIES

Among the portraits in Brady's selection, spoken of in our last number, are those of many leading generals and colonels — McClellan, McDowell. Heintzehnan, Buniside, Wood, Corcoran, Slocum, and others. Of the larger grou])s, the most effective are those of the army passing through Fairfax village, the battery of the 1st Rhode Island regiment at Camp Sprague, the 71st Regiment [New York] formed in hollow square at the Navy Yard, the Engineer Corps of the New- York Twelfth at Camp Anderson, Zouaves on the lookout from the belfry of Fairfax Court House, etc., etc.

Mr. Brady intends to take other photographic scenes of the locali- ties of our army and of battle-scenes, and his collection will undoubtedly prove to be the most interesting ever yet exhibited. But why should he monopolize this department? We have plenty of other artists as good as he is. What a field would there be for Anthony's instantaneous views and for stereoscopic pictures. Let other artists exhibit a little of Mr. Brady's enterprise and furnish the public with more views. There are numerous photographers close by the stirring scenes which are being daily enacted, and now is the time for them to distinguish themselves.

We have seen how far Brady came from " monopolizing " the field. And surely the sum total of achievement is triumph- ant enough to share among all who had any hand in it.

And now let us try to get some idea of the problem which confronted these enthusiasts, and see how they tackled it.

' This statement is historically confirmed. Professor Walter L. Flem- ing, of the University of Louisiana, states he has seen many such orders- to-trade, signed by President Lincoln, but not countersigned by Secretary Stanton.

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A SNAPSHOT IN THE WAR REGION

Another remarkable example of the results achieved by the old collodion process photographers quite iiidistinguislia])le from the instantaneous i)lu)tooraphs of the present day. Although taken under the necessity of removing and replacing the lens cap, this negative has successfully caught the waterfall and the Federal cavalryman's horse which has been ridden to the stream for a drink. The picture was taken at Hazel Run, Virginia, above the pontoon bridge constructed for the crossing of the Federal troops. During the advances and retreats, while the Federal armies were maneuvering for position, the photographers were frefiuently at a loss for material. At such times, true to the professional instinct, they kept in prac- tice by making such views as this. Less important from the strictly military viewpoint, these splendid specimens of landscape photography give us a clear conception of the character of the country over which the Federal and Confederate armies passed and repassed during the stirring period of the war.

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Imagine what it must have meant even to get to the scene of action — with cumhersome tent and apparatus, and a couple of hundred glass plates whose breakage meant failure; over unspeakable back-country roads or no roads at all; with the continual chance of being picked off by some scouting sharj)- shooter or captured through some shift of the armies.

The first sight of the queer-looking wagon caused amaze- ment, speculation, derision. "What is it?" became so inevi- table a greeting that to this day if one asks a group of soldiers about war-])hot()grai)hs, they will exclaim sinuiltaneously. "Oh, yes, the ' what-is-it ' wagon!" It became a familiar sight, yet the novelty of its awkward mystery never quite woi-e off.

Having arrived, and liaving faced the real perils gener- ally attendant upon reaching the scenes of keenest interest, our camera adventurer was but through the overture of his troubles. The most advanced j^hotography of that day was the Avet-plate method, by which the plates had to be coated in the dark (which meant in this case carrying everywhere a smothery, light-proof tent), exposed rcithin five minutes, and develoj)ed within five minutes more! For the benefit of ama- teur members of the craft here are some notes from the veteran photographer, JNIr. George G. Rockwood:

First, all the plain glass plates in various sizes, usually 8 x 10, had to be carefully cleaned and carried in dust-proof boxes. When ready for action, the plate was carefully coated with " collodion," which carried in solution the " excitants " — bromide and iodide of potassium, or annnonia, or cadmium. Collodion is made by the solution of gun- cotton in about equal parts of sulphuric ether and 95° proof alcohol. The salts above mentioned are then added, making the collodion a vehi- cle for ol)taining the sensitive surface on the glass plate. The coating ot plates was a delicate operation even in the ordinary well-organized studio. After coating the plate with collodion and letting the ether and alcoliol evaporate to just the right degree of " stickiness," it was lowered carefully into a deep " bath holder " which contained a solution of nitrate of silver about 60 ' for quick field-work. This operation created the sensitive condition of the plate, and had to be done in total darkness excej)t a subdued yellow light. When properly coated (from three to five minutes) the plate was put into a "slide" or "holder" and exposed to the action of the light in the camera. When exposed, it was returned to the dark-room and developed.

[401

' /','/ Rfview of Reviews to.

AMENiriKS OF THE CAMl' IN 18U1

This photograph, taken at Brandy Station, Virginia, is an excellent example of the skill of the war photographers. When we remember Ihat orthochromatic plates were undreamed of in the days of the Civil War, the color values of this picture are marvelous. The collodion wet-plate has caught the sheen and texture of the silk dresses worn by the officers' wives, whom we see on a visit to a permanent camp. The entrance to the tent is a fine example of the rustic work with which the Engineer Corps of the various armies amused themselves during periods which would otherwise be spent in tedious inactivity. The officers" quarters received first attention. Thus an atmosphere of indescribable charm was thrown about the permanent camps to which the wives of the officers came in their brief visits to the front, and from which they reluctantly returned without seeing anything of the gruesome side of war. A review or a parade was usually held for their entertainment. In the weary waiting before Petersburg during the siege, the successful consumma- tion of which practically closed the war, the New York engineers, while not engaged in strengthening the Federal fortifications, amused themselves by constructing a number of rustic buildings of great beauty. One of these was the signal tower toward the left of the Federal line of investment. Near it a substantial and artistic hospital building was erected, and, to take the place of a demolished church, a new and better rustic structure spvang into being.

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Mr. Rockwood also knew all about Brady's wagon, hav- ing had a similar contrivance made for himself before the war, for taking ])ictvn"es in the conntry. lie " nsed an ordinary delivery wagon of the period, much like the ])utcher"s cart of to-day and had a strong steji attached at the rear and below the level of the wagon floor. A door was put on at the back, carefully hung so as to l)e light-jjroof. The door, you under- stand, came down over the step which was boxed in at the sides, making it a sort of Avell within the liody of the wagon rather than a true step.

" The work of coating or sensitizing the 2)lates and that of developing them Avac done from this well, in which there was just room enough to work. As the operator stood there the collodion was within reach of his right hand, in a special re- cejitacle. On his left also was the holder of one of the baths. The chief developing bath was in front, with the tanks of various liquids stored in front of it again, and the space be- tween it and the floor filled with ])lates.

" AN'itli such a wagon on a larger scale, large enough for men to sleej) in front of the dark-room ])art, the phenomenal ])ictures of lirady were made ])ossible. lirady risked his life many a time in order not to sejjarate from this cumbrous piece of impedimenta.

" On excejjtional occasions in very cold weather the life of a Avet plate might be extended to nearly an hour on either side of the exposure, the coating or the development side, but ordinarily the work had to be done within a very few minutes, and every minute of delay resulted in loss of brilliancy and depth in tlie negative."

Some vivid glimpses of the war-i)hotogra])hers' troubles come also from ]Nlr. J. Pitcher Spencer, \vho knew the work intimately :

We -vvorkcd lonn- with one of tlio foruiiiost of Brady's men, and here let me doff my iiat to the name of M. B. Brady — few to-day are worthy to carry his camera case, even as far as abihty from the photo- graphic standpoint goes. I was, in conmion with the " Cape Codders," following the ocean from 1859 to 1864'; I was only home a few months — 1862-63 — and even then from our boys who came home invalided we heard of that grand picture-maker Brady, as they called him.

When I made some views (with the only apparatus then known, the "wet plate"), there came a large realization of .some of the immense

[48]

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DIGGING UNDER FIRE AT DUTCH GAP— 1864

Here for a moment the Engineering corps of General Benjamin F. Butler's army paused while the camera of the army photographer was focussed upon it. In August, 186-1, Butler, with his army then bottled up in Bermuda Hundred, began to dig a canal at Dutch Gap to save a circuit of six miles in the bend of the James River and thus avoid the batteries, torpedoes, and obstructions which the Confederates had placed to prevent the passage of the Federal fleet up the river toward Richmond. The difficulties of this engineering feat are here seen plainly in the photograph. It took Butler's men all the rest of the year (1864) to cut through this canal, exposed as they were to the fire of the Confederate batteries above. One of the last acts of General Butler was an unsuccess- ful effort to blow up the dam at the mouth of this canal, and by thus admitting water to it, render it navigable.

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difficulties surmounted hy those who niiide \var-])icturcs. Wlien you rcahze that tlio most sensitive of all the list of ciieniieals are requisite to make collodion, which must coat every plate, and that the very slightest breath might carry enough " poison " across the ])late being coated to make it produce a blank spot instead of some much desired effect, you may perhaps have a faint idea of the care requisite to produce a picture. Moreover, it took unceasing care to keep every bit of the apparatus, as well as each and every cliemical, free from any possible contamination which miglit affect the picture. Often a breath of wind, no matter how gentle, spoiled the whole affair.

Often, just as some fine result looked certain, a hot streak of air would not only spoil the plate, but put the instrument out of com- mission, by curling some part of it out of shape. In face of these, and hundreds of minor discouragements, the men imbued with vim and force- fulness by the " Oidy Brady " kept right along and to-day the world can enjoy these wonderful views as a result.

Still further details come from an old soldier and photo- graphic expert, Mr. F. ]M. Rood:

The plate " flowed " with collodion was dipped at once in a bath of nitrate of silver, in water also iodized, remained tiiere In darkness three to five minutes ; still in darkness, it was taken out, drained, put in the dark-holder, exposed, and developed in the dark-tent at once. The time between flowing the collodion and developing should not ex- ceed eight or ten minutes. The developer was sulphate of iron solu- tion and acetic acid, after which came a slight washing and fixing (to remove the surplus silver) with solution of cyanide of potassium ; and then a final washing, drying, and varnishing. The surface (wet or dry), unlike a dry plate, could not be touched. I was all through the war from 1861-65, in the Ninety-third New York regiment, whose pictures you have given. I recognized quite a number of the old com- rades. You have also in your collection a negative of each company of that regiment.

Fortunately the picture men occasionally immortalized each other as well as the combatants, so that we have a num- ber of intimate glimpses of their life and methods. In one the waffon, chemicals and camera are in the very trenches at Atlanta, and they tell more than pages of description. But, naturally, they cannot show the arduous labor, the narrow escapes, the omnipresent obstacles which could be overcome only by the keenest ardor and determination. The epic of the war-photographer is still to be written. It wovdd compare favorably with the story of many battles. And it does not

[50]

Copyritjht by Review of Reviews Co.

CAMP LIFE OF THE INVADING ARMY

This picture preserves for us the resplendent aspect of the camp of McClellan's Army of the Potomac in the spring of 186''2. On his march from Yorktown toward Richmond, McCleilan advanced his supply base from Cumberland Landing to White House on the Pamunkey. The barren fields on the bank of the river were converted as if by magic into an immense city of tents stretching away as far as the eye could see, while mirrored in the river lay the immense fleet of transports con^'oyed up by gunboats from Fortress Monroe. Here we see but a small section of this inspiring view. In the foreground, around the mud-spattered forge, the blankets and knapsacks of the farriers have been thrown carelessly on the ground. Farther on the patient army mules are tethered around the wagons. In the background, before the camp of the Fifth New York Volunteers (Duryee's Zouaves), a regiment of infantry is drawn up in columns of companies for inspection drill. From the 15th to the 19th of May the Army of the Potomac was concentrated between Cumberland Landing and White House. While in camp an important change was made in the organi- zation of the army. The divisions of Porter and Sykes were united into the Fifth Corps under Porter, an^^t'iose of Franklin and Smith into the Sixth Corps under Franklin. On May 19th the movement to Richmond was begun by the advance of Porter and Franklin to Tunstall's Station.

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require much imagination, after viewing the results obtained in the face of such conditions, to get a fair measure of these indomitable workers.

The story of the way in which these pictures have been rescued from obscurity is almost as romantic a tale as that of their making. The net result f)f Erady's efforts was a col- lection of over seven thousand pictures (two negatives of each izi most cases) ; and the expenditure involved, estimated at $100,000, ruined him. One set, after undergoing the most extraordinary vicissitudes, finally passed into the Govern- ment's possession, where it is now held with a iirohibition against its use for commercial i)urposes. The $2.5.000 tardily voted to ]Mr. Brady by Congress did not retrieve his financial fortunes, and he died in the nineties, in a New York hosjiital, poor and forgotten, save by a few old-time friends.

Brady's own negatives passed in the seventies into the pos- session of Anthony, in default of payment of his bills for photographic supjilies. They were kicked about from pillar to post for ten years, until John C. Taylor found them in an attic and bought them; from this they became the back- bone of the Ordway-Rand collection; and in 1895 Brady him- self had no idea what had become of them. JNIany were broken, lost, or destroyed by fire. After passing to various other owners, they were discovered and appreciated by Edward Bailey Eaton, of Hartford, Connecticut, who created the immediate train of events that led to their importance as the nucleus of a collection of many thousand pictures gathered from all over the country to fin-nish the material for this work.

From all sorts of sources, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from iSIaine to the Gidf, these hidden treasures have been drawn. Historical societies, Government and State bureaus, librarians, private collectors, military and patriotic organiza- tions, old soldiers and their families have recollected, upon earnest insistence, that they did have such things or once knew of them. Singly and in groups they have come from walls, out of archives, safes, old garrets, often seeing the light of day for the first time in a generation, to join together once more in a pictorial army which daily grew more irre- sistible as the new arrivals augmented, sup])lemented. and ex- plained. The superb result is here sjjread forth and illumi- nated for posterity.

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Ajjart from all the above considerations, these invaluable pictures are well worth attention from the standpoint of picto- rial art. We talk a great deal nowadays about the aston- ishing advances of modern art-photography; and it is (juite true that patient investigators have immeasurably increased the range and flexibility of camera methods and results. We now manipulate negatives and jjrint to produce an}- sort of effect; we print in tint or color, omitting or adding Avhat we wish; numberless men of artistic capacity are daily showing how to transmit personal feeling through the intricacies of the mechanical process. But it is just as true as when the cave- man scratched on a bone his recollections of mammoth and reindeer, that the artist will produce work that moves the be- holder, no matter how crude may be his implements. Clearly there were artists among these Civil ^Var photographers.

Probably this Avas caused by natin-al selection. It took ardor and zest for this particular thing above all others to keep a man at it in face of the liardships and disheartening handicaps. In any case, the work speaks for itself. Over and over one is thrilled by a sympathetic realization that the van- ished man who pointed the camera at some particular scene, must have felt precisely the same pleasure in a telling com- position of landscape, in a lifelike groujiing, in a dramatic glimpse of a battery in action, in a genre study of a wounded soldier watched over by a comrade — that Ave feel to-day and that some seeing eye will resjjond to generations in the future. This is the true immortality of art. And when the emotions thus aroused center about a struggle which determined the destinjr of a great nation, the picture that arouses them takes its proper j^lace as an important factor in that heritage of the past which gives us to-day increased stature over all past ages, just because we add all their experience to our own.

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SECOND PREFACE

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC

RECORD

AS HISTORY

WITH THE DEFENDERS OF WASHINGTON IN 1862 ; THE SALLY-PORT AT FORT RICHARDSON

"HISTORY BROUGHT AGAIN INTO THE PRESENT TENSE"

The value of "The Photographic Record as History" is emphasized in the contribution from Mr. George Haven Putnam on page 60. This photograjjh of a tiraniatic scene was taken on a July day after the photog- rai)her"s own heart — clear and sunny. The fort is at the end of Peach Tree Street, Atlanta, to the north of the city. Sherman had just taken possession, and the man at the left is a cavalryman of his forces. The mire-caked wheels of the guns show that they have been dragged through miles and miles of muddy

[56]

CONFEDERATE EARTHWORKS BEFORE ATLANTA, 1864

roads. The delays Sherman had met with in his advance on Atlanta resulting in constant and indecisive fighting without entrapping Johnston, had brought about a reaction at the North. A large party wished to end the war. Election Day was approaching. Lincoln was a presidential candidate for the second time. He had many enemies. But the news of Sherman's capture of Atlanta helped to restore confidence, and to insure the' continuation of the administration pledged to a vigorous prosecution of the war.

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A STRIKING WAR PHOTOGRAPH OF 63

The introduction on pa^e .'50, "Photographing the Civil War," remarks on the genius required to record such vivid action liy camera in the days of '61. The use of the instrument had not then become pastime; it was a pioneer science, requiring absohite knowledge, training, and experience. Only experts like the men that Brady trained could do such work as this. There were no lightning shutters, no automatic or universal focus. In positions of danger and at times when speed and accuracy were required, there was the delicacy of the old-fashioned wet plate to consider, with all its drawbacks. No wonder people were surprised that pictures such as this exist; they had grown used to the old woodcut and the often mutilated attempts of pen and pencil to portraj' such scenes of action. There are many who never knew that photography was

[S8J

Copyriyht by Review oj Ucvicws Co,

ARTILLERY "REGULARS" BEFORE CHANCELLORSVILLE

possible in the Civil War. Yet look at this Union battery, taken by the shore of the Rappahannock, just before the battle of Chancellorsville. Action, movement, portraiture are shown. We can hear the officer standing in front giving his orders; his figure leaning slightly forward is tense with spoken words of com- mand. The cannoneers, resting or ramming home the charges, are magnificent types of the men who made the Army of the Potomac — the army doomed to suffer, a few days after this picture was taken, its crush- ing repulse by the famous flanking charge of "Stonewall" Jackson; yet the army which kept faith and ultimately became invincible in the greatest civil war of history. Within sixty days after the Chancellors- ville defeat the troops engaged w'on a signal triumph over the self-same opponents at Gettysburg.

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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD AS HISTORY

By George Ha^'en Putxaji

AdJKfiiiit and Brevet Major 176th Neiv Ycn-k Volunteer Infuntnj

T

IS fifty years since. The words recall the opening sen- tence of Scott's famous romance, " Waverley,"" and Scott's reference, like my own, had to do with the strenuous years of civil war.

To one examining the unique series of photographs which were secm-ed. dui'ing the camj^aigns of our great war. by the jjluck and persistence of Brady and Gardner, and the nega- tives of which have, almost miraculously, been jireserved through the vicissitudes of half a century, comes, however, the feeling that these liattles and marchings were the events not of fiftj' j-ears back, but of yesterday, if not, indeed, things of to- day. These vivid pictures bring jjast history into the present tense; the observer sees our citizen soldiers as they camped, as they marched, and as they fought, and comes to know how they lived and how they died. There are revealed to the eye through these lifelike jjhotographs, as if through a vitascope, the successive scenes of the great life-and-death drama of the nation's struggle for existence, a struggle which was fought out through four eventful years, and in which were sacrificed of the best of manhood of the country. North and South, eight hundred thousand lives.

In September, 1862, I landed in New York from the Bremen steamer II ansa, which was then making its first trans- atlantic trip. I had left my German university for the purpose of enlisting in the Union army, and, with the belief that the

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"CITIZEN SOLDIERS '—THE 93d NEW YORK.

This informal photograph of the Ninety-Third New York Infantry was taken in 186'2 just before Antietam. In it we see the quality of the men who dropped the pursuits of ci\'il life and flocked to form the armies of the North. Thus, in camp and on the battlefield the camera did its work and now takes us back over the four terrible years, showing us to the minutest detail how our men marched and lived and fought. The youth of the troops is strikingly evident in this picture as they stand assembled here with their arms hastily stacked for the ever-pleasurable experience of having their pictures taken.

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Avar could hardly be prolonged for many further months, I had secured leave of absence from my university only for the college year. I have to-day a vivid recollection of the impres- sion made upon the j'oung student by the war atmosphere in which he found his home city. In coming up from the steam- ship pier, I found myself on Broadway near the ofKce of the Herald, at that time at the corner of Ann Street. The bulletin board was surrounded by a crowd of anxious citizens, whose ex- citement was so tense that it expressed itself not in utterance but in silence. With some difficulty, I made my way near enough to the building to get a glimpse of the announcement on the board. The heading was, " A battle is now going on in JNIaryland; it is hoped that General JNIcClellan will drive Lee's army back into the Potomac."

I recall to-day the curious impressiveness of the ])resent tense, of the report of a battle that was actually " going on." To one who reads such an announcement, all things seem to be possilile, and as I stood surrounded by men whose pulses were throbbing with the keenest of emotions, I felt with them as if we could almost hear the soimd of the camion on the Potomac. The contrast was the stronger to one coming from the quiet lecture-rooms of a distant university to the streets of a great city excited with twelve months of war. and with the CAer-present doubt as to what the hours of each day might bring forth. The fight that was then " going on " is known in history as the battle of Antietam. History tells us that Lee's army was not jjushed into the Potomac. There were two causes that prevented this result — George B. JNIcClellan and Robert E. Lee. ]McClellan was a skilled engineer and he knew how to organize troops, but he never pushed an enemy's army before him with the energy of a man who meant to win and who had faith that he coidd win. It was his habit to feel that he had made a brilliant success when, having come into touch with the foe, he had succeeded in withdrawing his own army without undue loss ; and it is fair to say that when the enemy

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was Robert E. Lee, such a successful withdrawal might almost be considered as a triumpli.

A fresh and vivid imj^ression of the scene of the bloody struggle at Antietam Creek is given in one of the pliotographs in this great war series. The jjhicky photographer has suc- ceeded in seciu'ing, from the very edge of the battle-field, a view of the movements of the troops that are on the charge; and when, on the further edge of tlie fields, we actually see the smoke of the long lines of rifles by which that charge is to be rej^ulsed, Ave feel as if tlie battle were again " going on " before our eyes, and we find ourselves again infused with mingled dread and expectation as to the result.

In looking at the photograi)hs, the Union veteran recalls the fierce charge of Burnside's men for the possession of the bridge and the sturdy resistance made by the regiments of Longstreet. He will grieve with the Army of the Potomac and with the country at the untimely death of the old hero, General ^Mansfield; he will recall the grai^hic description given by the poet Holmes of tlie weary week's searcli through the battle-field and the environs for the " body " of his son, the young captain, who lived to become one of the scholarly mem- bers of the national Sui:)reme Court; and he may share the disappointment not only of the army, but of the citizens back of the army, that, notwithstanding his advantages of position, jNIcClellan should have jjermitted the Confederate army to withdraw without molestation, carrying with it its trains, its artillery, and even its captured prisoners.

Another photograph in the series, which is an example of sj^ecial enterprise on the part of JNIr. Brady, j^resents Lincoln and ]McClellan in consultation some time after this bloody and indecisive battle. The pose and the features of the two men are admirably characteristic. Two weeks have elapsed since Lee's withdrawal across the river, but the Army of the Potomac, while rested and fully resupplied, has been held by its young commander in an inexplicable inaction. Lincoln's per-

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sistent demand for an advance and his reiterated inquiries as to the grounds for the delay have met with no response. The President finally comes to the camp for a personal word with the commander in the field. How the photographer secured the opi^ortunity of being jiresent at such an interview one does not know, but that he was there is unmistakable.

These vivid photographs which constitute the great his- toric series bring again into the ])resent tense, for the memories of the veterans, all of the dramatic scenes of the years of war ; and even to those who are not veterans, those Avho have grown up in years of peace and to whom the campaigns of half a century back are but historic pages or dim stories, even to them must come, in looking at these ]:)ictures of campaigns, these vivid ejiisodes of life and death, a clearer realization than could be secured in any other way of what the four years' struggle meant for their fathers and their grandfathers.

The fine views of Fort Stevens and Fort Lincoln recall the several periods in which, to the continuing anxieties of the jDeople's leader, was added immediate ajjjjrehension as to the safety of the national capital. On the 19th of April, 18G1, the ^lassacliusetts Sixth, on its way to the protection of Washing- ton, had been attacked in Baltimore, and connections between Washington and the Xoi'tli were cut off. A few hundred troops rejiresented all the forces that the nation had for the moment been able to jjlace in jjosition for the protection of the capital.

I have stood, as thousands of visitors have stood, in I^in- coln's old study, the windows of which overlook the Potomac; and I have had recalled to mind the vision of his tall figure and sad face as he stood looking across the river where the picket lines of the Virginia troops could be traced by the smoke, and dreading from morning to morning the approach of these troops over the Long Bridge. There must have come to Lincoln during these anxious days the dread that he was to be the last President of the United States, and that the torch, representing the life of the nation, tliat had been transmitted

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THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

Here the gaunt figure of the Great Emancipator confronted General McClellan in his headquarters two weeks after Antietam had checked Lee's invasion of Maryland and had enabled the President to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Brady's camera has preserved this remarkaljle occasion, the last time that these two men met each other. "We spent some time on the battlefield and conversed fully on the state of affairs. He told me that he was satisfied with all that I had done, that he would stand by me. He parted from me with the utmost cordiality." said General McClellan. The plan to follow up the success of Antietam in the effort to bring the war to a speedy conclusion must have been the thought uppermost in the mind of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army as he talked with his most popular General in the tent. A few days later came the order from Washington to "cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him South." McClellan was relieved in the midst of a movement to carry out the order.

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to him by tlie faltering hands of his predecessor ^vas to expire while he was still responsible for the continuity of the flame.

And it was not only in 1861 that the capital Avas imperiled. The anxiety of the President (ne\er for himself, but only for his country and his responsibilities) was to be renewed in June, 1863, when Lee was in ^Maryland, and in Jidy, 1864, at the time of Earh''s raid. It was during Early's hin-ried attack that Lincoln, visiting Fort Stevens, came into direct sight of the fighting by which Early's men were finally repulsed. For the President, the war must indeed at this time have been something in the present tense, something which meant dread j)Ossibilities always impending.

The month of July, 1863, marked the turning point of the great contest. If the Federal lines had been broken at Gettys- burg, Lee would have been able, in jjlacing his army across the highways to Baltimore and to Philadelphia, to isolate Washing- ton from the North. The Army of the Potomac would, of course, have been recojistituted. and Lee would finally have been driven across the Potomac as he was actually compelled to retire after the decision of the l)attle. But such a check to the efforts of the Xorth, after two years of war for the maintenance of the nation, would in all probability have secured success for the efforts of the Confederate sympathizers in Europe and have brought about recognition and intervention on the part of France and of England. Such an intervention would have meant the triumph of the Confederacy and the breaking up of the great Republic. The value for the cause of the success of jNIeade in repelling, Avith heavy loss, the final assaults of Lee was further emphasized by a great triumph in the ^Vest. On the very day on which Lee's discomfited army was making its way back to the Potomac, the troops of General Grant were placing the Stars and Stripes over the well-defended works of Vicksburg.

A beautiful little picture recalls the sharp fight that was made, on July 2, 1863, for the possession of Little Round

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OFFICERS OF THE FIFTY-FIFTH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS

DEFENSES OF WASHINGTON— CAMP OF THE FIRST CONNECTICUT HEAVY ARTILLERY

Here we see some of the guardians of the city of Washington, wliich was threatened in the beginning of the war and subsequently on occasions when Lincoln, looking from the White House, could see in the distance the smoke from Confederate camp fires. Lincoln would not consent to the withdrawal of many of the garrisons about Washington to reinforce McClellan on the Peninsula. There was little to relieve the tediimi of guard duty, and the men spent their time principally at drill and in keeping their arms and ac- couterments spick and span. The troops in the tents and barracks were always able to present a tine appearance on review. In sharp contrast was that of their battle-scarred comrades who passed before Lincoln when he visiterl the front. Foreign military at- taches often visited the forts about Washington. In the center picture we see two of them inspecting a gun.

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Top. It was the foresight of General Warren that recog- nized the essential importance of this jjosition for the main- tenance of the Union line. After the repulse of Sickles's Tliird Corps in the Peach Orchard, Long-street's men were actually on their way to take possession of the rock}' hill from which the left and rear of the Union line could have been en- filaded. Xo Union force was for the moment available for the defense, but Warren, with two or three aides, raised some flags over the rocks, and the leader of Longstreet's advance, getting an impression that the position was occupied, delayed a brief spell for reenforcements.

This momentary respite gave "Warren time to bring to the defense of the hill troops from the nearest command that was available, a division of the Fifth Corps. A few minutes later, came the first attack, followed bj- a series of fierce onsets that continued through the long summer afternoon. With some advantages of i)osition, and with the realization that the control of the hill was absolutely essential for the maintenance of the line, the Federals held their own; but when darkness fell, the rocks of Devil's Den and the slopes of the hill were thickly strewn with dead, the bodies of the Blue and the Gray lying closely intermingled. A beautiful statue of Warren now stands on Little Hound Top at the point where, almost single-handed, he placed his flag when there were no guns be- hind it. The general is looking out gravely over the slope and toward the opposite crest, where have been placed, in grim con- trast to the smiling fields of the quiet farm behind, the Con- federate field-gims that mark the position of Longstreet's lines.

The editors have fortunately been able to include with the great Brady series of armj"" photographs a private collection, probably unique, of more than four hundred views of tlie gun- boats on the rivers of the AN^st. Each of these vessels repre- sents a history of its own. One Avishes for the imagination of a Homer which could present Avith due eff^ectiveness a new " catalogue of the ships."

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Copyright by Review of Reviews Co.

LITTLE ROUND TOP— THE KEY TO GETTYSBURG.

A "slaughter pen" at Gettysburg. On this rocky slope of Little Round Top, Longstreet's men fought with the Federals in the second day's conflict, July 2, 1863. From boulder to boulder they wormed their way, to find behind each a soldier waiting for the hand-to-hand struggle which meant the death of one or the other. After the battle each rock and tree oversliadowed a victim. The whole tangled and terrible field jjresented a far more appalling appearance than does the picture, which was taken after the wounded were removed. Little Round Top had been left unprotected by the advance of General Sickles' Third Corps. This break in the Federal line was discovered by General Warren just in time. Hastily procuring a flag, with but two or three other officers to help him he planted it on the hill, which led the Confederates to believe the position strongly occupied and delayed Longstreet's advance long enough for troops to be rushed forward to meet it. The picture tells all too plainly at what sacrifice the height was finally held.

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Admiral Farragiit, while acceijtiiig the armored vessels as jjossessiiig certain advantages and as ap])arently a necessity of " modern warfare," had the impatience of the old-fashioned sailor against any such attem])t at protection. He preferred for Ijimself the old type of wooden frigate of which his flag- ship, the famous Hdriford, was the representative. " AVliy," said he. " if a shell strikes the side of the Hartford it goes clean through. Unless somebody happens to be directly in the path, there is no damage, excejiting a couple of easily plugged holes. But when a shell makes its way into one of those ' damned tea- kettles,' it can't get out again. It sputters round inside doing all kinds of mischief." It must be borne in mind, apart from the natural exaggeration of such an utterance, that Farragut Avas siJeaking half a century ago, in the time of slow-velocity missiles. His jjhrase " damned tea-kettles " came, however, to be the general descriptive term for the ironclads, applied not only by the men in the ranks but by the naval men themselves.

There were assin-ed advantages given ])v the armor in time of action against most of the tire that was possible with the weajjons of the day, but for the midsummer climate of Louisiana, the " tea-kettles " were most abominable abiding places. During the day, the iron of the decks would get so hot that the hand could barely rest upon it. At night, sleep was imiJossible. The decks Avere kept wetted down, and the men lay on them, getting, toward the morning hours when the hulls had cooled down, such sleep as coidd be secured.

The progress of the armored ti'ansports making their way up the Red River under fire from the shore Avas an inter- esting feature of that camjiaign. The steepness of the banks on the Red River gave peculiar advantages for such fire, as it was frequently the case that the guns of the boats could not be elevated so as to reach the foe's position. It was difficult to protect the man at the Avheel from such plunging fire, but bales of cotton were often placed around the upper

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THE FATEFUL FIELD

No picture has ever been painted to equal tiiis panorama of the very center of the ground over which surged the struggling troops 'mid shot and shell during the thickest of the fighting at Gettysburg. Tlie camera was planted on Little R(Hind Top, and through its eye we look nortlnvard o\er the valley toward and beyond the little town of Gettysburg. Across the plain in the middle distance, over the Federal breastworks near the crest, and up to the very muzzles of the guns on Cemetery Ridge which were belching forth grape and canister, swept the men in gray under General Pickett in the last brave but unsuccessful assault that left Meade in possession of the field on Independence Day, 1863. The daring gallantry, utter coolness, and grim de- termination with wliich that charge was made have rarely been paralleled in history. The spirit of complete devotion to the conviction which prompted Pickett and his men is one of the most precious heritages of a united nation.

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woi-k.s ^\hicli were sufficient to keep off at least musketry fire. This improvised armor jjroved, however, not only insufficient but a peril when the enterprising Confederate gunners suc- ceeded in discharoing- from their field-pieces red-hot shot. It hapjjened more than once (I recall witnessing one such inci- dent) that the cotton was brought into flames by such shot and it became necessary to run the vessel ashore.

A photograj)!! in the series whicli presents a picturesque view of the fanunis Red River dam recalls some active spring days in Louisiana. The ])hotograi)h gives an excellently accu- rate view of a portion of the dam. through the building of which Admiral Porter's river fleet of eleven " turtles " was brought safely over the rapids at Alexandria, and the army of General Banks, repulsed and disappointed but by no means demoralized, was able to make its way back to the Mississij)])! with a very much lessened opposition. Through a sudden fall of the river, the " turtles " had been held above the rapids at Alexandria. Without the aid of Porter's guns to protect the flank of the army retreating along the river road, it would have been necessary to overcome by frontal attacks a series of breastworks by which this road was blocked.

The energetic Confederate leader, Cieneral Taylor, had managed to cut oft' all connections with the ^Mississippi, and, while we were feeding in the town of Alexandria the women and children whose men folks were fighting us from outside, we had rations sufficient for only aljout three ^\eeks. The problem Avas, within the time at our disposal and with the ma- terial available (in a country in which there was no stone), to increase the depth of water f)n the rapids by about twenty-two inches. The plan submitted by the clever engineer officer, Lieut. -Colonel Bailey, of the Fourth Wisconsin, was eagerly accepted by General Banks. Under Bailey's directions, five wing-dams were constructed, of which the shortest pair, with the widest aperture for the Avater, was up-stream, while the longest pair, with the narrowest passage for the water, was

[74]

Copyriyht by Review of Reviews Co.

WHERE REYNOLDS FELL AT GETTYSBURG.

At this spot Major-General Jtilin F. Reynolds met his death. During the first day's fighting this peaceful cornfield was trampled by the advancing Confederates. The cupola of the seminary on the ridge held at niglitfall by Lee's forces is visible in the distance. The town of Gettysburg lies one mile beyond. Gen- eral Reynolds' troops, advancing early in the day, had encountered the Confederates and had been compelled to fall back. Later, the Federal line by hard fighting had gained considerable advantage on the right. Impa- tient to retrieve the earlier retrograde movement at this point. General Reynolds again advanced his com- mand, shoving back the enemy before it, and his line of skirmishers was thrown out to the cornfield in the picture. Riding out to it to reconnoiter. General Reynolds fell, pierced by a Confederate bullet, near the tree at the edge of the road.

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placed at the point on tlie rapids where the increased depth was required. The water was thrown, as it were, into a funnel, and not only was the depth secured, but the rush downward heljjed to carry the vessels in safety across the rocks of the rapids. As I look at the photograph, I recall the fatiguing labor of " house-breaking," when the troops were put to work, in details on alternate days, in pulling down the sugar-mills and in breaking up the iron-work and the bricks.

On the further side of the river, a territory claimed by the sharpshooters of our opponents, men selected from the West- ern regiments, protected more or less by oin- skirmish line, are ^PP'yi"M' their axes to the shaping of the logs for the crates from which the dams were constructed. The wood-chopping is being done under a scattered hut active lire, but while hastened somewhat in speed, it loses none of its precision.

I recall the tall form of the big six-footer, Colonel Bailey, leading the way into the water where the men had to work in the swift current at the adjustment of the crates, and calling out, " Come along, boys; it's only uj) to your waists."

As in duty bound, I marched after the colonel into the river, calling upon my command to follow; but tlie water which had not gone very much above the waist of the tall colonel, caught the small adjutant somewhere above the nostrils, with the result that he was taken down over the ra])ids. lie came up, with no particular damage, in the pool beyond, but in re- porting for the second time, wet but still read}'' for service, he took the liberty' of saying to the Wisconsin six-footer, " Colo- nel, that Avas hardly fair for us little fellows."

After the hot work of tearing down the sugar-mills, the service in the cool water, although itself arduous enough, was refreshing. The dams were completed within the necessary time, and the vessels were brought safely through the rapids into the deej) water below.

The saving of the fleet was one of the most dramatic in- cidents of the war, and the method of operation, as well as the

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The army engineers laughed at this wide- browed, unassuming man when he sug- gested building a dam so as to release Admiral Porter's fleet imprisoned by low water above the Falls at Alexandria at the close of the futile Re^l River expedition in 1864. Bailey had been a lumberman in Wisconsin and had tliere gained the prac- tical experience which taught him that the plan was feasible. He was Acting Chief Engineer of the Nineteenth .\rmy Corps at this time, and obtained permission to go ahead and build his dam. In the under- taking he had the approval and earnest support of .\dmiral Porter, who refused to consider for a moment the abandonment of any of his vessels even though the Red River expedition had been ordered to re- turn and General Banks was chafing at de- lay and sending messages to Porter that his troops must be got in motion at once.

Bailey pushed on with his work and in eleven days he succeeded in so raising the water in the channel that all the Federal vessels were able to pass down below the Falls. "Words are inadequate," said Ad- miral Porter, in his report, "to express the admiration I feel for the ability of Lieut. Colonel Bailey. This is without doubt the best engineering feat ever performed. . . . The highest honors the Government can liestow on Colonel Bailey can never repay him for the service he has rendered the I ountry. " For this achievement Bailey was promoted to colonel, brevetted briga- dier general, voted the thanks of Congress, and presented with a sword and a purse of $.3.(K)(t by the officers of Porter's fleet. He settled in Missouri after the war and was a formidable enemj- of the "Bushwhackers" till he was shot by them on March 21, 1867. He was born at Salem, Ohio, April 28, 1827.

COLONEL JOSEPH B.\ILEY IN 1864

THE MAX WHO SAVED THE FLEET

Copyright by Review of Reviews Co.

READY FOR HER BAPTISM

This powerful gunboat, the Lafayette, though accompanying Admiral Porter on the Red River expedition, was not one of those en- trapped at Alexandria. Her heavy draft precluded her being taken above the Falls. Here we see her lying above \"icksburg in the spring of 1863. She and her sister ship, the Choctaw, were side-wheel steamers altered into casemate ironclads with rams. The Lafayette had the stronger armament, carrying two 11-inch Dahlgrens forward, four 9-inch guns in the broadside, and two 24- pound howitzers, with two 100-pound Parrott guns astern. She and the Chodaw were the most important acquisitions to Porter's fleet toward the end of 1862. The Lafayette was built and armed for heavy fighting. She got her first taste of it on the night of April 16, 1863, when Porter took part of his fleet past the Vicksburg batteries to support Grant's crossing of the river in an advance on Vicksburg from below. The Lafayette, with a barge and a transport lashed to her, held her course with difficulty through the tornado of shot and shell which poured from the Confederate batteries on the river front in Vicksburg as soon as the movement was discovered. The Lafayette stood up to this fiery christening and successfully ran the gantlet, as did all the other vessels save one transport. She was commanded during the Red River expedition by Lieutenant-Commander J. P. Foster.

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THE BATTLE WITH THE RIVER

Colonel Bailey's wonderful dam — whieli, areording to Admiral Porter, no private company would have completed within a year. Bailey's men did it in eleven days and saved a fleet of I'nion vessels worth $'2, 000. 000. Never was there an instance where such difficulties were overcome so quickly and with so little preparation. The current of the Red River, rushinjj by at the rate of nine miles an hour, thceateneil to sweep away the work of the S(;!diers as fast as it was performed. The work was commenced by building out from the left bank of the river with large trees cross-tied with h<'avv timber and filled in with brush, brick, and stone. We see the men engaged upon this work at the right of the picture. Coal barges filled with brick and stone were sunk beyond this, while from the right bank cribs filled with stone were built out to meet the barges. In eight days Bailey's men, working like beavers under the broiling sun, up to their necks in water, had backed up the current sufficiently to release three vessels. The very next [78]

THE MEN WHO CAPTURED THE CURRENT

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morning two of the barges were swept away. Admiral Porter, jumpmg on his horse rode to the upper falls and ordered the Lfx,«3- ton 1„ ,ome down and attempt the passage of the dam. The water was rapidly falhng, and as the Z,cx»,sto», having squeezed through the passage of the falls, approached the opening in the dam through whieh a torrent was pourmg, a breathless silence seized the watchers on the shore. In another instant she had plunged to safety, and a deafening cheer rose from thirty thousand throats Por- ter was afraid that Colonel Bailev would be too disheartened by the accident to the dam to renew work upon it i he other three vessels were at once ordered to follow the Lexm(,to„- s example, and came safely through. But Bailey was undaunted and his noble- hearted sol.liers. seeing their labor swept away in a moment, cheerfully went to work to repair damages being confadent now thai all the gunboats would be finally brought over." Their hopes were realized when the last vessel passed to safety on May la, Ibb-l.

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whole effect of the river scene, are admirably indicated in the cleverly taken j^hotographs.

A view of Fort JNIcAllister recalls a closing incident of Sherman's dramatic march from Atlanta to the sea. The vet- erans had for weeks been tramping, A^ith an occasional inter- val of fighting, but with very little opi)ortunity for what the boys called a square meal. By the time the advance had reached the line of the coast, the commissary wagons were practically empty. The soldiers had for days been dependent ujion the scattered supplies that could be ])icked up by the foraging parties, and the foragers, working in a country that had been already exhausted by the demands of the retreating Confederates, gave hardly enough retiu-n, in the form of corn on the cob or an occasional razor-backed hog, to offset the " wear and tear of the shoe-leather."

The men in the division of General Hazen, which was the first command to reach the Savannah River, could see down the river the smoke of the Yankee gunboats and of the trans- ports which were bringing from New York, under appoint- ment made months back by General Sherman, the much- needed supplies. But between the boj's and the food laj^ the grim earthworks of Fort jNIcAllister. Before there could be any eating, it Avas necessary to do a little more fighting. The question came from the commander to General Hazen, " Can your boys take those works? " and the answer Avas in substance, " Ain't we jest obleeged to take them? "

The assault Avas made imder the immediate inspection of General Shernian, Avho realized the im])ortance of getting at once into connection Avith the fleet, and the general Avas jDroper- ly aj^preciative of the energy Avith which the task was executed.

"See my Bummers," said Old Sherman with iiuwt illigant emotion. "Ain't their heads as horizontal as the bosom of the ocean?"

The raising of Old Glory over the fort Avas the signal for the steaming up-stream of the supply ships, and that evening

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witnessed for the advance division a glorious banquet, vs'ith real beef and soft bread.

And even this climax was capped when, on the 22d of December, General Sherman Avas able to report to President Lincobi that he had secured for him, or for the nation, a Christ- mas present in the shape of tlie city of Savannah.

The preponderance of capable military leaders was an im- portant factor in giving to the Southern armies the measure of success secured by these armies during the first two years; but even during this earlier jieriod, military capacity developed also on the side of the North, and by the middle of the war the balance of leadership ability may be considered as fairly equal. It may frankly be admitted, however, that no commander of the North had placed ujjon him so stupendous a burden as that M-hicli was carried by Lee, as the commander of the Army of Northern A'irginia. through the weary and bloody campaigns of three years. For the last year of that period, Lee was fighting A\ith no forces in reserve and with constantly diminishing re- sources. With great engineering skill, with ingenuity in utiliz- ing every possible natural advantage for defense, with initiative and enterjjrise in turning defense at most unexpected moments into attack, with a sublime patience and persistence and with the devotion and magnificent fighting capacity of the men behind him. Lee accomplislied with his Army of Northern Virginia a larger task in proportion to the resoin'ces at his command than has, I believe, ever been accomplished in modern warfare. The higher we i)lace the aliility of the Southern commander and the fighting capacity of the men behind him, the larger, of course, becomes the task of the leaders and armies of the North through whose service the final campaigns were won and the cause of nationality was maintained.

In going to England in the years immediately succeeding the war, I used to meet with some sharp criticism from army men and from others interested in army operations, as to the time that had been taken by the men of the North to overcome

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LEE— WITH HIS SOX. G. W. C. LEE. AND COLONEL TAYLOR,

No military leader in any country, not even excepting General Washington himself, ever became so universally beloved as Robert E. Lee throughout the South before the close of the war. Rising from the nominal position of Superintendent of Fortifications at Richmond, he became the military adviser of Jefferson Da\is and finally the General-in-Oiicf of the Confederate forces. From the time that Lee began to drive back McClellan's forces from Richmond in the Seven Days' Battles the hopes of the Confederates were centered in their great general. So hastily arranged was that first and final meeting with Grant to discuss the terms of surrender that no photograph was obtained of it, but here are preserved for us the commanding figure, keen eyes, and marvelously moulded features of General Lee as he appeared immediately after that dramatic event. He has just arrived in Richmond from Appomattox, and is seated in the basement of his Franklin Street residence between his son, Major-General G. W. C. Lee, and his aide. Colonel W'alter Taylor.

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their opponents and to establish their control oa er the territory ill rebellion. Such phrases would be used as: "You had twenty-two millions against nine millions. You must have been able to put two muskets into the field against every one of your opponents. It was absurd that you should have allowed yourselves to be successfully withstood for four years and that you should finally have crushed your plucky and skilful oppo- nents only through the brute force of numbers." I recall the difference of judgment given after the British campaigns of South Africa as to the difficulties of an invading army.

The large armies that were opposed to the plucky and per- sistent Boers and the people at home came to have a better understanding of the nature and extent of the task of securing control over a wild and well-defended territory, the invaders of which were fighting many miles from their base and with lines of communication that were easily cut. By the constant cutting and harassing of the lines of communication, and a clever disjjo- sition of lightly equipped and active marching troops who were often able to crush in detail outlying or separated troops of the invaders, a force of some forty thousand Boers found it possible to keep two hundred thousand well-eciuipped British troops at bay for nearly two years. The Englishman now understands that when an army originally comprising a hundred thousand men has to come into action at a point some hundred of miles distant from its base, it is not a hundred thousand muskets that are available, but seventy thousand or sixty thousand. The other thousands have been used up on the march or have been left to guard the lines of communication. Without constantly renewed supplies an army is merely a helpless mass of men.

It is probable, in fact, that the history of modern warfare gives no example of so complex, extensive, and difficult a mili- tary undertaking as that which was finally brought to a suc- cessful close by the armies of the North, armies which were contending against some of the best fighting material and the ablest military leadership that the world has known.

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THIRD PllEFACE

THE SOUTH AND THE FEDERAL NAVY

THE SOUTH AND THE WAR RECORDS

With Many Photographs of '61-65 Taken Inside the Confederate Lines

THE SOUTHERN FLAG FLOATING OVER SUMTER ON APRIL 10, 1861 — SOUTH CAROLINA TROOPS DRILLING ON THE PARADE, TWO DAYS AFTER FORCING

OUT ANDERSON AND HIS FEDERAL GARRISON THE FLAG IS MOUNTED ON

THE PARAPET TO THE RIGHT OF THE FORMER FLAGSTAFF, WHICH HAS BEEN SHATTERED IN THJ] COURSE OF THE BOMBARDMENT FROM CHARLESTON

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THE FEDERAL NAVY AND THE SOUTH

By French E. Chad wick, Rear-Admiral, United States Navy

Who shall estimate the value to the TTiiited States of tlie services of its iiavv ■which thus isolated the Confederacy, cut it otf from communication with the outside world, and at the same time compelled it to guard every point against a raid like that which had destroyed the Capitol of the United States in 181 -t? Had the Confederacy instead of the United States been able to exercise dominion over the sea ; had it been able to keep open its means of conniiunication with the countries of the Old World, to send its cotton abroad and to bring back the supplies of which it stood so much in need; had it been able to blockade Portland, Boston, Newport, New York, the mouth of the Delaware, and the entrance of Chesapeake Bay ; had it possessed the sea power to prevent the United States from des- patching by water into Mrginia its armies and their supplies, it is not too much to say that such a I'eversal of conditions would have reversed the outcome of the Ci\il Way. — Hilary A. Herbert, Colonel Sth Alabama Vol- iinteers, C.S.A., eJC-Seeretarjj of the Navij, in an address, '■'■The Sea and Sea Power as a Factor in the History of the United States,''^ delivered at the Naval War College, August 10, 1896.

NOW that half a century has passed since the Civil War, we have come to a point where we can deal calmly Avith the philosophy of the great contest without too great disturb- ance of the feeling which came near to wrecking our nation- ality. The actualities of the struggle will be dealt with in the photographic history. JNleanwhile it is not amiss in these pages to look into the causes of the South's failure to set up a nation and thus justify Gladstone's surety of Southern success in his Newcastle speech in 1862.

It has been, as a rule, taken for granted that the South was worsted in a fair fight in the field. This is so in a moderate

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A BLOCKADE RT'NNER, THE SWIFl'EST CRAFT OF HER DAY

With the regularity of express trains, swift vessels hke this one left Nassau and Bermuda and traveled direct for their destination, timed to arrive in the night. So great were the profits of blockade running that in some cases one successful voyage out and back would more than repay the owners for the loss of the vessel. Under these circumstances it can be easily seen that men were tempted to take risks that ordinarily they would avoid.

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A CHARLESTON VOLUNTEER COMPANY AT DRILL UNDER THE WALLS OP CASTLE PINCKNEY In pipe-clayed cross belts and white gloves, with all llu'ir accoutrements bright and shining, here we see a volunteer company of young Confederates standing at "Present Arms" and posing before the camera. The four officers standing in front of the line are Captain C. E. Chichester, Lieutenant E. John White, Lieutenant B. M. Walpole and Lieutenant R. C. GilchrLst. Gilchrist is curving his Da- mascus scimitar — a blade .so finely tempered that its point would bend hack to form a complete loop.

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degree only; for tlie fight was not wholly a fair one. Differ- ence of forces in the field may be set aside, as the fight being on the gromid of the weaker, any disproportion in numbers was largely annulled. But the army of the Xorth was lavishly equipped; there was no want of arms, food, raiment, amnm- nition, or medical care. Everything an army could have the Federal forces had to overflowing. On the other hand the Southern army was starved of all necessaries, not to speak of the luxuries which the abounding North poured forth for its men in the field. The South was in want of many of these nec- essaries even in the beginning of the war; toward the end it was in Avant of all. It was because of this want that it had to yield. General Joseph E. Johnston, writing General Beauregard in 1868, said truly: "We, without the means of purchasing supjilies of any kind, or procuring or repairing arms, could continue this Avar only as robbers or guerillas." The Southern army finally melted away and gave up the fight because it had arrived at the limit of human endurance through the suffering which came of the absolute want brought by the blockade.

Some few Iiistorians have recognized and made clear this fact, notably General Charles Francis Adams, himself a val- iant soldier of the war. Another is Mr. John Christopher Schwab, professor of political economy in Yale Universit}^ The former, analyzing six reasons for the South's failure, given by a British symj^athizer in Blackwood's ^Magazine for July, 186G, says: "We are . . . through elimination brought down to one factor, the blockade, as the controlling condition of Union success. In other words that success was made pos- sible by the undisputed naval and maritime superiority of the North. Cut off from the outer world and all exterior sources of sujjply, reduced to a state of inanition by the blockade, the Confederacy was pounded to death." ' The " povmding "

' Charles Francis Adams, Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. xix, 224.

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THE FIRST TASTE OF CAMP LIFE

This rare Confederate photograph preserves for us the amusements of the Alabama soldiers in camp near Mobile on a spring day in 1861. To the left we see a youth bending eagerly over the shoulder of the man who holds the much-prized newspaper in his hands. To the right a group of youngsters are reading letters from home, while in the background still others are playing the banjo and the violin to relieve the tedium of this inactive waiting for the glorious battles anticipated in imagination when they enlisted. These men are clad in the rough costume of home life, and can boast none of the bright new uniforms with shining brass buttons that made the Federal camps resplendent. Here and there a cap indicates an officer. Yet even these humble accessories were much better than the same troops could show later on, when the ruddy glow on their faces had given place to the sallowness of disease.

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ON PARADE Here a Confederate photographer has caught the Orleans Cadets, Company A, parading before their encampment at Big Bayou, near Pensacola, Florida, April 21, 18C1. This was the first volunteer company mustered into service from the State of Louisiana. The Cadets had enlisted on April 11, 18G1. Although their uniforms are not such as to make a brilliant display, it was with pride and confidence for thefuture that their commander. Captain (afterwards Lieut. Colonel) Charles D. Dreux, watched their maneuvers on this spring day, little dreaming that in less than three months he would fall in battle, the first but one among army officers to offer up his life for the Southern cause. The hopes now beating high in the hearts of both oflicers and men were all to be realized in deeds of bravery but only at further cost of human life here seen at its flood tide.

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was mainly done by tlie army; the conditions which permitted it to be effectively done were mainly established by the navy.

" The blockade," says "Sir. Schwab in his " Financial and Industrial History of the South during the Civil War," " con- stituted the most powerful tool at the command of the Fed- eral Government in its efforts to subdue the South. The relentless and almost uniformly successful operations of the navy have been minimized in im])ortance by the at times more brilliant achievements of the army; but we lean to ascribing to the navy the larger share in undermining the power of re- sistance on the part of the Sf)uth. It was the blockade rather than the ravages of the army that sapped the industrial strength of the Confederacy."

The South was thus beaten by want; and not merelj' by force of arms. A nation of ancII on to 6.000.000 could never have been conquered on its own ground by even the great forces the North brought against it but for this faikn-e of re- sources which made it impossible to bring its full fighting strength into the field.

We know that there was a total of 2.841,906 enlistments and reenlistments in the army and navy of the North, repre- senting some 1,600,000 three-year enlistments; we shall, how- ever, never know the actual forces of the South on account of the imfortunate destruction of the Southern records of enlist- ments and levies. That some 1,100,000 men were available is, of course, patent from the fact that the white population of the seceding states was 5,600,000, and to these were added 125,000 men, who, as sympathizers, joined the Southern army. The South fought as men have rarely fought. Its spirit was the equal of that of any race or time, and if the 325,000 Boers in South Africa could put 80,000 men into the field, the 5,600,- 000 of the South would have furnished an equal proportion had there been arms, clothing, food, and the rest of the many accessories which, besides men, go to make an army. The situ- ation which prevented an accomplishment of such results as

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CONFEDERATES ENLISTING AT THE NATCHEZ COURTHOUSE, EARLY IN 1801

This rare Confederate photograph preserves a hvely scene that was typical of the war preparations in the South in the spring of 1861. The fresh recruits are but scantily supplied with arms and accouterments, for only the Federal arsenals in the South could supply munitions of war. The military population of Mississippi at the opening of the war has been estimated at seventy thousand, and that of Louisiana at eighty thousand. It is believed that nearly a hundred thousand from each State enlisted in the Southern armies. The two scenes on this page were duplicated in hundreds of towns throughout the Southland as the war opened.

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RECRUITING AT BATON ROUGE— 180:2

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those in South Africa, and it was impossible in the circum- stances tliat they could be, was the result of the blockade of the Southern coast, a force the South was powerless to resist.

^Miat has been said shows how clear was the role of the navy. The strategic situation was of the simplest; to deprive the South of its intercourse with Europe and in addition to cut the Confederacy in twain through the control of the INIis- sissippi. The latter, gained largely by the battles of Farragut, Porter, Foote. and Davis, was ])ut a part of the great scheme of blockade, as it cut off the supply of food from Texas and the shipments of material which entered that State by way of ]Matamoras. The question of the military control of Texas could be left aside so long as its communications were cut, for in any case the State would finally have to yield with the rest of the Confederacy. The many thousand troops which would have been an invaluable reenforcement to the Southern armies in the East were to remain A\est of the ^Mississippi and were to have no influence in the future events.

The determination to attempt by force to reinstate the Federal authority over a vast territory, eight hundred miles from north to south and seventeen hundred from east to west, defended by such forces as mentioned, was truly a gigantic proposition, to be measured somewhat by the effort put forth by Great Britain to subdue the comparatively very small forces of the South African republic. It was as far from Washington to Atlanta (which may be considered as the heart of the Confederacy) as from London to Vienna. The frontier of the Confederacy, along which operations were to begin, was fifteen hundred miles in length. Within the Confederacy were railways which connected Chattanooga with I^ynchbvu'g.^nn Vir- ginia, on the east and with ^Memphis, on the JNlississippi, on the west ; two north and south lines ran, the one to New Orleans, the other to Mobile; Atlanta connected with Chattanooga; ]Mobile and Savannah were in touch with Richmond through the coast line which passed through Wilmington and Charleston. No

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WAITING FOR THE SMELL OF POWDER— CONFEDERATES BEFORE SHILOH

Some very youthful Louisiana soldiers waiting for their first taste of battle, a few weeks before Shiloh. These are members of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. We see them at Camp Louisiana proudly wearing their new boots and their uniforms as yet unfaded by the sun. Louisiana gave liberally of her sons, who distinguished themselves in the fighting throughout the West. The Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery took part in the closely contested Battle of Shiloh. The Confederates defeated Sherman's troops in the early morning, and by night were in possession of all the Federal camps save one. The Washington Artillery served their guns handsomely and helped materiallj- in forcing the Federals back to the bank of the river. The timely arrival of Buell's army the ne.\t day at Pittsburg Landing enabled Grant to recover from the reverses suffered on that bloody "first day'" — Sunday, April 6, 1862.

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part of the South, east of the .Mississippi, was very distant from railway transportation, which for a long period the South carried on excepting in that portion which ran from Lynch- burg to Chattanooga through the eastern part of Tennessee, where the population was in the main sympathetic with the Union.

Thus the South had the great advantage, which it held for several years, of holding and operating on interior lines. Its communications were held intact, whereas those of the Federals, as in the case of Grant's advance by way of the Wilderness, were often in danger. It was not until Sherman made his great march to the sea across Georgia, a march which Colonel Hen- derson, the noted English writer on strategy, says " would have been impossible had not a Federal fleet been ready to receive him when he reached the Atlantic," that the South felt its com- munications hopelessly involved.

To say that at the outset there was any broad and well- considered strategic plan at Washington for army action, would be an error. There was no such thing as a general staflP, no central organization to do the planning of campaigns, such as now exists. The commanders of Eastern and Western armies often went their own gait without any effective coordination. It was not until Grant practically came to supreme military command that complete coordination was possible.

Four Unionist objectives, however, were clear. The greatly disaffected border states which had not joined the Con- federacy must be secured and the loyal parts of Virginia and Tennessee defended; the southern ports blockaded; the great river which divided the Confederacy into an east and west brought under Federal control, and the army which defended Richmond overcome. At the end of two years all Init the last of these objecti\es had been secured, but it was nearly two years more before the gallant Army of Northern Virginia suc- cumbed through the general misery wrought in the Confed- eracy by the sealing of its ports and the consequent inability of

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OFFICERS OF MISSISSIPPI'S "FIGHTING NINTH."

In this long-lost Confederate photograph we see vividly the simple accoutrements which characterized many of the Southern regiments during the war. These men of Company B of the Ninth Mississippi enlisted as the Home Guards of Marshall County, and were mustered into the State service at Holly Springs, February 16, 1861. Their checked trousers and workday shirts are typical of the simple equipment each man furnished for himself. The boots worn by Colonel Barry, at the right, were good enough for the average Confederate soldier to go through fire to obtain later on in the war. Lacking in the regalia of war- fare, the Ninth Missis.sippi made a glorious record for itself in Chalmers' Brigade at Shiloh, wliere it lost its gallant Colonel, William A. Rankin. "Never," said General Bragg, "were troops and commander more worthy of each other and their State."

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the Southerners to liold their own against the e\er increasing, well-fed and ^ell-supplied forces of the North. To (luote again the able Englishman just mentioned, " Judicious indeed was the policy which, at the very outset of the war, brought the tre- mendous jjressure of the sea power to bear against the South, and had her statesmen j^ossessed the knowledge of what that pressure meant, they must have realized that Abraham Lincoln was no ordinary foe. In forcing the Confederates to become the aggressors, and to fire on the national ensign, he Iiad created a united North; in establishing a blockade of their coasts he brought into play a force which, like the mills of God, ' grinds slowly, but grinds exceedingly small.' " It was the command of the sea which finally told and made certain the success of the army and the reimiting of the States.

[To the discussion presented above l)v Admiral Chadwick may be added the foHowing expression of opinion l)v one of tlie foremost niihtarv students of modern Europe: "Tiie cooperation of the United States navy with their army in producing a decisive effect upon the whole character of the niilitarv operations is akin to what happens with us in nearly every war in which we engage. An English general has almost always to make his calculations strictly in accordance with what the navy can do for him. The operations by which the Federal navy, in conjunction with the army, sj)lit the Confederacy in two and severed the East from the A\'est, must always, therefore, have for him a profound interest and importance. The great strategical results c)btained by this concentration of military and naval power, which were as remarkable as the circumstances under which the successes were gained, deserve our closest stud\." — Fiiid-Murshul, the Right Honorable Viscount Wolsclcy. — Enrrous.]

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SUMTER BECOMES A FEDERAL TARGET

The eastern barracks inside Fort Sumter durinjj the Bombardment of Seiit. 8, 1863. — The guns of the Federal blockading fleet had now been pounding the fort for many weeks. This but recently re-discovered picture is the work of G. S. Cook, the Charleston photographer. The view is to the right of the exploding shell in the picture on page 100. The flag and guns shown in the earlier picture have been swept away. The upper casemate to the left has been demolished. The lower ones remained intact, however, and continued to be used and even armed to the end of the Confederate's defense. The guns here bore on the channel nearly opposite Fort Moultrie. The bake oven of the barracks — on the chimney of which are a couple of Confederate soldiers — was frequently used for heating solid shot. In one of the low^er rooms of the bar- racks, seen to the right, the ruins later fell upon a detachment of sleeping soldiers,

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RECORDS OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

By jMarcus J. Vv'right, Bngadiei'-General, C.S.A.

Agent of the ['iiitrJ AVa/cv Wa?- Dcpdiinicnt for the Colhrtion of Military Records

THE war A\hich was carried on in the United States in 1861-5, called " The War of the Rebellion," " The Civil War," "The War of Secession," and "The War Between the States." was one of the greatest conflicts of ancient or modern times. Official repc^-ts show that 2. 8(3.5.028 men were mustered into the service of the United States. The report of Provost-JNIarshal General Fry shows that of these 61,302 were killed in Ijattle, 34-, 773 died of wounds, 183,287 died of disease, 306 were accidentally killed, and 267 were executed by sentence. The Adjutant-General made a report February 7, 1869, showing the total number of deaths to be 303,50-i.

The Confederate forces are estimated from 600.000 to 1,000,000 men, and ever since the conclusion of the war there has been no little controversy as to the total numlter of troops involved. The losses in the Confederate army have never been officially reported, but the United States War Depart- ment, which has been assiduously engaged in the collection of all records of both armies, has many Confederate muster-rolls on which the casualties are recorded. The tabulation of these rolls shows that 52,95-1 Confederate soldiers Avere killed in action, 21.570 died of Mounds, and 59.297 died of disease. This does not include the missing muster-rolls, so that to these flg- lu-es a substantial percentage must be added. Differences in methods of reporting the strength of commands, the absence of adequate field-records and the destruction of those actually

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Island, Charleston Harbor, still wear- companies so extensively organized

SOUTH CAHOLIXA MEN I\ BLl !•:, SPKINC These officers of the Flying Artillery we see here entering the Confederate service at Sullivan ing the blue uniforms of their volunteer organization. It was one of the state militi

throughout the South previous to the war. South Carolina was particularly active in this line. After the secession of the State the Charleston papers were full of notices for various military companies to assemble for drill or for the distribution of arms and accoutrements. Number i of this group is .\llcn J. (!roen. then Captain of the Cohunbia Flying Artillery (later aMajorinthe Confederate service). No. ^ is \V. K. Bachman, then a 4th Lieutenant, later Captain in the (Icrman Volunteers, a state infantry organization that finally entered the artillery service and achieved renown as Bachman's Battery. No. 3 is Wilmot D. de Saussure; No. 7 is John Waites, then Lieutenant and later Captain of another company. After 1803, when the Confederate resources were waning, the Confederate soldiers were not ashamed to wear the blue clothing brought in by the blockade runners.

TWO YEARS AFTERWARD (^opyr^ by fatr^ot Pub.

Confederate Uniforms at Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. — .According to a Northern authority, Lee's veterans in 1863 were "the finest infantry on earth!" In this picture we see three of them taken pri-soners at Gettysburg and caught by the camera of a Union photographer. These battle-stained Confederates had no glittering uniforms to wear; they marched and fought in any garb they were fortunate enough to secure and were glad to carry with them the blankets which would enable them to snatch some rest at night. Their shoes — perhaps taken in sheer necessity from the dead on the field — worn and dusty as we see them, were unquestionably the envy of many of their less fortunate comrades. Lee could only make his daring invasion of the North in 1863 by severing his connection with any base of supplies; and, unlike Sherman in his march to the sea, he had no friendly force waiting to receive him should he prove able to overcome the powerful army that opposed him. "Never," says Eggleston, "anywhere did soldiers give a better account of themselves. The memory of their heroism is the common heritage of all the people of the great Republic."

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made are responsible for considerable lack of information as to the strength and losses of the Confederate army. There- fore, the matter is involved in considerable controversy and never will be settled satisfactorily; for there is no i)robability that further data on this subject will be forthcoming.

The immensity and extent of our great Civil War are shown by the fact that there were fought 2,261 battles and en- gagements, which took place in the following named States: In New York, 1; Pennsylvania, 0: INIaryland, 30; District of Columbia, 1; West Virginia, 80; ^'irginia, 519; North Caro- lina, 85; South Carolina, 60; Georgia, 108; Florida, 32; Alabama, 78; ^Mississippi, 186; Louisiana, 118; Texas, 14; Arkansas, 167; Tennessee, 298; Kentucky, 138; Ohio, 3; In- diana, 4; Illinois, 1; Missouri, 244; JNlinnesota, 6; California, 6; Kansas, 7; Oregon, 4; Nevada, 2; Washington Territory, 1; Utah, 1; New Mexico, 19; Nebraska, 2; Colorado, 4; Indian Territory, 17; Dakota, 11; Arizona, 4; and Idaho, 1.

It soon became evident that the official record of the War of 1861 5 must be compiled for the purposes of Government administration, as well as in the interest of history, and this work was jjrojected near the close of the first administration of President Lincoln. It has continued during the tenure of succeetling Presidents, vmder the direction of the Secretaries of War, from Edwin M. Stanton, under whom it began, to Secretary Llihu Root, under whose direction it was completed. Colonel Robert N. Scott, U.S.A., who was placed in charge of the work in 1874, prepared a methodical arrangement of the matter which was continued throughout. Officers of the Ignited States army were detailed, and former officers of the Confed- erate army were also employed in the work. The chief civilian expert who continued with the work from its inception was ^Ir. Joseph \V. Kirkley. The total number of volumes is 70; the total number of books, 128, many of the volumes containing several sei^arate parts. The total cost of publication was $2,-

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THE LAST TO LAY DOWN ARMS

Recovered from oblivion only after a long and patient search, this is believed to be the last Confederate war photograph taken. On May 26, 186,5, General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the troops in the Trans- Mississippi Department. Paroled by that capitulation these officers gathered in Shreveport, Louisiana, early in June to commemorate by means of the camera their long connection with the war. The oldest of them was but 40. The clothes in which they fought were worn to tatters, but each has donned the dress coat of an unused uniform carefully saved in some chest in the belief that it was to identify him with a victorious cause and not as here with a lost one. The names of those standing, from left to right, are: David French Boyd, Major of Engineers; D. C. Proctor, First Louisiana Engineers; unidentified; and William Freret. The names of those seated are: Richard M. Venable; H. T. Douglas, Colonel of Engineers; and Octave Hopkins, First Louisiana Engineers.

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In view of tlie distrust with wliicli the South for a while naturally regarded the efforts made by the Government to pro- cin-e the reeords of the Confederacy, the work of the depart- ment to obtain this material at first met with slight success.

In 1878, the writer, a Confederate officer, was appointed as agent of the War Department for the collection of Confed- erate archives. Through his efforts the attitude of the South- ern people became more cordial, and increased records were the result. By provision of Congress, certain sets of the volumes were distributed, and others held for sale at cost.

The history of this official record is mentioned in these pages as it indicates a wide-spread national desire on the part of the jjeojjle of the United States to have a full and impartial record of the great conflict, which must form, necessarily, the basis of all history concerned with this era. It is the record of the struggle as distinguished from personal recollections and reminiscences, and its fulness and impartial character have never been questioned. The large number of these volumes makes them unavailable for general reading, but in the prepa- ration of " The Photograjihic History of the Civil War " the editors have not only considted these official reports, but give the equally pernfknent testimony of the photographic nega- tive. Therefore, as a successor to and complement of this Gov- ernment publication, nothing could be more useful or interest- ing than " The Photograjjhic History of the Civil War." The text does not aim at a statistical record, but is an impartial narrative supplementing the pictures. Nothing gives so clear a conception of a person or an event as a picture. The more intelligent people of the country. Xorth and South, desire the truth put on record, and all bitter feeling eliminated. This work, it is believed, will add greatly to that end.

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FOURTH PREFACE

THE STRATEGY

OF THE WAR LEADERS

A CENTRAL STRATEGICAL POINT THE APPROACH TO RICHMOND VIA

JAMES RIVER, AS IT LOOKED IN WAR-TIME, BLOCKED BY THE CONFEDERATE RAM "VIRGINIA," AND GUNBOATS "PATRICK HENRy" AND " JAMESTOWN," SUNK IN THE CHANNEL TO HOLD THE FEDERAL FLEET FROM RICHMOND (see two pages FOLLOWING FOR ANOTHER VIEW OF THIS SCENE)

OliSTRLCTIOXS RENDERED USELESS

The superior navy of the Federals at the liefrinninf; and throughout tlie war enabled them to gain the a<lvantage of penetrating the rivers leading into the interior of the Confederaey and thus support the military forees in many telling movements. To this fact the surrender of Forts Henry and Donelson and the ultimate eontrol of the Mississippi by the I'nion forees gives eloquent testimony. In the East the regions between Washington anil Richmond were traversed by streams, small and large, which made aggressive warfare difficult. For this reason MeClcllan chose the James River Peninsula for his first advance upon the Confederate Capital. Far more dreaded than the advance of the army was the approach of the powerful Monitor and the Galena up the James River, and the I 1101

JAMES RI\ER, VIRGINU, NEAR DREWRY'S BLUFF.— 1862

Copyright by Review of Reviews Co.

first thought of the Confoderates was to hold tliis danger in abeyance. Hence the obstructions (shomi on the opposite page) sunk in the bend of the James River near Drewry's Bhiff. where a powerful battery known as Fort Darling was hastily but effectively constructed. These blocked the attempts of the Federals to invest the Confederate capital until Grant's superior strategy in 1864. rendered them useless by throwing his army across the James in one of his famous flanking movements and advancing toward Richmond in a new direction. The campaign developing into a siege of Petersburg on the Appomattox, the Federal vessels confined their activities to the lower James.

THE STRATEGY OF THE CIVIL WAR

By Ebex Swift

Lkiitciuuit -Colonel 8th Cavalry, United States Army

But strategy, iinfoi-tiiiiatelv, is a voiy iinjwpuliir siioiice, even among soldiers, requiring Ijotli in practice and in demonstration constant and careful study <if the map, the closest computation of time and space, a grasp of many factors, and tlie strictest attention to the various steps in the prol)leins it presents. At the same time, it is a science which repays the student, although he may have no direct concern w ith military affairs ; for not only will a comprehension of its imniutahle principles add a new interest to the records of stirring times and great achievements, but will make him a more useful citizen. — ^'■S'toneicall Jackion and the Civil ir«7-," hy Lieutenant-Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, C.B.

THE student has great advantage over the actor in Mar, imrticularly Avhen lie makes his study after a lapse of fifty years. His point of view is illuminated then hy the stories as told by both contestants, by the disputes and explanations of many participants. He also pursues his investigations without any of the distracting influences of war itself. It may not, therefore, be entirely fair to take each man's act before the bar of history and to require him to justify himself to the critics of a later day. In a larger sense, though, it is right, because past exjierience gives the best lessons and guides for the future. Until we have another war, we shall continue to study the great conflict of 1861-5, and to read the secrets of our future in its tale of failure or success.

" Strategy " is a comparatively recent addition to our lan- guage. It is derived from the Greek a-Tparrjyia, meaning gen- eralship, and has several valuable derivatives, as " strategic " and " strategist," Avhich make it a more useful word than

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WAR STUDENTS OF TWO CONTINENTS

What an excellent example of open-air group portraiture — the work of Gardner's camera ! But photography can add nothing to the fame of these men, gathered together in an idle hour to chat about the strategy of the war. Seated in the center is Count Zeppelin, of the Prussian Army, later the winner of honors with his airship and then on a visit to America to observe the Civil War. To his left is Lieutenant Rosencranz, a Swedish officer, on leave of absence, observing the war at close range as General McClellan's personal aide- de-camp. He successively served Burnside, Hooker and Meade in the same capacity. His brave and genial disposition made him a universal favorite. The other men are .Vmericans, conspicuous actors as well as students in the struggle. On the ground, to the left, sits ^Nlajor Ludlow, who commanded the colored brigade which, and under his direction, in the face of a continual bombafdment, dug Dutch Gap Canal on the James. The man in the straw hat is Lieut. Colonel Dickinson, Assistant Adjutant General to Hooker, a position in which he served until the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded. Standing is Cajjtain Ulric Dahlgren, serving at the time on Meade's staff. Even the loss of a leg could not quell his indomitable spirit, and he subsequently sacrificed his life in an effort to release the Federal prisoners at Libby and Belle Isle.

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generalshi]). It means the art of the general and indicates the time, place, and way to fight battles.

The War of the States was viewed at first with indifference by foreign military men. For many years past, however, it has claimed their close attention, because they have come to realize that new conditions were tested then, and that new in- fluences, which changed the art of the general even from the respected models of Xapoleon fifty years before, were at work. Ironclads, entrenchments, railroads, the breech-loader, a new kind of cavalry were the fresh factors in the problem.

Although hostilities at first began over an area lialf as large as Europe, the region of decisive operations was, on ac- count of lack of communication, narrowed to the country be- tween the Atlantic and tlie Mississippi, about seven hundred miles in an air-line. The line was unequally divided by the towering barrier of the Alleghany JNIountains, about two hun- dred miles wide, over which communication was difficidt. The eastern section of the country beyond the range was about one hundred miles M'ide and the ^vestern section Avas about four hundred miles wide. In ^Maryland, northwestern Vir- ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri sentiment was divided between the Union and the Confederacy. The JMississippi River sep- arated three of the seceding States from the remaining eight.

The immense amount of sui^plies needed for a great army caused militarj' operations on a large scale to be confined to rail and water lines. Of the former, botli the North and South had several routes running east and west for lateral communication, and the South had several running north and south in each section, which could be used for lines of military operations. In respect to water routes, the Xorth soon demonstrated its complete control of the sea and was thus able to choose its points of attack, while interior water routes were available by the INIississippi, Tennessee, Cum- l)erland, and James rivers. The advantage of the water route over that by rail -was at once utilized by the Northern generals.

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In 1861 there arrived the first great oppor- tunity to study warfare in the field since the campaigns of Napoleon, and these young men of royal blood expected at no distant day to be the leaders of a war of their own to recover the lost Bourbon throne of France. The three distinguished guests of the Army of the Potomac seated at the farther end of the camp dinner-table are, from right to left, the Prince de Joinville, son of King Louis Phillipe, and his two nephews, the Count de Paris and the Due de Chartres, sons of the Due d'Orleans. They came to Washington in Sep- tember, 18G1, eager to take some part in the great conflict for the sake of the experience it would give them. President Lincoln welcomed them, bestowed upon each the honorary rank of Captain, and assigned them to the staff of General McClellan. OflScially merely guests at headquarters, they acted as aides-de-camp to McClellan. bearing despatches and the like, frequently under fire. They distinguished themselves at the battle of Gaines' Mill. The Prince de Joinville made a painting of that engagement which became widely published.

A KLNGS SON LN CAMP

In the lower picture the Count de Paris and the Due de Chartres are trying their skill at dominoes after dinner. Captain Leclerc, on the left, and Captain Mohain, on the right, are of their party. A Union officer has taken the place of the Prince de Joinville. It was to perfect their skill in a greater and grimmer game that these young men came to America. At Yorktown they could see the rehabilitated fortifications cf Cornwallis, which men of their own bluinl liad helped to seize, now am- plified by the latest methods of defensive war- fare. Exposed to the fire of the Napoleon field pieces imported by the Confederacy, they could compare their effectiveness with that of the huge rifled Dahlgrens. the invention of an .\merican admiral. General McClellan tes- tified that ever in the thick of things they performed their duties to his entire satisfac- tion. At the close of the Peninsula Cam- paign the royal party returned to France, but watched the war with great interest to its close.

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LEARNING THE GAME

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It was not so vulnerable to attack as the railroad. All navi- gable rivers within the area of operations were used for this purpose, and McClellan, Burnside. and Grant used the Chesa- ])eake Baj^ and its tributaries to carry their base of supplies close to Richmond. The operations of the Confederates, on the other hand, were greatly restricted by l)eing confined to railroad lines.

Several natural features which were certain to influence events to a great extent are to be noticed. In Virginia, numerous rivers, running parallel to the direct line of advance, form good lines for defense and also obstacles to an advance. Several mountain valleys leading north at the eastern ranges of the Alleghanies gave opportunities for leading large forces safely into Pennsylvania from Virginia, or vice versa. Within the mountain district, a railroad from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Chattanooga, in Tennessee, about four hundred miles long, gave an opportunity for transferring troops from one section to the other, while the corresponding distance at the North was three times as great. In the western section, the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers are sei)arated at one i)lace by a narrow- neck about two miles wide, thus somewhat simplifying the problem of controlling these two important streams. The strategic chess-l)oard, then, gave great opportunities to skilful generalship. The A'irginia rivers gave strength to long de- fensive lines, screened marches from east to west, and forced the Northern generals to seek the i\auk rather than the front attack. The Shenandoah valley afforded a safe approach to AN'^ashington from the rear. This was availed of by I^ee, .Jackson, and Early to keep many thousand men of the army of the North in idleness. In the West, the long line defended by scattered troops was weak at every point and was quite easily broken by Grant, ])articularly Avhen the South was slow in grasping the situation there. The advantage of the Richmond-Chattanooga railroad was not used by the Confed- erates until too late for success.

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There is no mistaking the nationality of these Military Attaches with their tartans and Dun- dreary whiskers. They were accompanying the Army of the Potomac on its Peninsula Campaign. In the center of the group of Englishmen stands the Prince de Joinville. From the observations of these men both France and England were to learn many mili- tary lessons from a new conflict on the soil over which the soldiers of both nations had fought in a former generation. The armies of both North and South were being moved and maintained in the field in a manner and upon a scale undreamed of by Napoleon, to say nothing of Howe and Cornwallis. The Count de Paris wrote a very comprehensive and impartial history of the war, and in 1890 revisited America and gathered together some 200 or more surviving officers of the Army of the Potomac at a dinner in the old Hotel Plaza, New York City. Not half the veterans that were his guests more than two decades ago are still alive, and the Due him- self joined the majoritj- in 1894.

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Copyright by Patriot Pub. Co,

WATCHING THE WAR

Here are some English and other foreign mili- tary officers with General Barry and some of his staff before Yurktown in May, 1862. Eu- ropean military opinion was at first indifferent to the importance of the conflict as a scliool of war. The more progressive, nevertheless, realized that much was to be learned from it. The railroad and the telegraph were two im- tried elements in strategj'. The ironclad gun- boat and ram introduced serious complica- tions in naval warfare. .\t first the influence of Napoleon I was manifest in the field, but as the struggle proceeded both armies de- veloped distinctly new ideas of their own. The sight of Sherman maintaining railroad and telegraphic communications with a base 138 miles away was a new one to the world, while his cutting loose from any base whatever in his March to the Sea was only less remarkable than Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania imder similar conditions, to which was added a superior op- posing force. In these and many other ex- amples the war set the pace for later develop- ment.

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The strategy, on account of political and other influences, was not always chosen according to the best military prin- ciples. Such influences always exist, and it is the duty of the soldier to conform and to make his plan to suit as best he can.

Under the head of policy would come Lee's several inva- sions of the North, undertaken with insuificient forces and too far from his base of supplies. Numerous causes have been given for these campaigns, the most plausible of which were of a political and not of a strategic nature. It was thought that a victory won on Northern soil might lead to intervention on the part of foreign nations, or that it would increase the disaffected element in the North to such an extent that the South could dictate a j^eace.

The policy of making military ojierations conform to the desire to lielp Northern sympathizers in eastern Tennessee had a powerful influence on the entire war. In the spring of 1862, it would have taken Euell into eastern Tennessee, instead of to the assistance of Grant and would have changed the course of events in the ]Mississi2)pi valley. Three months later, it was one of the potent influences that led to the breaking up of Hal- leck's army at Corinth. It finally caused Buell's relief from command because of his disapproval. It caused Burnside's army to be absent from the battle of Chickamauga.

In 1864, the campaigns of Price in ^Missouri and Hood in Tennessee are said to have been intended to affect the presi- dential election at the North by giving encouragement to the jiarty which was claiming that the war was a Federal failure. If that was not the case might not Hood have done better bj' marching in the track of Longstreet through Knoxville, Tennessee, and Lynchburg, Virginia, to join I^ee, while Sher- man was marching to the sea, entirely out of reach?

An unreasonable importance, from a military point of view, was given to the capital of each government. The cap- ital of the United States had been captui'ed in two wars without producing more than local effect, but every plan in

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^"irginia was contingent upon the safety of Wasliington. thus causinsr the diversion of liianv thousand soldiers for tliat single duty. On the Soutliern side the correct military decision would have been to abandon Richmond as soon as Peters- burg was invested, but the Government delayed, for political reasons, until it was too late, and the defending army surren- dered as a consequence.

In the distribution of troops the Federal authorities were hampered by the rival claims of the border States, which thought they required jirotection. Hence, Ohio sent an army into West Virginia; Pennsylvania, into the Shenandoah valley; the national Government concentrated troops for the protec- tion of its cai)ital ; the Western States gathered along the Ohio River and in INIissouri. This great dispersion existed on both sides and continued more or less till the end of the war. The advantage it gave was in the iwotection of the friendly portion of the population and in the good recruiting ground thus se- cured. The great difficulty of holding troops in service, whose home country had been overrun, was appreciated by both sides and exercised a strong influence on the plans of the generals. These conditions dictated much of the strategy which is sub- ject to criticism, and should not be forgotten.

The policy of furloughing great numbers of soldiers during the war, as an inducement to reenlist, was probably unavoidable, but it helj^ed to cause inactivity during many months and in the case of Sherman's Atlanta campaign it caused the absence of two of his divisions. Absenteeism is one of the inevitable consequences of a long war, with troops untrained in time of peace by modern methods. Lincoln com- plained of it and the generals seemed powerless to limit or prevent it. Probably the latter are entitled to most of the blame. It was not uncommon for a general to call for reen- forcements at a time when large numbers of his troops were absent.

The armies were indeed long in getting over the

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THE KEY TO WASHINGTON

From Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Harper's Ferry, Virginia, lay the Alleghany Mountains, an almost impassable barrier to the move- ment of armies. Here we see them sloping toward the gap at Harper's Ferry on the Potomac. The approach to this was made easy from the South by the Shenandoah Valley, the facile and favorite avenue of advance by the Confederates when threatening in- vasion of the enemy's territory. The scene is of the dismantled bridge across Armstrong Run. Driving General Banks' forces up the Valley and forcing him across the Potomac, Jackson saved Richmond from McClellan in 1862. Up the Valley came Lee the follow- ing year, striking terror to the North by the invasion that was only checked at Gettysburg. This eastern gap, provided by nature in the Alleghanies, became a veritable gateway of terror to the Federals, for through it lay open the path for sudden approach upon Washington on the part of the Confederates.

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characteristics of raw troops, l)ut the generals in their early movements do not appear much better than the troops. Every man who had been graduated from AVest Point was regai'ded as a " trained soldier," which was a mistake, because W^est Point was a jn-eparatory school, and such men as had studied the art of high command had done so by themselves. The trade of the general was new to all, and had to be learned in the hard school of experience.

In four of the early camijaigns in which the Federal troojis were practically unojjposed, they marched on an aver- age of less than seven miles per day. while, in case of opposi- tion by a greatly inferior force, the average was down to a mile a day. as in the Peninsula campaign and the advance on Corinth.

The 2)lans for the early battles were complicated in the extreme, perhaps due to the study of Xapoleon and his perfect army opposed l)y poor generals. Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Seven Pines. CTlendale. INIalvern Hill, Shiloh, Gaines' jNIill. were of this kind, and failed. Even at Gettysburg, Jirly 2, 1863, Lee's failure to execute his echelon attacks showed that his army was not yet ready to jjerform such a delicate refine- ment of war.

As an examj^le of improvement, however, take Jackson's march of fourteen miles on a coimtry road and the battle fought on ]May 2, 1863, all between daylight and dark of one day. In battles, also, we notice the line i)lay of early campaigns replaced by a savage directness and simplicity at a later period, in the Wilderness by Lee and at Sjiottsylvania by Grant. Thus it was that both leaders had ceased to count on the ineffi- ciency of the enemy. At the beginning of the movement on Richmond both Lee and Grant seemed reckless in the risks