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Finding Aid: January/February 1999

The complete issue

Vol. XX, No. 4
(48 pages)

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Inside

Cover image
Physician Mary Walker (1832-1919) survived three years as a nurse in the Union army, during which she endured four months in captivated and served as assistant surgeon in an Ohio regiment.

Editor’s Desk (p. 3)
The editor notes the diverse array of articles in this issue, the first appearance of a solo portrait of a woman on the cover, and a grand total of 120 images inside the magazine—a record to date.

Mail Call (pp. 4-5)
Letters include a possible identification of an officer and sword, reverse images and digital fakery.

Passing in Review (pp. 9-10)
Four publications are mentioned, including Don Troiani’s Soldiers in America 1754-1865 (Stackpole Books) by Earl J. Coates and James L. Kochan, Bridge Building in War Time: Colonel Wesley Brainerd’s Memoir of the 50th New York Volunteer Engineers (University of Tennessee Press) edited by Ed Malles, Raiders and Blockaders: The American Civil War Afloat (Brassey’s) by William N. Still Jr., John M. Taylor and Norman C. Delaney and Wilson’s Cavalry Corps: Union Campaigns in the Western Theatre, October 1864 through Spring 1865 (McFarland) by Jerry Keenan.

Richard’s Rebs: Confederate images from the collection of Richard Anthony (pp. 9-13)
A gallery of 23 mostly hard-plate soldier portraits. Identified soldiers include John H. Fields of the 3rd North Carolina Artillery, Leander Davidson Sharpe of the 49th North Carolina Infantry, Jonas Cook of the 8th North Carolina Infantry, James Wesley Morris of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, Wiley Safriet of the 42nd North Carolina Infantry and Clay Roberts Tyler of McDuffie’s Rifles of Virginia.

Civil War Military and Patriotic Mats for Photographic Cases by Paul K. Berg (pp. 14-17)
Examples of brass preservers from the Scovill Manufacturing Company and Holmes, Booth & Hayden illustrate text that describes the “sandwich of parts” used to protect hard-plate images.

Light & Shadow: Technical Aspects of Photography and Collecting (p. 18)
Featured is a diagram titled “The Photographic Package,” which shows the five parts—cover glass, brass mat, photographic plate, brass preserver and thermoplastic case.

Fremont’s Greyhounds: Company D, 13th Illinois Infantry by Scott Cross (pp. 19-21)
A gallery of ten portraits, selected from a group of 67 in the collection of the Rock Island Arsenal Museum, were made during the first few months of 1862 in Rolla, Mo. They include Col. John Wyman, Capt. James Beardsley, Lt. Elisha Beardsley, Lt. Col. Frederick Partridge, Surg. Samuel Plummer and Chaplain Joseph Miller.

Providence Has Been Kind…Letters from the pen of Col. James W. Jackson, 47th Alabama Infantry, after Sharpsburg and Gettysburg (pp. 22-23)
Jackson (1831-1865) started the war as a captain in the 7th Alabama Infantry but was forced to resign on account of poor health after the Peninsula Campaign. He returned to the army as lieutenant colonel and then colonel of the 47th. The letters transcribed here reveal his experience in two of the biggest battles in the East. A circa 1858 portrait accompanies the text. All the material is part of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

The “Deguerrrean Artist” of Camp Michigan: A painted backdrop identified by John A. Braden (pp. 24-27)
The author connected a painted backdrop of tents and the Stars and Stripes to a photographer who visited the camp of the 5th Michigan Infantry in the defenses of Washington, D.C., in early 1862. Six portraits illustrate the text.

The Auction Block (p. 27)

Best of Show: Images from the 1998 Gettysburg Show (pp. 28-41)
A gallery of 58 images described as a “photographic feast” includes a wide array of tasty morsels, including a half-plate ambrotype of a militia muster at Angelica, N.Y., a West Point cadet with a brass cannon, messmates re-enacting a meal, a Zouave from the 33rd New Jersey Infantry, a private in the Philadelphia 1st City Troop, circa 1863, a carte de visite of Philip Evan Thomas of the 5th South Carolina Cavalry, a pair of portraits of Madison Pitzer Deyerle of the 28th Virginia Infantry, two images of soldiers with servants and much, much more.

C.S.S. Alabama: Caught twice in Singapore! by Budd J. LaRue and Stanley E. Warren (pp. 42-45)
The authors compare two photographs of the famed vessel, one from the Tennessee State Library and Archives and another from the academic journal The Microscope. They found the photographs reconfirm existing imagery shown on period woodcuts and lithographs.

Sutler’s Row (pp. 46-47)

Stragglers (p. 47)
Solo photos from the collections of our readers includes one carte de visite of a Confederate soldier taken by photographer D.F. Brandon, who worked at the Camp Douglas prisoner of war facility at Chicago.

Back cover
A previously unpublished portrait of Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays, an 1844 graduate of West Point who was killed in action in The Wilderness on May 5, 1864.

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