SHORTLY after the battle of Antietam this photograph was taken of

General Sumner, who was distinguished for gallantry on that bloody

field. Sumner is seen standing on the steps in the center of a group of

officers. At this time he was a warrior sixty-six years of age and had

seen a long life of hard fighting. He was born during the first days of

the American Republic, in the year 1796. When twenty-three years old he

became a second lieutenant in the United States Infantry and served with

distinction during the Black Hawk War. He later had command of a cavalry

school and at the outbreak of the Mexican War he led an attack against

five thousand lancers and was breveted colonel. With the cessation of

this conflict he took charge of the Department of New Mexico, and was

later ordered to Europe on official business. Upon his return he entered

into border warfare and defeated the Cheyenne Indians. When Lincoln was

elected president, Sumner was selected to accompany him from Springfield

to Washington and was promoted brigadier-general. Sumner was active in

the Peninsula Campaign and was promoted to major-general. He fought

through the Maryland Campaign, and at Antietam his corps made one of the

fiercest charges over the field, carrying destruction and death. He

commanded the right wing at the battle of Fredericksburg and was ordered

to the West, but while preparing to depart he died suddenly.

WHILE the campaigns against Richmond and Washington were being waged,

hard fighting was taking place in the Southwest. Grant was in command of

the Army of the Tennessee. Buell was near Chattanooga, facing Bragg who

threatened Louisville. Rosecranz was at the head of the Army of the

Mississippi and occupied Alabama and Northern Mississippi. Terrific

engagements had taken place at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, Tennessee. The

Guerilla Campaign was being waged in Missouri. There were frequent

clashes in Kentucky and Arkansas, but Mississippi seemed to be the

battle-ground. Corinth, in that state, was considered the military key

to Tennessee. It was in the conflict for the control of this coveted

position that the Confederates made one of their bravest charges. A

photograph is here shown of Fort Robinette which was protected by

Federal guns. The Southerners charged almost to the cannon's mouth, only

to be swept back by the murderous shower of lead. The second charge

stands as a wonderful example of human courage. Colonel Rogers of Texas,

led the column, and scaled the breastwork, falling inside. Three charges

were made, but the Confederates were finally forced to retreat. The

Federal loss at this battle of Corinth in killed, wounded and missing

was 2,359; the Confederates left behind them 9,423.

[Illustration: IN FRONT OF THE EARTHWORKS AT FORT ROBINETTE IN CORINTH,

MISSISSIPPI]

WITH colors flying, armament in first-class condition, and soldiers

well-clothed and fed, the Union lines under the new command of Burnside

began offensive operations against Virginia. This had been Lincoln's

long desire. The scene of action was now to be forced away from the

National Capital. On a bright morning in November, the men who had

served under McClellan marched in three grand divisions to their new

campaign. The Rappahannock was reached on the seventeenth, but the

bridge across the river had been destroyed by the Confederates who were

intrenched in Fredericksburg on the opposite bank. Pontoons promised by

the Government had not yet arrived. "Where are my pontoons?" wired

Burnside. "They will start to-morrow," came the reply from the War

Department. It was the tenth of December before the engineers could

build their bridges and in the meantime ill-feeling had arisen between

Burnside and the Government. The fatal delay had enabled Lee to

concentrate his army on Marye's Heights, overlooking Fredericksburg. The

work of building five bridges across the Rappahannock was begun under a

drawn musketry fire from the opposite bank of the river. Nearly every

blow of a hammer cost a human life. Burnside ordered his artillerymen to

open fire on the city. Fredericksburg became a mass of ruins. This

photograph shows abutments of the destroyed bridge. The trees are

cropped short by the artillery fire from the Union guns. The Confederate

sharpshooters were concealed in the buildings on the opposite river

front. Burnside ordered his men to cross the river on a line of pontoon

boats. The sharpshooters were driven from their shelter while the bridge

building was completed. The river was crossed. At dawn, the twelfth of

September, both armies stood ready for combat.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER AFTER

DESTRUCTION OF BRIDGE TO FREDERICKSBURG IN 1862]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ALONG THE SUNKEN ROAD AT FREDERICKSBURG

AFTER THE BATTLE IN 1862]

CONFRONTED by sheets of flame, the Union Army made its attack on

Fredericksburg on the morning of the thirteenth of December, in 1862.

The Confederates occupied the Heights with a line five and a half miles

long and fortified with earthworks and artillery. The Federals moved

through the town under a heavy fire of Confederate batteries. Marye's

Hill was protected at its base by a stone wall, back of which was a

sunken road, occupied by two brigades of Confederate infantry. The

charging columns of the Union Army were rushing across the open ground

under a fierce artillery fire when suddenly they were confronted by a

rain of lead from the sunken road back of the stone wall. Nearly half of

the charging column was shot down and the remainder fell back. Five

thousand more charged in the same manner. Some of them approached within

twenty yards of the wall, but fell back, leaving two thousand of their

number on the field. Twelve thousand men were again charged against

Marye's Heights, but scarcely four thousand returned. The Union ranks

were depleted by 12,355, while the Confederates held their position with

a loss of but 4,576, and the Federal Army withdrew across the

Rappahannock and Lee held Fredericksburg.

[Illustration: ARTILLERY DEFENSES ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG

IN 1862]

[Illustration: FIGHTING GROUND ALONG THE CHICKASAW BAYOU]

[Illustration: POISONED SPRING OF CHICKASAW BAYOU]

[Illustration: MEDICAL CORPS OF ARMY OF POTOMAC IN CAMP UNDER SURGEON

JONATHAN LETTERMAN]

THE end of 1862, in the Civil War, found the army in the East in camp at

Falmouth, Virginia, after severe reverses. In the Southwest a vigorous

campaign was being waged by the heroes of Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi.

Grant was in supreme command of the Federal corps in northern

Mississippi. A movement was in operation against Vicksburg. Sherman was

attempting to get into the rear of the city by the Chickasaw Bayou road

which ran from the Yazoo battlefield to the Walnut Hills, six miles

above the city. His column of thirty thousand men was defeated and

driven back with dreadful slaughter on the twenty-eighth and

twenty-ninth of December. Rosecranz was established at Nashville, while

Bragg was putting his men into winter huts at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The Federal troops enjoyed Christmas in camp and on the following

morning, in a cold rain, the Army of the Cumberland advanced to Stone

River where it enters the Cumberland River just above Nashville. At

sunrise on the last day of 1862, Rosecranz's army met Bragg's forces

with a deafening roar of artillery and musketry that fairly caused the

earth to tremble. The fighting on both sides was of a determined

character. The fields were literally covered with dead and dying men.

Victory was claimed by both the Federals and the Confederates.

Photographs are here shown of Chickasaw Bayou and the deadly Poison

Spring on the battlefield; also an excellent portrait of the medical

corps of the Army of the Potomac, in camp under charge of Dr. Jonathan

Letterman, a prominent battlefield surgeon.

EVERY AMERICAN citizen pledges his "life, fortune and sacred honor" to

the truth that "all men are created free and equal," and that they are

endowed by their Creator, with certain "unalienable rights." It was

fidelity to this oath, as sacred as life itself, that led the American

people to rush "to arms" to defend it.

The mobilization of a volunteer army, of freemen born and bred in the

arts of peace, never was known until the new Republic of the Western

Hemisphere championed the cause of Liberty and common manhood.

Battle-trained monarchies declared that it could not be maintained; that

the hundreds of thousands of men who were offering their services to

their country could never stand the severe exposures and deprivations of

warfare. The tongues of the Nations knew not what they were talking.

These men were fighters, not by training or nature, but by an honest

impulse of the heart they were patriots. It was not love of adventure

that urged the strongest men of the North to leave home and family and

shoulder a musket under the Stars and Stripes; nor was it a brutal love

of combat that marshalled the best manhood of the South to the flag of

the Confederacy. It was an impulse that no people had ever before felt.

It was a sense of justice that was early kindled in the American Heart

with the first tidings of the Declaration of Independence.

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL AMBROSE EVERETT BURNSIDE ON HIS HORSE ON

THE BATTLEFIELD IN 1863

One day during the interval between the defeat at Fredericksburg,

Virginia, and the siege at Knoxville, Tennessee, General Burnside was

mounted on his favorite charger, viewing his army maneuvers in the

distance, when one of the Brady cameras was brought into focus and, with

the General's permission, the negative was secured--General Burnside

valued this photograph highly]

While the anguish of the Civil War was brooding over the Nation,

mountain and valley, plain and forest, farm and factory--from ocean to

ocean--offered its strongest manhood in defense of the country. New

York, the largest state in the Western World, sent the greatest number

of men to the line of battle--448,850; then came Pennsylvania with

337,936; Ohio with 313,180, and Illinois with 259,092. Indiana came to

the front with 196,363; Massachusetts with 146,730, and Missouri brought

109,111.

Wisconsin offered 61,327 of her sons; Michigan, 87,364; New Jersey,

76,814; Iowa, 76,242; Kentucky, 75,760; Maine, 70,107, and Connecticut,

55,864.

Maryland marched under the Stars and Stripes with 46,638; New Hampshire

with 33,937, Vermont with 33,288; West Virginia, 32,068; Tennessee,

31,092; Minnesota with 24,020; Rhode Island, 23,236, and Kansas, 20,149.

From the Pacific Coast, California answered with 15,725; District of

Columbia contributed 16,534 to the support of the Government; Delaware

furnished 12,284 men; Arkansas, 8,289; New Mexico, 6,561. The Southern

State of Louisiana, dear to the heart of the Confederacy, came to the

support of the Union with 5,224; Colorado with 4,903; Nebraska, 3,157;

North Carolina, 3,156; Alabama, 2,576. The border state of Texas sent

1,965; far-away Oregon, 1,810; Florida, 1,290; Nevada, 1,080; Washington

gave 964; Mississippi, 545, and Dakota, 206. These are the contributions

of the states. The Negro Race, the freedom of which was one of the

results of the War, supported their cause with 186,097 troops, while the

Indian Nation sent 3,530. In the regular army there were enlisted during

the War about 67,000 men. There were thousands of brave soldiers who

fought in the Civil War, claiming no Commonwealth as their home, but who

joined the ranks as Common Americans.

The spirit which animated the American People is shown by several

occasions when troops were needed to avert impending disaster, and they

poured into the army from remote states with incredible speed. The year

1863 witnessed the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, of

Vicksburg and Chickamauga and Chattanooga. It was the turning point in

the struggle and Brady's cameras caught many of the most dramatic scenes

worthy of reproduction.

"FIGHTING Joe" Hooker is one of the notable figures of the Civil War.

When a boy of fourteen years, he entered West Point and served in the

Mexican War in the same regiment with "Stonewall" Jackson. His early

life was crowded with hard fighting and when thirty-nine years of age he

resigned from the army and went to California, where he became

superintendent of the National Road and also entered into agriculture.

He answered the call to arms in 1861 and entered into the defense of

Washington. During the battles around Fair Oaks, Hooker led his men

courageously into many daring positions. His bravery at Malvern Hill

gave him the rank of major-general, and at Antietam he fell wounded

before the Confederate guns while trying to force the army into a

complete surrender. He commanded the center at Fredericksburg. On the

twenty-sixth of January, 1863, he was appointed to the command of the

Army of the Potomac and began its thorough reorganization. On the

twenty-eighth of April he crossed the Rappahannock and arrived at

Chancellorsville two days later. On the second of May, a fearful

onslaught was made by "Stonewall" Jackson--his old comrade of the

Mexican War as a foe. "Stonewall" Jackson was wounded by one of his own

sentinels. His men, who were devoted to him, lost heart, and, after a

battle of three days, Hooker succeeded in withdrawing his army in

safety, after losses in killed, wounded and missing of 16,030 against a

Confederate loss of 12,281. This photograph of Hooker and his staff was

taken shortly after this battle at Chancellorsville. Hooker may be seen

sitting in the second chair from the right. This is considered an

excellent likeness of the warrior.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN SHORTLY AFTER THE BATTLE OF

CHANCELLORSVILLE IN 1863--MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER AND STAFF]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ALONG LINE OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS

AFTER CAVALRY CHARGE IN 1863]

THE retreat from Chancellorsville began on the fourth of May, in 1863.

In the midst of a pouring rain, with ammunition wagons and cavalry

struggling hub-deep through the mud, the Federals moved back to the

Rappahannock. The ponderous batteries, with heavy wheels wrapped in

blankets, passed over the road. Then came the ordnance supply trains,

swathed in strips of cloth, followed by columns of hurrying infantry.

During the remainder of May, neither of the armies assumed an offensive

attitude. Lee, now in high hopes, began preparations for a second

invasion in Maryland. Panic again seized the people of the North.

Lincoln called on Pennsylvania for 50,000 militia; Ohio, 30,000; New

York, 20,000; Maryland and Virginia, 10,000 each. The Army of the

Potomac had lost all of its two years' service men and its strength did

not reach 100,000. The Confederacy had been endeavoring for months to

induce England to recognize it as a separate nation, but learned that it

must first conquer Northern territory. Lee's movements began early in

June and resulted in frequent skirmishes as he approached the Potomac.

This photograph was taken immediately after one of these encounters at

Aldie, Virginia, on the seventeenth of June, 1863. The Confederate

cavalry, under "Jeb" Stuart, was guarding the passes of the Bull Run

mountains and watching Hooker's Army. There was a succession of cavalry

combats and many Confederates were taken prisoners. This view shows a

group of Confederates under a Union guard composed largely of negro

soldiers.

IN the stirring scenes of war there is nothing more exciting than to see

a battery take position in battle. On the sixth of June, in 1863, this

picture was secured by the government photographers just as the

artillery was going into action on the south bank of the Rappahannock

River. It is one of the earliest attempts to secure a photograph at the

instant of motion and was taken at a strategic moment during Sedgwick's

reconnaissance. An artilleryman who remembers the day says that while a

battery has not the thrill of the cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a

line of bayonets moving to slaughter, there is an intense emotion about

it that brings the tears to the eyes and the cheers to the throats of

battle-scarred veterans. Every horse on the gallop, every rider lashing

his team and yelling; through ugly clumps of bushes; over fallen logs

and falling men--the sight is one that can never be forgotten. The guns

jump from the ground as the heavy wheels strike a rock or lunge from a

ditch, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a cannoneer loses his

seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men race for the brow

of the hill. Boom! Boom! The ground shakes and trembles. The roar shuts

out all sound from a line several miles long. Shells shriek through the

swamps, cutting down great trees, mowing deep gaps in regiments of men.

It is like a tornado howling through the forest, followed by billows of

fire. There are men to-day who will look upon this picture and live

again the scenes which it recalls. Artillery is the great support of

armies and often saves them from defeat.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AS ARTILLERY WAS GOING INTO ACTION ON

THE RAPPAHANNOCK IN 1863]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE CAPTAIN GEORGE A. CUSTER AND

MAJOR-GENERAL ALFRED PLEASONTON WERE AT BRANDY STATION, VIRGINIA, IN

1863]

THERE have been few men in American wars more daring than General George

A. Custer. As a cavalryman, he won a place in military history by his

bravery. Custer was a captain on the staff of General Pleasonton during

the operations early in 1863. This photograph was taken near Brandy

Station, Virginia, in June, 1863. It shows Custer on his black war-horse

conferring with Pleasonton who is astride a gray charger. The

Confederate cavalry had succeeded in breaking a part of the Federal

rank. Pleasonton turned in his saddle and called to Custer: "Ride to our

right and get the battery in position to reply to these infernal guns."

Custer spurred his horse into the thunder of cannon and the crash of

musket and carbine volleys. "The man is lost," muttered Pleasonton.

Suddenly, emerging from the bank of smoke, the Union batteries wheeled

into view under the rapid fire. Custer dashed across the field. From

that moment he became a notable figure in the war. He was then but

twenty-three years of age, but was immediately appointed by Lincoln a

brigadier-general of volunteers. In speaking of him, General Pleasonton

said: "I regard Custer as one of the finest cavalry officers in the

world, and, therefore, have placed him in command of what is no doubt

the best cavalry brigade in the world." Custer was about six feet tall,

with sharp blue eyes, and light hair hanging over his shoulders. He had

a slight impediment in his speech and uttered a shrill yell as he rushed

like an avalanche at his foe. He wore a black velvet jacket, slouched

hat and a red scarf cravat.

THE Army of the Potomac lay massed about the city of Frederick. Lee was

rushing toward the Susquehanna. Hooker disagreed with Halleck at

Washington regarding his method of attack and resigned his command,

requesting instant release from further responsibility. Lincoln accepted

the resignation and appointed General George G. Meade to the chief

command. In the midst of this momentous campaign the great army changed

leaders. This photograph was taken shortly after Meade began his

operations. It shows him with his generals of the Army of the Potomac.

Meade occupies the chair in the center of the picture. At this time he

was about forty-eight years of age. He had graduated from West Point

when nineteen years old, but resigned the following year and remained

out of the army for the next six years, but returned in the period

preceding the Mexican War, after which he was engaged in the survey of

the northern lakes. He was one of the first to respond to the call in

1861. He took part in the early engagements of the Army of the Potomac

and was in the Battle of Mechanicsville and Gaine's Mills and the Battle

of Newmarket Crossroads. When Hooker was wounded at Antietam, Meade took

charge of a corps and continued the brave fight during the remainder of

the day. He had two horses killed under him and was slightly wounded,

but did not leave the field. At Fredericksburg he led his men boldly to

the Confederate works. In the Battle of Chancellorsville, Meade's corps

carried the earth-works and fought fearlessly. On the twenty-eighth day

of June, in 1863, Meade assumed command of the Army of the Potomac. The

tide of battle seemed to turn with his appointment and his victories are

almost unparalleled.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHEN MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE

COMMANDED THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG AFTER THE

BATTLE IN 1863]

THE turning point of the Civil War is the Battle of Gettysburg. From

that day the Confederate cause began to wane. Few battles of modern

times show such great percentage of loss. Out of the one hundred and

sixty thousand men engaged on both sides, forty-four thousand were

killed or wounded. Brady's cameras reached the field of battle in time

to perpetuate some of its scenes. The ghastliness of the pictures is

such that it is with some hesitation that any of them are presented in

these pages. It is on the horrors of war, however, that all pleas of

peace are based. Only by depicting its gruesomeness can the age of

arbitration be hastened. It is with this in mind that this photograph is

here revealed. There is probably not another in existence that witnesses

more fearful tragedy. The photograph is taken on the field of Gettysburg

about nineteen hours after the last day's battle. It shows a Union

soldier terribly mutilated by a shell of a Confederate gun. His arm is

torn off and may be seen on the ground near his musket. The shell that

killed this soldier disemboweled him in its fiendishness. This picture

is as wonderful as it is horrible and should do more in the interest of

peace than any possible argument. Something of the bloodshed on the

battlefield of Gettysburg may be understood when it is considered that

the battlefield, which covered nearly twenty-five square miles, was

literally strewn with dead bodies, many of them mutilated even worse

than the one in this picture. The surviving veterans of Gettysburg have

seen war's most horrible aspects. Gallant and daring commanders led

those brave men in that three days' inferno, from the first to the third

of July, in 1863.

[Illustration: BOROUGH OF GETTYSBURG IN 1863--SCENE OF ONE OF WORLD'S

GREATEST CONFLICTS]

[Illustration: MEADE'S HEADQUARTERS ON CEMETERY RIDGE]

GETTYSBURG witnessed some of the hardest fighting that the world has

ever seen. This photograph was taken a short time after the battle in

1863. This little borough became a field of carnage. In the surrounding

hills occurred the terrific conflict of Big Round Top and Little Round

Top, Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge, and Culp's Hill, the Bloody

Wheatfield and Peach Orchard. A view is given of the little house in

which General Meade made his headquarters. On the first day of battle

this house was in direct range of the artillery fire rained by the

Confederates on the Union lines just before Pickett's great charge. The

horses of General Meade's aides were hitched to the fence and trees near

the house. Sixteen of these horses were killed during the artillery

fire, and their dead bodies are seen in the road.

[Illustration: LEE'S HEADQUARTERS ON SEMINARY RIDGE]

[Illustration: DEAD ARTILLERY HORSES AFTER FIGHT AT TROSTLE'S HOUSE AND

BARN IN GETTYSBURG]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEAD ON GETTYSBURG "WHEATFIELD"]

SOME knowledge of the slaughter of Gettysburg may be gained by this

picture of Trostle's house and barn at which was stationed a Union

battery of light artillery. This view shows where the guns stood.

Sixty-five of the eighty-eight artillery horses were left dead on the

field. About this time, on the last day of the greatest battle of the

war, Pickett made his fierce charge, which is one of the mightiest in

history. It was witnessed by the two great armies in the middle of the

afternoon of a summer day--a most spectacular tragedy of magnificent

courage. It has been said that Gettysburg was the common soldier's

battle and that its great results were due, not so much to military

strategy as to the intelligent courage and the magnificent heroism of

the brave soldiers.

[Illustration: SHATTERED CAISSON--GETTYSBURG "PEACH ORCHARD"]

[Illustration: DEAD AMONG THE ROCKS OF LITTLE ROUND TOP ON GETTYSBURG

BATTLEFIELD]

[Illustration: DEAD SHARPSHOOTER IN "DEVIL'S DEN" ON LITTLE ROUND TOP AT

GETTYSBURG]

[Illustration: UNCOVERED CONFEDERATE GRAVE AT GETTYSBURG]

GETTYSBURG is the "Waterloo of the American Continent." A photograph is

here shown of the dead soldiers lying on the battlefield. To silence

Hazlett's Battery, which was posted on the summit of Little Round Top,

the Confederates pushed their sharpshooters among the rocks in the

mountain. A few hours before these photographs were taken one of these

sharpshooters mortally wounded General Weed, who was directing the

movement of his troops from the summit. Lieutenant Hazlett, who was an

old schoolmate of the fallen general, was commanding the battery and

hastened to take the dying words of his friend and comrade, when he,

too, fell dead, pierced by a bullet from the dread sharpshooters. Like a

flash the guns of the battery were turned on the "Devil's Den" from

which came the fatal shots as this picture attests.

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEAD IN "WHEATFIELD" AT GETTYSBURG]

[Illustration: EARTHWORKS AT CULP'S HILL AT GETTYSBURG IN 1863]

[Illustration: TENTS ALONG RIVER FRONT AT VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, IN

1863]

[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF BIG BLACK RIVER IN MISSISSIPPI IN 1863]

AS the tide of battle drifted to the West in 1863, the war photographers

hurried to the region of the Mississippi. Grant had been pursuing his

operations toward Vicksburg. With Sherman and McClernand, he was

maneuvering to take the key to the South by storm. A photograph is here

shown of Champion Hills near Big Black River territory, on the outskirts

of Vicksburg, where the armies first met. The Confederates held a strong

line of earthworks on the eastern bank of the river. The Federals,

before a heavy fire of musketry, crossed a ditch, delivered a terrific

volley, and clambered over the breastworks with empty muskets. The

Confederates, in falling back, found that their comrades had set fire to

both of the bridges and were compelled to surrender. Two thousand

prisoners, eighteen pieces of artillery, six thousand stand of small

arms, and many commissary stores were captured. General Lawler's Brigade

led the charge. The battle lasted four hours. On the eighteenth of May,

1863, the Federals began crossing the Big Black by felling trees on both

banks so that they tumbled into the river and interlaced, using bales of

cotton instead of boats. On the morning of the twenty-second, with

furious cannonading, the last assault on the defences of Vicksburg was

made. This campaign is a remarkable military exploit. In twenty days

Grant crossed the Mississippi River with his entire force, moved into

the rear of Vicksburg, fought and won four distinct battles, captured

the State Capitol, and destroyed the Confederate arsenals and

manufactories. His troops marched one hundred eighty miles with only

five days' rations from the quartermaster, and captured over six

thousand prisoners, twenty-seven cannon and sixty-one field pieces. All

this was accomplished by forty thousand brave men against sixty

thousand.

[Illustration: BOMB-PROOF CAMP IN UNION LINES IN FRONT OF VICKSBURG]

[Illustration: BEHIND THE ENTRENCHMENT AT BATTERY SHERMAN BEFORE

VICKSBURG]

THE Confederate works held by Pemberton at Vicksburg were seven miles

long. Grant's lines about the city extended over fifteen miles.

Commander Porter brought down all his mortar boats on the Mississippi

and began a fusilade of six thousand mortar shells a day, while the land

batteries threw four thousand. In the meantime, famine stalked through

Vicksburg on the thirty-sixth day of the siege. Mule and dog meat, with

bean flour and corn coffee formed the daily fare. The earth trembled

under the concussions from the Army and Navy cannon and the entire

forest was set on fire. The Confederate general, on the morning of July

third, proposed an armistice, preparatory to recapitulation. Grant met

the Confederate commander under an oak tree. At ten o'clock on the

morning of July fourth, General Logan began a march into Vicksburg and

hoisted the American ensign over the court-house. The fall of Vicksburg

and the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg occurred on the same day and lifted

the hearts of the Northern people to a sense of thanksgiving, for it was

believed that the war was now over. During the siege the Confederate

loss was fifty-six thousand men. Grant captured more than sixty thousand

muskets, light and heavy artillery, with a vast amount of other

property, such as locomotives, cars, steamboats and cotton. The Federal

loss during the siege was about 9,000 killed, wounded and missing. The

war cameras followed the Union Army into the captured city and the old

negatives vividly picture the conditions. A camera was taken to the

bomb-proof quarters of Logan's Division and into Battery Sherman. These

negatives are here reproduced. About this same time several cameras were

taken into the far South and one of the first negatives was taken at Big

Black River Station in Mississippi and another at New Orleans when the

commissioned officers of the 19th Iowa Infantry were being brought in

from Camp Ford, Texas, as exchanged prisoners of war.

[Illustration: PRISONERS OF WAR FROM TEXAS]

[Illustration: BIG BLACK RIVER STATION IN MISSISSIPPI]

[Illustration: BOMB-PROOF AT FORT WAGNER UNDER HEAVY FIRE IN 1863]

THE Government at Washington believed that it was now time to secure the

reparation for the firing on Fort Sumter which had precipitated the War.

Sumter, during the entire conflict had been the center of a radius of

forts which now had over three hundred guns mostly of the heaviest

caliber. It held a strong position on the Atlantic Coast and protected

the land movements about South Carolina. Fort Sumter barred the main

channel. On Sullivan's Island were Fort Moultrie, Fort Beauregard,

Battery Bee and sand bag batteries at the extremity. On James Island

stood Fort Johnson, Fort Ripley and smaller forts. Castle Pinckney lay

in front of the city, and on Morris Island there were Battery Gregg,

Fort Wagner, and a battery on Lighthouse Inlet. All the channels were

blocked with huge iron chains, and an immense hawser buoyed with empty

casks, extended from Fort Sumter to Fort Ripley, the entire harbor being

blocked with torpedoes. Brady's cameras lay in the Union lines and

occasionally were ventured toward the Confederate fortifications. Many

negatives of exteriors were obtained at a distance. After the forts fell

into the Government control the cameras were taken behind the

breast-works. These remarkable negatives are now exhibited and reveal

the secrets of the Confederates. The picture of the bomb-proof at Fort

Wagner, under heavy fire in 1863, reveals the ingenuity of the engineers

in both armies in utilizing every available substance in protecting the

soldiers. The Confederates constructed many strong fortifications and

they fell only under the severest bombardment from the heaviest guns of

the Federal troops.

[Illustration: FORT JOHNSON ON JAMES' ISLAND IN 1863]

[Illustration: FORT MARSHALL ON SULLIVAN'S ISLAND IN 1863]

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF FORT MOULTRIE ON SULLIVAN'S ISLAND]

[Illustration: 300-POUNDER PARROTT GUN IN BATTERY STRONG AFTER BURSTING

OF MUZZLE]

[Illustration: BATTERY BROWN--TWO 8-INCH PARROTT RIFLES, ONE OF WHICH

BURST DURING BOMBARDMENT]

[Illustration: FIVE 10-INCH SIEGE MORTARS IN BATTERY REYNOLDS FIRING

AGAINST FORT SUMTER]

[Illustration: NAVAL BATTERY OF TWO 80-P0UNDER WHITWORTH'S--BREECHING

BATTERY AGAINST FORT SUMTER]

[Illustration: SECTION OF BIRCHMEYER'S BATTERY IN SECOND PARALLEL]

[Illustration: FORT SUMTER IN RUINS AFTER BOMBARDMENT IN 1863]

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL QUINCY A. GILLMORE AND STAFF IN 1863]

EARLY in 1863 the Government decided that Fort Sumter must be reduced.

Admiral Dahlgren was given full charge of the undertaking. On the

eighteenth of July, the land forces under General Quincy A. Gillmore

began siege. He erected batteries across Morris Island and commenced

fire on Fort Wagner while Dahlgren attacked both Fort Wagner and Fort

Sumter. Fort Wagner responded with only two guns which led Gillmore to

believe that the Confederates were demoralized. The Federal troops were

within two hundred yards of the fort before the Confederates opened

grape fire. A flash of musketry blazed from the parapet. The daring

Federals rushed at the fort and clambered up the exterior slope. It was

here that Joseph Alvan Wooster, color bearer for the Sixth Connecticut,

performed the valiant deed that cost him his life. He climbed along in

advance of the line and triumphantly placed his flag on the parapet. A

Confederate soldier sprang forward and placed the muzzle of his musket

on Wooster's heart and fired. General Putnam rushed to the rescue with a

brigade, only to be killed, with nearly every commissioned officer in

his command. The remnants of Strong's and Putnam's command retired,

having lost over half of their strength. General Gillmore, and his

staff, in charge of the land forces at Charleston allowed the war

photographers to turn the lens on them in camp. The general was born in

Black River, Loraine County, Ohio, and had graduated from West Point. In

1861 he was placed on General W. T. Sherman's staff on the South

Carolina Expedition. During February, 1862, he commenced operations for

the attack of Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah River, Georgia. On April 28,

1862, he was promoted to a brigadier-generalship of volunteers. In

September, 1862, he was ordered to the West as Commander of the District

of Western Virginia, of the Department of the Ohio. He was afterwards

assigned to the command of one of the Divisions of the Army of Kentucky.

He assumed command of Department of South Carolina June 12, 1863.

[Illustration: THE 8-INCH PARROTT RIFLE GUN. "SWAMP ANGEL" AFTER

BURSTING]

ON the ninth of August the Federal cannon were within three hundred and

thirty yards of Fort Wagner and the guns were trained on Fort Sumter and

Battery Gregg. General Gillmore had a small battery placed in a marsh

west of Morris Island, on which was an eight-inch Parrott Gun nick-named

the "Swamp Angel." It had a range of five miles and threw its enormous

shells into the city of Charleston. The Confederate fortifications were

reinforced by General Beauregard and maintained a continuous fire from

over two hundred guns. On the seventeenth of August, Gillmore had twelve

heavy guns on Morris Island, and the simultaneous assault by batteries

and infantry was directed against Fort Sumter. For seven days this

terrible fusilade continued. Over one hundred thousand shells and shot

were thrown into the fort which was battered into ruins. The bombardment

of Fort Sumter was begun on the fifth of September and continued for

forty-two hours. An assault was planned for the ninth, but when daylight

came it was found that several forts were abandoned. It was supposed

that Fort Sumter was tenantless. A boat load of soldiers was sent to

take possession. As they landed, a terrific volley of musketry was

fired. The Confederates fought like tigers from covered positions in the

ruins of the fort. The Federals abandoned the attempt without further

molestation, satisfied with the destruction they had wrought and the

successful blockade of Charleston Harbor. The views engraved by the lens

on these pages lay the actual scenes of destruction before the eyes of

the world. The "Swamp Angel" was one of the demons of war. Piles were

driven, a platform was laid upon them, and a parapet was built with bags

of sand, fifteen thousand being required. All this had to be done after

dark, and occupied fourteen nights. Then, with great labor, the

eight-inch rifled gun was dragged across the swamp and mounted on this

platform. It was nearly five miles from Charleston, but by firing with a

high elevation was able to reach the lower part of the city. The

soldiers named this gun the "Swamp Angel." Late in August it was ready

for work, and, after giving notice for the removal of non-combatants,

General Gillmore opened fire, and produced great consternation, but at

the thirty-sixth discharge the "Swamp Angel" burst, and was never

replaced.

[Illustration: BATTERED EXTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER]

[Illustration: DESTRUCTION AFTER BOMBARDMENT OF SUMTER]

[Illustration: WRECKED INTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER]

[Illustration: DISMOUNTED CANNON AT FORT SUMTER]

[Illustration: DESTROYED RAILROAD BRIDGE, BRIDGEPORT, ALABAMA--PONTOON

IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION]

[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSES AND ARMY BRIDGE ACROSS TENNESSEE RIVER NEAR

CHATTANOOGA]

[Illustration: ON BATTLEFIELD OF CHICKAMAUGA CREEK--LEE AND GORDON'S

MILLS]

WHEN Vicksburg fell, the cheering along the Federal lines in the

Mississippi Campaign aroused the attention of the Confederate pickets

until it was carried clear through to Louisiana, where the Confederate

forces were concentrated at Port Hudson. General Banks had succeeded

Butler at New Orleans and was co-operating with Grant on the Mississippi

to take possession of the Red River region and expel the Confederate

forces from Louisiana and Texas. The siege of Port Hudson had been hard

fought. The Confederates under General Gardner agreed that if Vicksburg

had fallen their surrender was the only thing left for them. On the

ninth of July, in 1863, the Confederate general at Port Hudson with

visible emotion tendered his sword. It was declined because his bravery

entitled him to retain it. The Federals were now in the entire

possession of the Mississippi. While Grant's Army had been pounding at

the gates of Vicksburg, Rosecranz was maneuvering with Bragg at

Murfreesboro, Tennessee. For six months these two armies stood

confronted, but met only in severe skirmishes. Rosecranz compelled Bragg

to fall back from one place to another. He was driven through middle

Tennessee, to Bridgeport, Alabama, where he crossed the Tennessee River,

burned the bridge behind him and entered Chattanooga. The Brady cameras

were in the Union lines and arrived in time to secure this negative of

the ruined bridge and the pontoon bridge that was being built by the

Union forces in pursuit of Bragg. A clash came at Chickamauga, a point

about twelve miles from Chattanooga, on the nineteenth and twentieth of

September, in 1863. It has been called the greatest battle of the West.

The cannonading and the musketry was at close range and the Federal

lines were being swept back when General Thomas and his men made the

heroic stand that saved the Federal Army from destruction, after a loss

of 15,851, killed, wounded and missing. The Confederate victory was

gained at the cost of 17,804.

[Illustration: BATTLEGROUND OF MISSIONARY RIDGE NEAR CHATTANOOGA,

TENNESSEE, TWO DAYS AFTER BATTLE]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE PRISONERS AT CHATTANOOGA]

CHICKAMAUGA has been called the greatest battle in the West. When the

smoke of the conflict had lifted, the war photographers found the

Federal Army closed up in Chattanooga. The Confederate general moved to

cut off all communication to the Federal lines, seizing roads,

destroying the bridges and preventing access to Nashville where the base

of supplies had been located. The Army of the Cumberland was reduced to

the verge of starvation. Not less than 10,000 horses and mules perished.

Grant was given command of the department of the Mississippi, comprising

the armies and departments of the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland. He

telegraphed to Thomas: "Hold Chattanooga at all hazards." The hero of

Chattanooga replied: "I will hold the town until we starve."

[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSES NEAR CHATTANOOGA]

[Illustration: GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT IN MISSISSIPPI CAMPAIGN, 1863]

[Illustration: "BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS" ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN IN

TENNESSEE--ENGINEERS OF ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND IN CAMP]

THE war cameras reached Nashville on the same day that Grant entered the

city, October 21, 1863, and followed him closely throughout the

campaign. Grant hurried to Chattanooga and found the troops without

shoes or clothing, and all food exhausted. He telegraphed to Burnside to

hold Knoxville and appealed to Admiral Porter at Cairo to send gunboats

to convey transports carrying rations from St. Louis for Sherman's Army,

which was moving up from the Mississippi. Bragg was entrenched on

Missionary Ridge, extending along the crest and across Chattanooga

Valley to Lookout Mountain. The Confederate fortifications were very

strong and their lines reached over the Raccoon Mountain. The war

cameras were taken to the foothills of Lookout Mountain, where an

engineers' brigade of the Army of the Cumberland was encamped. Grant

succumbed to appeals to stand before the camera and the negative is here

reproduced. The haggard expression on his face shows the tremendous

responsibility that rested upon him. On the twenty-third of November, in

1863, long lines of infantry moved forward and the heavy guns opened

fire. The Federal lines flashed across the valley sweeping everything

before them, pushing the Confederate skirmish line from their rifle

pits, to the foothills of Lookout Mountain. On the twenty-fourth, Grant

stood on the top of Orchard Knob, watching Hooker's men rush to the side

of Lookout Mountain, leaping from one rocky ledge to another, scrambling

over huge boulders, and through deep chasms in a rain of solid shot and

shell. They charged almost to the muzzle of the enemy's cannon, gaining

ground foot by foot, until at last they reached the foot of the

Palisades, and were finally lost in the mist that veiled the mountain.

For three hours the battle raged above the clouds. At sunset the mist

disappeared and moonlight fell on old Lookout. The Confederate forces

could be seen occupying the summit. Hooker's men scaled the Palisades.

The Confederates withdrew into the woods and sought the protection of

the night. At sunrise, on the twenty-fifth of November, these Kentucky

soldiers unfurled the Stars and Stripes. A great cheer arose from the

army in the valley.

THE Battle of Lookout Mountain is the most spectacular in history. It

was impossible to carry the war camera over its rugged heights. Had they

succeeded in getting to the summit, the mist that enveloped the valley

would have made it impossible to have secured a single scene of the

great conflict. The Federals occupied a strong position on the mountain,

looking across the Chattanooga Valley to Missionary Ridge, where Bragg

had concentrated his entire army. The twenty-fifth of November was a

magnificent day. Seldom has a battle begun under a brighter sun. The

Confederate artillery frowned from the summit of Missionary Ridge. The

glittering steel of Hooker's men flashed on Lookout Mountain. The

Cumberland veterans under Thomas were a solemn phalanx in the valley

while Sherman's compact lines were eager for the charge. On the top of

Orchard Knob stood Grant's bugler and the echoes of the "Forward" signal

fell into the valley, being taken up by the other buglers in melodious

refrain. Hooker's men moved down the eastern slope of Lookout Mountain,

sweeping across the valley in grand lines. Bragg's batteries were

centered on Sherman, who swept his men heroically forward over a

succession of low hills.

[Illustration: GENERALS GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN, HOOKER, HARNEY, DODGE,

GIBBON, POTTER, AT FORT SANDERS]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE ARTILLERY CAPTURED AT MISSIONARY

RIDGE--PARKED NEAR CHATTANOOGA]

UNDER fire from the Confederates, Corse's Brigade struggled desperately

for an hour and a half without gaining advantage, while Generals Loomis

and Smith took possession of Missionary Ridge. At two in the afternoon

occurred one of the most impressing spectacles ever witnessed on a

battlefield. Union soldiers with fixed bayonets rushed into the storm of

shell without firing a shot until after the skirmish line had been taken

and the Sixth Brigade swept over the Confederate rifle pits. The men

flung themselves to the earth to avoid the volleys of canister, grape

and musketry that were hurled upon them. At sunset Sherman held Bragg's

right in check; Hooker was driving at his left. The final assault on his

center was begun and in twenty minutes Missionary Ridge was belching

flames. Every Confederate gun and cannon was in action. The Federal

soldiers rushed into the very mouth of death, reaching the crest,

breaching the Confederate lines until they gave way and retreated. The

cannon which they abandoned were swung and turned upon them. The victory

had cost the Union Army 5,616, killed, wounded and missing, against a

Confederate loss of 8,684.

THE siege of Knoxville, Tennessee, was raised late in 1863. When the

news of Bragg's defeat at Chattanooga reached Longstreet, who was

besieging Knoxville, he knew that Grant would now send Burnside relief.

Bragg decided to carry the city by storm. The attack was to be made on

Fort Sanders, a Federal fort of great strength, containing twenty-six

guns. The Confederate columns forced their way through a network of wire

that had been wound from stump to stump, until they finally reached the

parapet. A Confederate officer sprang to the summit with the flag of his

regiment and demanded surrender. Pierced by a shower of bullets, his

body rolled into the ditch, his hand clutching the flagstaff. The

Confederates charged again only to be repulsed. Under a flag of truce

the fighting ceased while Longstreet's men carried away their dead,

dying and wounded. Grant had ordered twenty thousand men under General

Granger to the rescue of the besieged city, but they failed to start,

and Sherman hurried to the relief. He reached Knoxville on the fifth of

December and found the siege reduced and Longstreet had started for

Virginia. Sherman's troops had marched four hundred miles to fight at

Chattanooga, then marched one hundred and two miles to compel the

Confederates to retire from Knoxville. When the news reached the North,

Grant was hailed as the Nation's saviour. Congress bestowed upon him a

gold medal, while Bragg, the Confederate general, went down before a

storm of indignation in the South. One of the war cameras shortly after

the battle was placed on the parapet of Fort Sanders, and this negative

of the ruins was taken, showing the University of Tennessee.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OVER THE RUINS AT KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE,

IN 1863, FROM FORT SANDERS]

[Illustration: LIBBY PRISON AT RICHMOND CROWDED WITH UNION PRISONERS IN

1864]

[Illustration: ANDERSONVILLE PRISON WITH ITS "DEAD LINE" AND "BROOK"]

IT is estimated that 188,000 Union soldiers and sailors endured the

hardships of the sixteen Confederate prisons during the Civil War. In

the prison yards are 36,401 graves. 11,599 of those released from

prisons died before reaching their homes, and 12,000 after reaching

home--making 60,000 lives sacrificed in Confederate prisons. Several

estimates place the deaths as high as 80,000. Strange as it may seem,

the war photographers succeeded in taking their cameras behind prison

walls. Three of these remarkable negatives are here revealed. The first

one was taken at Libby prison, Richmond, where most of the commissioned

officers were confined. In Libby, men were often shot for approaching

near enough to a window for a sentry to see their heads. The other two

were secured within the "dead line" at Andersonville prison in Georgia.

It was an open stockade with little or no shelter, covering about 30

acres. The palisade was of pine logs 15 feet high, closely set together.

Outside of this, at a distance of 120 feet, was another palisade, and

between the two were the guards. About 20 feet from the inner stockade

was a railing known as the "dead line," and any prisoner who passed it

was instantly shot. A small stream flowed through the enclosure and

furnished the prisoners their only supply of water. The cook houses and

camp of the guards were placed on this stream, above the stockade.

Starvation and disease drove many of the prisoners mad and they wandered

across the "dead line" to end their misery. Fugitives were followed by

horsemen and tracked by a large pack of blood hounds. The crowded

condition of the prisons at the beginning of 1864 was appalling. There

were as many as 33,000 hungry and dying men confined in Andersonville at

one time, which gave a space of about four feet square to each man. Some

of the other Confederate prisons were at Salisbury, North Carolina, at

Florence, South Carolina, on Belle Island in the James River, at Tyler,

Texas, at Millen, Georgia, and at Columbia, South Carolina. At Belle

Isle the prisoners were packed so close that when they lay sleeping no

one could turn over until the whole line agreed to turn simultaneously.

While many imaginary pictures have been drawn from descriptions of

Andersonville, it has remained for the lens to to engrave the actual

scenes, and they are here perpetuated by the negatives.

[Illustration: ANDERSONVILLE PRISON WITH ITS STOCKADE AND GUARD TOWERS]

AMERICANS are the most loyal people on the face of the earth.

Self-government encourages fidelity to Home and Country. In a nation

where the _citizens are the Government_, patriotism cannot die. Unfurl

the flag of a monarchy and there will be a dutiful reverence to it.

Unfurl the Stars and Stripes of the Republic and there will arise a

mighty ovation that thrills from the hearts of men--a spontaneous

outburst that has never been heard except under the Emblem of Freedom.

Liberty is everywhere the mother of patriots.

[Illustration: SURGEONS ADMINISTERING TO THE WOUNDED]

[Illustration: LIVES SACRIFICED FOR THEIR COUNTRY]

[Illustration: BURIAL OF THE DEAD HEROES]

PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN ON THE BATTLEFIELDS DURING THE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED

STATES

In the Civil War the heart of American Citizenship was put to the test

and it was found "tried and true." The first call for volunteers came on

April 15, 1861 for 75,000 militia for three months, and 91,816 men

answered. The second call was on May 3, 1861, when Lincoln asked for

500,000 men and the reply was 700,680. The third call on July 2, 1862

for 300,000 troops for three years' service to their country brought

421,465. The fourth call on August 4, 1862, for nine months' service met

the response of 87,588 men. Under the fifth proclamation, on June 15,

1863, for militia for six months' service, the ranks were recruited by

16,361 men. The calls of October 17, 1863, and February 1, 1864, brought

369,380 men. Under the call of March 14, 1864, came 292,193 men; between

April 23 and July 18, 1864, there were 83,612 mustered into the United

States' service. Lincoln's appeal to the manhood of the Nation on July

18, 1864 was met by 386,461 men. The last call for volunteers came on

December 19, 1864, and 212,212 patriots marched to the battle ground to

help strike the last blow of the conflict. The willingness with which

these men offered their lives to their country is the greatest tribute

that can ever be paid to American patriotism. After the disasters on the

Peninsula over 80,000 troops were enlisted, organized, armed, and

marched to the battleground within four weeks. An army of 90,000

infantry came to the front from the five states of Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, within twenty days. In many instances

over 60,000 recruits fell into line in less than a month. At the last

moment of the War, and to the very scene of surrender, thousands of men

were pouring into the field.

If the world could have looked upon the marvelous spectacle of all the

men who took part in the Civil War, marching five abreast, the

triumphant procession would have stretched from the Atlantic, across the

Continent, to the Pacific--a grand pageant of 1,696 regiments, six

companies infantry; 272 regiments, two companies cavalry; 78 regiments,

two companies artillery. The boys who wore the Gray could have

intercepted this procession by another magnificent pageant reaching from

the Canadian borders to the mountains of Mexico.

The war cameras during 1864 were taxed to their utmost. It was the

hardest test that had ever been given the new science of photography.

The thrilling story of this closing year is told in the rare old

negatives in these pages--actual photographs taken at the scene of

battle.

THE last days of 1863 were inactive. The armies in the East were going

into winter quarters. Brady's men had experienced a hard year with their

cameras, but had perpetuated many tragic incidents. One of the cameras

was held in winter quarters at Rappahannock Station until early in 1864.

It was used in recording conditions in camp and one of its negatives is

here reproduced. This camp was occupied by the 50th New York Engineers.

It was the duty of these engineers to construct roads, bridges and

fortifications, and their services in the Civil War were of great

importance. An interesting feature of this photograph is the row of

pontoon boats on wheels. These pontoons are vessels, used to support the

roadway of floating bridges. The boats were a small, substantial frame

of wood, light of weight, and easily transported overland. By stretching

them across a river an army could begin its movement to the other side

within half an hour on reaching the banks. A pontoon train of the army

carries about one hundred yards of pontoon bridge for each army corps,

including the boats, roadway planks, etc. Early in the spring of 1864

the skirmishing began for what promised to be the deadliest year of the

Civil War. Sherman organized his expedition in February against

Meridian, Mississippi, a position of great importance to the

Confederacy, as it controlled the railroad communications with Mobile

and Wilmington. Banks began his Red River expedition in March. Meade's

columns crossed the Rapidan River, in Virginia, in May. Grant was placed

in command of all the United States armies in the field on March 1,

1864, while Sherman was given command of Federal armies in the West.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN WINTER QUARTERS AT RAPPAHANNOCK

STATION, VIRGINIA, IN 1864]

THE first great conflict of 1864 occurred on the fifth of May when the

Army of the Potomac met Lee's forces in the Battle of the Wilderness. It

was a virgin forest of oak and pine, choked with dense undergrowth. The

Federal soldiers knew nothing of its entanglements, but the Confederates

had full knowledge of the roads and wagon paths intersecting the woods.

It was so dense that the troops found it necessary at times to move in

single file. The artillery and cavalry had great difficulty in getting

into the encounter, and in one of the sallies nearly all the men and

horses were killed. The battle was deadly. Regiments shot into their own

ranks as they fled through forest and undergrowth, becoming separated

from the main line. General Longstreet, of the Confederate Army, was

shot and severely wounded by his own men. Tremendous volleys of musketry

rang through the woods. Dead leaves and branches were swept with flames.

Men lost their way and wandered into the enemy's lines. So rapid was the

fire that the muskets became hot and blistered the fingers of the

soldiers. The losses in this great two-days' battle cannot be stated

accurately. One estimate places the Union killed, wounded and missing at

18,387 and the Confederate, 11,400. On the afternoon of the seventh of

May, Grant moved his army toward Spottsylvania Court House, fifteen

miles southeast of the Wilderness Battlefield, with the intent of

getting between the enemy and Richmond and compelling Lee to fight at a

disadvantage. It was during these maneuvers that this photograph was

taken while the artillery was stationed at the edge of the forest. The

negative was taken in the full light of the noonday sun in the Spring of

1864.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE ARTILLERY WAS AT EDGE OF WOODS

NEAR BATTLE OF WILDERNESS IN 1864]

[Illustration: GENERAL MEADE AND GENERAL SEDGWICK WITH STAFF OFFICERS AT

RAPPAHANNOCK STATION, MARCH, 1864]

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL G. K. WARREN AND STAFF AT BEVERLY HOUSE,

SPOTTSYLVANIA]

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARDS SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT HOUSE FROM BEVERLY

HOUSE, HEADQUARTERS OF GENERAL WARREN IN MAY, 1864]

[Illustration: GERMANIA FORD, RAPIDAN RIVER, WHERE TROOPS CROSSED IN

GRANT'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST RICHMOND BEFORE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS]

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK AND STAFF--SEDGWICK WAS

KILLED AT SPOTTSYLVANIA IN 1864]

[Illustration: GENERALS OF THE CAVALRY CORPS--SHERIDAN, MERRITT, DAVIS,

GREGG, TORBERT AND WILSON]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEAD ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA

COURT HOUSE IN 1864]

BOTH armies faced each other in full force at Spottsylvania Court House

in the forenoon of the ninth of May, 1864. The Brady cameras arrived

with the Government supply trains and perpetuated the historic scenes.

While the Union lines were placing their batteries, they were annoyed by

sharpshooters, and General Sedgwick was killed. His death was a great

loss to the Federals, just as Jackson's had crippled the Confederacy.

During the first day at Spottsylvania the Federals lost fully 10,000

men, while the Confederates' loss was very nearly 9,000. The unburied

bodies of 3,000 men lay scattered along the slopes of the ridges and

under the trees. Out of the 200,000 Federals and Confederates who rushed

into battle on the fifth of May, 43,000 were either dead, wounded, or

prisoners, after three days of fighting. During the week the fighting

extended along the Fredericksburg road, Laurel Hill and Ny River,

reaching to Swift Creek and Cloyd's Mountain. The Army of the Potomac,

since it crossed the Rapidan River, had lost nearly one-fourth of its

men in the brief space of eight days, and now had a fighting force of

only 87,000. The photograph of the Confederate dead was taken near

Spottsylvania Court House, May 12, 1864, after Ewell's attack.

[Illustration: SLING CART USED IN HAULING CAPTURED CONFEDERATE ARTILLERY

AT DREWRY'S BLUFF ON THE JAMES RIVER IN 1864]

[Illustration: DUTCH GAP CANAL ENTERING JAMES RIVER IN VIRGINIA--BUILT

UNDER SEVERE FIRE]

[Illustration: OBSTRUCTIONS IN JAMES RIVER NEAR DREWRY'S BLUFF]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE FORT DARLING AT DREWRY'S BLUFF]

[Illustration: AIKEN'S LANDING, WHERE PRISONERS WERE EXCHANGED]

WHILE Grant was moving toward Richmond from the north, Butler was

forcing his way from Yorktown on the south, threatening Richmond from

the peninsula as McClellan had done two years before. It was at this

time that the photographs here shown were taken in May, 1864. Butler

succeeded in destroying part of the road from Petersburg to Richmond. He

received word that Lee was in full retreat for Richmond, with Grant

close upon his heels. One of the extreme southern positions in the

defense of Richmond was Fort Darling at Drewry's Bluff. On the

thirteenth of May, Butler succeeded in carrying a portion of the outer

lines, capturing a considerable amount of artillery, but on the

sixteenth he was repulsed and fell back upon Bermuda Hundred. A powerful

Confederate battery on the James River barred the bridge toward

Richmond. Butler conceived the idea of cutting a canal through the

narrow neck of land known as Dutch Gap for the passage of the monitors.

A photograph was taken of this canal, which was constructed under a

severe and continuous fire. The dredge and steam pump used were

bomb-proof. The greater part of the excavation was done by colored

troops, who sought cover, from the bombardment of the enemy, in earthen

dugouts that covered the site of the work. The canal was only 174 yards

long, 43 yards wide at the top, 27 yards at the water level, and 13 5/10

yards at a depth of 15 feet below water level. It cut off 4-3/4 miles of

river navigation and the excavation was nearly 67,000 cubic yards. The

war photographers secured many negatives of these operations and several

of the most important ones are shown on these pages. One of them was

taken at Aiken's Landing, where the flag-of-truce boat from Richmond

came to discharge her cargo of poor, starved, and often dying Union

prisoners, and received in exchange the same number of healthy, well-fed

rebels from our guards. Two or three rough old canal boats, and the grim

old monitor there at anchor, but above all the glorious old Stars and

Stripes, and on the shore the loving hearts and kindly hands of friends.

The soldiers called it "the gate into God's country."

[Illustration: PONTOON BRIDGE AT JERICHO MILLS ON NORTH ANNA RIVER,

VIRGINIA]

[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF GRANT AND MEADE AT MASSAPONAX CHURCH,

VIRGINIA]

[Illustration: COUNCIL OF WAR AT MASSAPONAX CHURCH, VIRGINIA, IN

1864--GENERALS GRANT AND MEADE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR DANA AND

STAFF OFFICERS]

AFTER the battle of Spottsylvania Court House the war photographers

exposed many negatives, during the five days that the relative positions

of the two armies remained unchanged. Grant and Lee were engaged in

brilliant strategy. Grant had thrown out his left until it rested on

Massaponax Church. While the great General was in council of war at this

place on the twenty-first of May, 1864, a remarkable photograph was

taken. In the reproduction on this page it will be seen that the pews

have been brought out under the trees and the officers are gathered to

discuss the situation. Grant is sitting on the bench against the trees.

With him are General Meade, Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana,

and the staff officers. This was a critical time. The Union losses had

been heavy and Lee had not yet been outwitted. This photograph is of

much historic significance. In advance of Grant's movements, General

Sheridan had started on a raid, with 10,000 sabres, and reaching the

North Anna River, captured Beaver Dam Station, destroyed ten miles of

railroad track and three freight trains containing a million and a half

Confederate rations. Here he was fiercely assaulted by "Jeb" Stuart, but

he succeeded in crossing the North Anna River by Ground-Squirrel Bridge

and proceeded toward Richmond as far as Yellow Tavern, six miles from

the Confederate Capital. Stuart fell mortally wounded and died in the

city of Richmond. Sheridan then attempted to capture the works around

Richmond, and Custer crossed the first line and seized two pieces of

artillery and one hundred prisoners. Lee had fallen back from the North

Anna River and assumed a position still covering Richmond. A photograph

was taken of the pontoon bridge constructed across the North Anna River

at Jericho Mills, where General Warren's five corps crossed on the

twenty-third of May. The Federal base of supplies was shifted to the

White House on the Pamunkey River where the remainder of the Federal

Army crossed on the twenty-eighth of May, followed by the war cameras.

[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD AT RESACA, IN GEORGIA, MAY 13-16, 1864]

[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF NEW HOPE CHURCH, IN GEORGIA, MAY 25 TO

JUNE 4, 1864]

[Illustration: BATTLEGROUND ON KENESAW MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA, IN JULY, 1864]

WHILE Grant was moving on toward Richmond, Sherman's armies of Arkansas,

Cumberland, Ohio and Tennessee, with 352,000 men distributed in many

garrisons over this wide expanse of territory, was moving against

Atlanta, Georgia. Opposed to Sherman was Lieutenant-General Joseph E.

Johnston, who commanded all the Confederate troops in the West,

including the men of Bragg's old army. Atlanta was of equal importance

with Richmond. It was a great railroad center and it contained the

Confederate depots, mills, foundries and the manufactories of military

supplies. Sherman had moved simultaneously with the Army of the Potomac,

on the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness. On the thirteenth of

May, Sherman's men met the Confederates at Resaca, Georgia. There was

brisk, sharp fighting all along the lines. On the night of the fifteenth

the Confederates abandoned the town and crossed the Oostenaula River,

setting fire to the bridges. At dawn of the sixteenth the Federals

entered Resaca and began a vigorous pursuit, and the camera recorded the

scene of the abandoned entrenchments. The fields across which the

Confederates withdrew may be seen in the distance. The Confederates

concentrated their forces near New Hope Church on the twenty-fifth, and

attacked the advancing Union troops but were driven back with heavy

loss. The war photographers here secured a photograph of the

entrenchments in the woods where there was continuous fighting for six

days. The Federal Army forced its way through the mountainous country to

the towering peaks of Kenesaw Mountain, Lost Mountain, and Pine

Mountain. On all these heights the Confederates had signal towers. The

outlying hills were occupied by batteries. The cameras were carried to

the heights of Kenesaw Mountain and taken into its entrenchments.

Sherman's troops climbed this slope, through its tangled wood and rifle

pits, in the face of a steady musketry and artillery fire. This really

ended the first movement of Sherman's campaign against Atlanta.

Sherman's losses during May and June were over 2,000 killed and 13,000

wounded. Johnston's losses were about 1,200 killed and nearly 14,000

wounded. During the fifty-four days, both armies were depleted by 3,200

killed, 27,000 wounded.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE SKELETONS OF DEAD SOLDIERS WERE

BEING REMOVED SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR]

GRANT and Lee met at Cold Harbor in a desperate struggle on the first

day of June in 1864. The following day was occupied by a general massing

for the deadly encounter. Meade's army moved silently on the enemy at

daylight on the third and the result was the fiercest battle of the

entire war. There was a drizzling rain. The armies could hardly see the

faces of their antagonists. Not a shot was fired until they were upon

each other. One hundred thousand muskets simultaneously began their

murderous work at a range of sixty to seventy yards. Two hundred pieces

of artillery added to the deafening roar. It was the tragedy of

Fredericksburg and Gettysburg re-enacted. The Union soldiers pressed

toward the solid mass of lead and flame from the Confederate

entrenchments only to be forced back. At times they swept to the

breastworks against the torrents of musketry and mounted the parapets.

The assault lasted but twenty minutes and the Union Army lost in killed,

wounded and missing over 14,000 men; the Confederate loss has been

estimated at 1,700. The two armies stayed at Cold Harbor for ten days,

working on their field entrenchments, and fighting whenever either side

grew bold. Lee remained immovable in his entrenchments before Richmond

and on the afternoon of the sixteenth of June, Grant's army, horse, foot

and artillery, had crossed the James River. On the seventh of June the

dead were buried and the wounded gathered during an armistice of two

hours. This is a ghastly view, showing the process of collecting the

remains of Union soldiers who were hastily interred at the time of the

battle. This photograph was taken on the battlefield months after the

battle, when the Government ordered the remains gathered for permanent

burial. The grinning skulls, the boots still hanging on the bones, the

old canteen, all testify to the tragedy.

SHERMAN, in his campaign in Georgia in 1864, was much interested in the

cameras that followed his army and urged the photographer to take

negatives of every movement as his forces pushed the Confederates toward

Atlanta. On the morning of July 3, 1864, the Stars and Stripes fluttered

on the crest of old Kenesaw Mountain. All the Federal corps were in

rapid motion, and on Independence Day Sherman could distinguish the

houses of Atlanta only nine miles away. General Johnston withdrew into

the city and a storm of indignation swept the Confederacy. Johnston

resigned his command and was succeeded by General J. B. Hood. Sherman

set his troops in motion for the city on the seventeenth of July. On the

nineteenth, the troops were so near Atlanta, and were meeting such

feeble resistance that it was supposed the Confederates were evacuating,

until they poured out of their entrenchments and opened furious fire on

the north side of Peach Tree Creek. The war cameras were busily engaged

and one of the negatives is an abandoned Confederate fortification on

the road leading to Atlanta. A camera was taken into this fort shortly

after its capture by Sherman. It shows the extent to which the

Confederates had protected themselves. It is one of the rare pictures in

which chevaux-de-frise construction is shown. It is here seen that the

defense is a temporary obstruction by placing rails in a row with their

pointed ends directed against the enemy. They impeded the advance of the

foe and afforded cover for the defenders. During the conquest of Georgia

the Confederates were much awed by the Brady "what is it?" wagons. It is

the first time that field photography was witnessed in the far South.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT A CONFEDERATE FORT ON MARIETTA ROAD,

NEAR ATLANTA, GEORGIA, AFTER CAPTURE BY SHERMAN, SEPTEMBER 2, 1864]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE LINES BEFORE ATLANTA, GEORGIA, IN

1864--GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN AND STAFF]

WHILE Sherman's Army was literally standing at the gates of Atlanta,

this photograph was taken. The great general was with his staff in a

Federal fort on the outlying hills. He was leaning on the breech of the

cannon in one of his most characteristic attitudes. At this time Sherman

was forty-four years of age. When sixteen years old he had entered West

Point as a cadet, through the influence of his father, who was a Supreme

Court judge in Ohio. At twenty years of age he entered the United States

regular army and during the Mexican War was engaged in service in

California. When thirty-three years of age, Sherman resigned from the

army and became President of the State Military Institute of Louisiana.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he left the South and offered his

services to the Union. He was a colonel at the Battle of Bull Run. After

that battle, when the Northern Army was reorganized, Sherman was

appointed Brigadier-General of Volunteers and commanded the Department

of the Cumberland. He demanded 200,000 men to reach the Gulf, but it was

refused and he was ordered into Missouri. He was for a time inactive but

came to the front again at Shiloh in command of a division under Grant.

His bravery secured his promotion to Major-General and he became active

in the campaign around Vicksburg. He then entered into the Mississippi

Campaign and led the forces against Atlanta, resulting in his famous

march to the sea. This photograph was taken on the eighteenth day of

July, in 1864, on the lines before Atlanta. Sherman was much interested

in the new science of photography and he always protected the cameras.

[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF PEACH TREE CREEK, GEORGIA, JULY 20,

1864--HOOD'S FIRST SORTIE NEAR ATLANTA]

[Illustration: WHERE GENERAL MCPHERSON WAS KILLED, JULY 22, 1864, NEAR

ATLANTA--HOOD'S SECOND SORTIE]

[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD AT ATLANTA, GEORGIA, JULY 22, 1864--HOOD'S

SECOND SORTIE]

[Illustration: MILL AND RAILROAD DESTROYED BY CONFEDERATES ON EVACUATION

OF ATLANTA, SEPTEMBER 2, 1864]

[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN A. WINSLOW AND OFFICERS ON DECK OF

"KEARSARGE" ON RETURN TO AMERICA AFTER DESTRUCTION OF THE "ALABAMA" IN

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE IRONCLAD RAM "TENNESSEE" CAPTURED AT MOBILE

BAY AUGUST 5, 1864, BY ADMIRAL FARRAGUT]

ATLANTA was evacuated by the Confederates on the first day of September,

in 1864 after a long, hard siege. The formal surrender was made by the

Mayor on September second and the city became a military depot governed

by military law. During this campaign of four months the Federals lost

31,680 men; the Confederates 34,986. The war photographers secured many

negatives of the battlefields in the siege around Atlanta. A view is

here shown of Peach Tree Creek where the Federal loss was 1,710 and the

Confederate 4,796. Another camera was taken to the woods where the Union

general, McPherson, was killed in Hood's second sortie outside of the

city. The daring commander rode directly into the enemy's line, without

knowledge of danger. An interesting picture is that of the earth works

before Atlanta, during Hood's first sortie, in which the Union losses

were 3,641, and the Confederate 8,499. The destruction that was wrought

during the siege of Atlanta is perpetuated by many of these negatives.

While the armies were making these decisive blows, the "Kearsarge" 3,000

miles away, met and sunk the Confederate ship, "Alabama," in the English

Channel on Sunday morning, June 19, 1864. The "Alabama" had been roaming

the seas nearly two years, capturing and burning American merchantmen.

Another important naval conflict occurred on the 5th of August when

Admiral Farragut gained possession of Mobile Bay, Alabama, and the war

cameras caught a picture of the rebel ram, "Tennessee," the ironclad

captured at that time by Farragut.

[Illustration: DEVASTATION ON "MARCH TO THE SEA"]

[Illustration: SHERMAN'S MEN DESTROYING RAILROAD]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEFENSES AT CHATTAHOOCHIE RIVER BRIDGE,

GEORGIA, IN 1864]

[Illustration: BATTLEGROUND OF ALLATOONA PASS, IN GEORGIA, OCTOBER 5,

1864]

[Illustration: GENERAL U. S. GRANT AND STAFF AT CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, IN

AUGUST, 1864]

WHILE the combined armies under Sherman lay in and around Atlanta until

October, 1864, the war photographers were used extensively. Fierce

encounters took place early in that month around Kenesaw Mountain and

along Allatoona Pass. During this famous encounter Sherman stood on the

top of Kenesaw. General Corse, who was leading the Union Division into

combat, sent him this message: "I am short a cheek-bone and one ear, but

am able to whip all hell yet." It was to this that Sherman made his

famous reply: "Hold the fort, for I am coming." Sherman began his famous

march to the sea on the fifteenth of November. As the columns left

Atlanta the Federal engineers applied their torches to the depot,

roundhouse, and the machine shops of the Georgia railroad. The columns

extended to the northern part of the city. Stores, warehouses, hotels,

and mills, with many private dwellings, were destroyed to the value of

more than three millions of dollars. Amid the fierce heat and roar

Sherman rode out of Atlanta on the afternoon of November 16th. The great

army for five consecutive weeks swept across Georgia. The 62,000 men,

20,000 horses and mules, marched 300 miles in a route from 20 to 60

miles wide. The army captured twenty million pounds of corn and fodder,

three million rations of bread and meat, one million rations of coffee

and sugar and 350 miles of railroad track were destroyed. Sherman

estimated the property losses at over one hundred millions of dollars.

The Federal losses during the campaign were but 63 men killed on the

field, 245 wounded, and 259 missing. The Confederacy was severed and a

decisive step taken toward ending the Civil War.

[Illustration: DESTRUCTION FROM EXPLOSION OF ORDNANCE BARGES AT WHARVES

AT CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, AUGUST 9, 1864]

WHILE Sherman was marching from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta,

Georgia, on his famous march to the sea, Grant was laying siege on

Petersburg, Virginia, twenty-two miles south of Richmond. This was the

central point for five railroads, giving communication with the

Carolinas and Southern Virginia. Its possession by Federal troops would

cut off Richmond and force the evacuation of the Confederate Capital.

Lee was strongly intrenched around Petersburg. For a time during the

summer there was hot fighting every hour in the day and frequently far

into the night. The two armies were ready to fight to a finish. The

Union Army was preparing itself for the final stroke and the conflicts

were constant. It was during this campaign that the battles of New

Market Heights and Cedar Creek were fought and Sheridan made his famous

ride down the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester. Grant's base of supplies

was at City Point on the James River. On the ninth day of August, in

1864, there was an explosion of the ordnance barges and a war camera was

hurried to the scene and secured this negative on the same day. At the

same time, while General Grant was in conference with his staff in his

tent at the army headquarters, the war photographers secured the picture

shown on the preceding page. The general may be seen in the center of

the group, sitting in the chair, with his hat characteristically pushed

back on his head and his legs crossed. This is an interesting negative.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN FORT NEGLEY AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE,

SHOWING IRONCLAD CASEMATES, IN 1864]

IN the closing months of 1864 events occurred in rapid succession in the

southwest. The Confederates, under Hood, driven from Georgia by Sherman,

invaded Middle Tennessee. General Price began his invasion of Missouri

and destroyed property valued at three millions of dollars and seized a

vast quantity of supplies. The Union forces, under General Thomas, were

concentrated at Nashville. There were continual skirmishes and at

nightfall, on the sixteenth of December, General Thomas ordered his

troops into line of battle, with the intent of driving Hood's Army from

the territory. In a terrific fire of musketry, grape and canister, the

Federals pushed forward. In the next two days the Confederates lost all

their artillery. General Thomas took four thousand, five hundred

prisoners, nearly three hundred being officers. The fleeing Confederate

columns left nearly three thousand dead and wounded on the ground, while

the Federal loss was three hundred. The weather was very cold, but

Thomas pursued his foe relentlessly. Flood's men were in a desperate

condition, barefooted, ragged and disheartened. They were pressed to the

Tennessee River where thirteen thousand were taken prisoners, and Hood's

great army was practically annihilated, their small arms scattered along

the roads, and cannon, caissons and wagons abandoned. Hood took the

remnants of his army into Mississippi where he was relieved from command

by his own request and retired minus the arm he left at Gettysburg and

the leg he left at Chickamauga. On the thirtieth day of December, in

1864, Thomas went into winter quarters. One of the last photographs of

the year was taken in Fort Negley, Nashville, Tennessee, showing the

ironclad casemates and the interior of the fort.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON GRANT'S MILITARY RAILROAD WHEN THE

13-INCH MORTAR "DICTATOR" OR "PETERSBURG EXPRESS" WAS THROWING SHELLS

INTO PETERSBURG IN 1864]

THE last days of 1864 closed with the Army of the Potomac and the Army

of the James maintaining the siege about Petersburg. Nearly every hour

of the day and night the air was filled with the roar of siege cannons

and mortars. Brady and Gardner had several of their cameras at the siege

of Petersburg. Many rare negatives are to-day witnesses of this great

event. The picture shown on this page was taken during the siege. It

shows the thirteen-inch "Dictator," known as the "Petersburg Express,"

mounted on a flat freight car made strong for this purpose. It was on

the military railroad outside of Petersburg and moved continually along

the line, throwing its huge death-dealing bombs into the city. Some of

the mortars were mounted on very strong, special-made cars, protected

with roofs of railroad iron. Grant's line was twenty-five miles long,

but with its parallels extending over ninety miles. The two forts

nearest the city of Petersburg were known by the soldiers as Fort Hell

and Fort Damnation. From their casemates the movements of the soldiers

of the beleaguered city were distinctly visible. The guns of these two

advanced forts were never silent. At nightfall, the pickets, with one

hundred and fifty rounds of ball cartridges, left for the outposts, and

many of them never returned. The night was made hideous by the roar of

huge siege guns, the sudden crashes of musketry and the crack of rifle

shells. The openings of the breastworks were so filled with shot during

this siege that in time of truce the soldiers would dig the narrow

openings out with their fingers. On the next page is shown a photograph

taken April 2, 1865, in Confederate trenches at Petersburg just after

their capture by the daring Union troops.

[Illustration: GENERALS HANCOCK, BARLOW, BIRNEY AND GIBBON]

[Illustration: SIEGE OF PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA--PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN JUST

BEFORE ITS FALL IN 1865]

[Illustration: RAILROAD BATTERY IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG DURING SIEGE]

[Illustration: EARTHWORKS IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG--FEDERAL LINES AT FORT

MORTON]

[Illustration: DEAD CONFEDERATES IN TRENCHES AT PETERSBURG]

DEEDS of valor on the battlefield have been sung from the earliest ages,

but there is no epoch in the world's history when men have shown more

magnificent courage, or greater devotion to principle, than in the Civil

War of the United States. The days of ancient knighthood never saw more

gallant fighters, no lancer ever met a worthier foe. It was the grandest

spectacle of heroism that eyes have ever witnessed. At the battle-front,

in prison pit, in hospital, or wounded on the field--no men ever endured

more intense suffering.

The only National debt we can never pay is the debt we owe to the men

who offered their lives that the United American Nation might live to

become the greatest power in the human race. The heroic sacrifices will

never be known. It has been variously estimated from three hundred

thousand to a million lives. The Government records 44,238 men as having

been killed in battle; 49,205 dying of wounds and injuries; 186,216

succumbing to disease; 24,184 expiring from unknown causes; and 526

suicides, homicides and executions. Thousands of men disappeared during

the conflict and have never been heard from since. The surgeon-general's

records give 280,040 wounded in battle; 184,791 missing or captured;

26,168 dying while prisoners of war. The medical records state that

6,049,648 cases were brought into the hospitals, great numbers of whom

were sent home to die. The Confederate losses can never be ascertained

but it is very probable that the price that America paid for the

preservation of the Union was a million of its manhood.

The crisis of 1865 held not only the future of the United States in the

balance, but threatened to change the political divisions of the world.

The American Nation, which is the "freest, richest and most powerful"

nation under the skies, would have been divided into two weakened

republics, each struggling for existence, disputing the ownership of

rivers and coast, engaged in continual border uprisings, and finally

becoming the prey of the powerful nations of Europe--only to be soon

devoured by encroaching monarchies of the Eastern Hemisphere.

"When 'Greek meets Greek' the tug of war

Is sure to follow fierce and strong;

What wonder that the bloody strife

'Twixt North and South was four years long!

Four hundred thousand of our brave

Gave up their lives that we might be

A Nation, powerful and great,

The fitting home of Liberty.

America will surely stand

The first and foremost of the earth:

The Queen of Nations she shall be,

And all her sons have royal birth.

[Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR COUNTRY--Photograph taken by Brady

on the battlefield during the Civil War]

"The Goddess of sweet Liberty

Still smiles upon her gallant knights

Who bravely sprang to her defense,

And fearless fought to keep our rights.

Then cheer our heroes, grim and old,

And let them feel while yet alive,

We honor them for what they did

From sixty-one to sixty-five.

All honor to our sacred dead,

And honor well the living, too,

Our Veterans of the Civil War,

These noble boys who wore the blue."

The problem was settled for all ages in 1865. The American Nation rose

from the ruins of War like a young giant. Grasping the hand of the North

and the South, it clasped them together with the grip of brotherhood and

the sacred pledge, "United we stand; divided we fall." Long live

America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave! The vast

armies, "strong enough to have conquered a hemisphere, vanished like a

vision and the men who fought side by side through the perils of four

years of Civil War, laid down their arms, changed their uniforms of blue

and gray for the apparel of everyday life, and took up once more the

peaceful occupations they had abandoned to serve their country."

The Spring of 1865 can never be forgotten by the men who went through

it. It was a time of intense excitement and overflowing enthusiasm which

carried itself almost to pandemonium. The war cameras, which had

perpetuated the last wonderful scenes of the conflict, were taken to

Washington and New York, and the Summer fell upon a peaceful people.

It is the avowed mission of these pages to lay before the present

generation the vision of War in all its horror that those who look upon

them may pledge themselves to the furtherance of the day "when a cannon

will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is

now, and people will be amazed that such a thing could have been;" the

day when "those two immense groups, the United States of America, and

the United States of Europe," and the United States of Asia and of

Africa, "will be seen placed in the presence of each other, extending

the hand of fellowship across the oceans, exchanging their produce,

their commerce, their industries, their arts, their genius; clearing the

earth, peopling the desert, improving creation under the eye of the

Creator, and uniting for the good of all, these two irresistible and

infinite powers--the fraternity of men and the power of God!"

THE first days of 1865 around Petersburg were a hard strain on the

soldiers. The winter's siege had been severe. The Confederates were

desperate. Unable to break the Federal lines at Dinwiddie, Five Forks,

or any of the many combats that were continually taking place, defeat

and annihilation awaited them. On the first of April the entire

artillery forces in the trenches before Petersburg began a tremendous

cannonading which continued until dawn. The Union troops during the

night tightened their lines around Petersburg until the following

morning, which was Sunday. At daylight, on Monday, the third of April,

Lee evacuated Petersburg and the Union forces entered the city about

nine o'clock. Cameras were soon taken through the gates and during the

day several photographs were taken, including a negative of the trenches

containing the dead. This photograph shows a company of colored

infantry. There were 186,097 colored troops enlisted in the Civil War.

In many conflicts they showed great bravery, especially during the siege

of Petersburg. An instance of their great courage was the attempt to

break through the Confederate lines by tunneling under one of the

fortifications and blowing it up with the charge of eight thousand

pounds of powder. In the smoke of the explosion the colored troops

charged through the crater and up the slope beyond, only to meet with a

terrific fire in which hundreds of colored heroes were mown down like

grass, with no hope of anyone reaching the crest, but they held to the

charge until ordered to retire. The engagements around Petersburg during

its last nine months cost the Union Army more than thirty thousand men.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE COLORED INFANTRY WAS MOVING TO THE

BATTLEGROUND]

THIS witness of a remarkable sight is so old that it will be noted that

the tree at the right of the picture is being eaten away from the

original negative. It lays before the eyes of all generations the view

of the first wagon train entering Petersburg with provisions for the

starving inhabitants after one of the greatest sieges in history. It was

on Sunday night, about ten o'clock, the second day of April, in 1865,

that the resolute Lee marshalled his troops for the evacuation of

Petersburg. At three on the following morning the stronghold of the

Confederacy was left to the Union forces. At nine on the same morning

General Grant rode into the deserted city. The remaining inhabitants

were panic-stricken and in a destitute condition. Many of them had

escaped with their beloved leader while others, in abject terror,

secluded themselves in their homes. Grant, with his staff, rode quietly

through the streets until he came to a comfortable-looking brick house,

with a yard in front, where he dismounted and took a seat on the

veranda. The gentle manner of the great general found a response in the

hearts of those who had feared him. Citizens soon gathered on the

sidewalk and gazed with curiosity on the Union commander. News of the

hunger of the people was hurried along the line. Great wagon trains of

provisions struggled for miles through roadways choked with prisoners,

stragglers and wounded. This photograph was taken as the first division,

loaded with barrels of flour, pork, coffee, sugar, and other

necessaries, rolled into Petersburg. With the brotherly affection that

even the madness of war cannot destroy, the men in blue came to those

devoted to the gray, not as enemies, but as fellowmen ever willing to

relieve the suffering. The humanity of war is here exemplified.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE GOVERNMENT PROVISION TRAINS WERE

ENTERING PETERSBURG AFTER EVACUATION IN 1865]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AS GUNBOAT "SANTIAGO DE CUBA" SAILED ON

THE FORT FISHER EXPEDITION]

THE largest fleet that had ever been assembled under one command in the

history of the American Navy concentrated before Fort Fisher, North

Carolina, late in 1864. It included nearly sixty vessels, of which five

were ironclads, and the three largest United States steam frigates,

"Minnesota," "Colorado" and "Wabash," and was accompanied by one of the

war cameras. The total number of guns and howitzers of the fleet were

over six hundred, and the weight of projectiles at a single discharge of

all the guns, both broadsides, was over twenty-two tons. The Atlantic

and Gulf coast were almost entirely in the Government possession and the

Navy was prepared to strike its decisive blow. Fort Fisher was now the

most important Confederate naval position. The first attack took place

in the night of December twenty-third, when a powder-boat was exploded

under the towering walls of the old fort. It was believed that it was

leveled to the ground, but in the morning the grim fort stood absolutely

uninjured with its flag floating defiantly. An attack was then led by

the ironclads, followed by the monitors and frigates. A naval officer in

describing it says: "Their sides seemed a sheet of flame, and the roar

of their guns like a mighty thunderbolt." The enemy took refuge in their

bomb-proofs. Owing to misunderstanding between army and navy the fort

was not taken. An excellent photograph was secured of one of the

gunboats in the Fort Fisher expedition--the "Santiago de Cuba," and the

negative is one of the finest naval pictures ever taken.

[Illustration: INTERIOR VIEW OF FORT FISHER IN 1865]

[Illustration: DISMANTLED GUN AT FORT FISHER IN 1865]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT FORT FISHER, NORTH CAROLINA, SHOWING

DESTRUCTION OF GUN CARRIAGE IN 1865]

THE last stronghold of the Southern Confederacy on the Atlantic Coast

fell early in 1865. On the twelfth of January operations were agreed

upon for the final assault on Fort Fisher and a photograph was taken of

the fleet as it lay off the coast. On the morning of the thirteenth the

ironclads opened a terrific fire. Fort Fisher was at this time much

stronger than at the first attack. Troops had reinforced the garrison.

Damages from the first bombardment had been repaired and new defenses

added. In describing the downfall of the fort one who participated says:

"I believe there had never before been such a storm of shell in any

naval engagement. At noon on the fifteenth the attempt was made for the

sailors and marines to land. From thirty-five of the sixty ships of the

fleet boats were lowered, and with flags flying, pulled toward the beach

in line abreast, a most spirited scene. The sailors were armed with

cutlasses and pistols. The great land battery, the artillery and a

thousand rifles opened fire from Fort Fisher. The daring sailors found

themselves packed like sheep in a death pen, under a most galling fire."

The army pressed forward under General Terry's command, fighting its way

from traverse to traverse, overpowering the garrison, and finally

driving the Confederates from their last refuge. Fort Fisher fell on the

fifteenth of January. The casualties in the fleet amounted to 309, while

Terry's command lost 110 killed and 536 wounded--a total of nearly 1,000

men. With the fall of Fort Fisher and its seventy-five guns, the

Confederates abandoned Fort Caswell and all the works on Smith's Island;

all those between Caswell and Smithville up to the battery on Reeve's

Point on the west side of the river. This photograph of the fleet that

took Fort Fisher shows the ships assembling off the coast. The negative

was secured under much difficulty.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AS GREATEST FLEET CARRYING AMERICAN FLAG

WAS PREPARING TO ATTACK FORT FISHER IN 1865]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE ADMIRAL PORTER AND STAFF WERE ON

FLAGSHIP "MALVERN" IN FORT FISHER EXPEDITION IN 1865]

THE Civil War was a great practical demonstration of naval vessels

propelled by steam. The whole system of naval tactics had undergone a

great change. The guns had become vastly more powerful; war ships were

now protected by a light armor, and the torpedo had found its way into

successful employment. The normal strength of the Navy at the beginning

of the war was ninety vessels; fifty of these were sailing ships, worthy

vessels in years gone by, but now left behind by progress. There were

forty vessels propelled by steam and many of these were scattered on the

high seas. As the war progressed, the Navy was increased and at its

close had nearly six hundred ships, including every variety of

merchantman and river steamboat roughly adapted in navy-yards for war

services. There were built or projected during the war nearly sixty

ironclads. At the beginning of the war the total number of officers of

all grades in the Navy was 1,457, and during its progress the number was

increased to 7,500, chiefly from the merchant marine. The normal

strength of seamen, which was 7,600, rose during the war to 51,500. The

South entered upon the war without any naval preparation and with very

limited resources, but by purchases and seizures equipped a considerable

fleet. Toward the close of the conflict the war photographers secured a

large number of negatives during naval demonstrations. Among those here

presented is Admiral David D. Porter and staff on his flagship,

"Malvern," on the Fort Fisher Expedition. The gallant admiral may be

seen standing in the center of the group. A picture is on the following

page of Major-General A. H. Terry and staff, in command of the land

demonstrations around Fort Fisher, and on whom special honors were

conferred by Congress for his courageous leadership in the attack. These

photographs witness the last great naval demonstration of the war.

[Illustration: PANORAMIC VIEW OF FORT FISHER, NORTH CAROLINA, IN 1865]

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ALFRED H. TERRY AND STAFF AT FORT FISHER]

[Illustration: ENGLISH ARMSTRONG GUN IN FORT FISHER]

[Illustration: RUINS OF COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, FROM THE

CAPITOL--SHELLED BY SHERMAN, FEBRUARY 16, 1865--PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY

BRADY WHILE RUINS WERE SMOKING]

[Illustration: RUINS OF DEPOT WHERE TWO HUNDRED PERSONS WERE BLOWN UP ON

EVACUATION OF CHARLESTON]

[Illustration: RUINS OF SECESSION HALL AT CHARLESTON AFTER SURRENDER,

FEBRUARY 18, 1865]

THE final blows of the Civil War came quick and sharp. Grant had taken

Petersburg; Thomas had annihilated the Confederate forces under Hood

along the Mississippi River; Sherman had swept through Georgia and

overrun the Carolinas. Exactly four years after the inauguration of

Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy, historic Columbia and

Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered. The closing days sowed flame

and devastation. The war cameras followed Sherman's Army into Columbia

and the old negatives tell the tragedy of the destroyed Confederate

cities. One of them here reproduced is historic Secession Hall in ruins.

It was here that the first Ordinance of Secession was passed. This view

shows the historic edifice as it appeared when the Union troops took

possession of the city. Adjoining the Hall are the ruins of Central

Church, and in the background is St. Phillips Church. The fall of

Columbia occurred on February 12, 1865. Charleston surrendered the

following day, and the Federal Government took possession. One of these

photographs shows the ruins of the Northeastern Railroad Depot at

Charleston where two hundred persons were blown up on the day of

evacuation, February 17, 1865. Sherman moved on through North Carolina

and fought his last battle at Bentonville, where the National loss was

1,604 men and the Confederate loss 2,342. During these last days of the

war occurred a disaster on the Mississippi River. The "Sultana" was on

her journey from New Orleans to St. Louis, receiving on board 1,964

Union prisoners from Columbia, Salisbury, Andersonville and other

Confederate prisons. Anxious to proceed North, little heed was given

that the ship was already carrying a heavy load of passengers on board,

occupying every foot of available space on all the decks to the tops of

the cabins and the wheelhouse, and on the twenty-seventh of April, when

about eight miles above Memphis, one of her boilers blew up. The dead at

the scene numbered 1,500.

[Illustration: STEAMER "SULTANA" CONVEYING EXCHANGED UNION

PRISONERS--DESTROYED IN MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN 1865]

IN the hospitals of the army during the Civil War 6,049,648 cases were

treated by the officers of the Medical Department. The medical skill of

the surgeons and physicians is evidenced by the fact that only 185,353

of these patients died during their detention in the hospitals. While a

large number of these soldiers suffered from gunshot wounds, the

disease of chronic diarrhoea was nearly as fatal, and its deadliness

was closely followed by the ravages of typhoid fever and lung diseases.

It is estimated that 285,245 men were discharged during the war for

disability. A tribute should be paid to the nobility of the hospital

corps. Many noble men and women did great service to their country in

relieving the sufferings that followed the battles. After many of the

terrific conflicts the ground was strewn with the dead and dying. The

wounded, in whom there was a hope of life, were given immediate care and

hurried on stretchers to nearby houses and barns from which floated the

yellow flag of the Medical Department. Large hospital tents were erected

near the scene of battle. At times all the rooms in the surrounding

farmhouses were full of wounded; the injured men were laid on cornstalks

and hay in the barns. Sometimes it was impossible to find shelter for

them all and they were laid on boards inclined against fences. Many of

the large trees formed a shelter for a temporary hospital, where the men

were laid in rows while the attendants administered to their wants. In

no previous war in the history of the world was so much done to

alleviate suffering as in the War of 1861-1865. But notwithstanding all

that was done, the wounded suffered horribly. After any great battle it

required several days and nights of steady work before all the wounded

men were gathered.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE AMBULANCE CORPS WERE REMOVING

WOUNDED SOLDIERS TO THE FIELD HOSPITAL]

[Illustration: SMOKESTACK OF EXPLODED RAM "VIRGINIA" IN 1865]

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE ARTILLERY ON WHARVES NEAR RICHMOND]

[Illustration: RUINED LOCOMOTIVE AFTER FALL OF RICHMOND IN 1865]

[Illustration: AMBULANCE CONVEYING JEFFERSON DAVIS AFTER HIS

CAPTURE--PASSING THROUGH THE STREETS OF MACON, GEORGIA]

JEFFERSON DAVIS was at St. Paul's Church, in Richmond, at the usual hour

of Sunday morning worship when he received the message that Petersburg

was being evacuated and Lee's lines were irreparably broken. The sexton

walked up to Davis's pew and whispered a few words in the President's

ear. The members of the Cabinet received similar calls. From church to

church the note of warning was communicated. By two o'clock everybody in

Richmond knew that the city was to be abandoned. The Presidential party

with difficulty made its way through the excited crowd which thronged

and blocked the streets. Davis began his flight by boarding a train and

went as far as Danville where, on April 4, 1865, he began to establish a

new seat of government. The following day he issued a proclamation to

his people, only to again flee to Greensborough, North Carolina, where

he remained in a railroad car. On reaching Charlotte, he threw off the

semblance of authority and planned to reach Texas. The flight was

continued through South Carolina and into Macon, Georgia. In the

meantime, a reward of $100,000 was offered for the apprehension of

Davis. He was finally captured in a camp in the woods near Irwinsville,

Georgia, while trying to escape in a lady's waterproof coat, gathered at

the waist, with a shawl thrown over the head, and carrying a tin pail.

This remarkable photograph was taken while the Confederate President was

being carried as a prisoner in an ambulance through the streets of

Macon. He was conveyed to Fortress Monroe, for safe keeping, on May 22,

1865, and was finally allowed his freedom on bail and never brought to

trial. Brady entered Richmond with his cameras a few hours after the

departure of Davis and these negatives witness the ruins. The great

tobacco warehouses had been destroyed and the ironclad rams on the river

had been blown up. The city was being pillaged. The Union troops entered

as conquerors and immediately set to work with a will to extinguish the

flames which wrought great destruction and havoc.

RICHMOND was a mass of flames on the third of April, in 1865. As the

Federal forces entered the city it was a scene of terrible splendor. The

explosion of magazines caused the earth to rock and tremble as with the

shock of an earthquake. The flames were leaping from building to

building until thirty squares were ablaze, consuming over one thousand

structures. Prisoners were liberated from the penitentiary and the torch

was applied to it. Men, women and children, faint from hunger, fled from

their homes. The provision depots were battered at the doors and forced

open in the demoniacal struggle against starvation. The gutters ran with

whiskey, and men fell to their knees and lapped it as it flowed through

the streets. The clatter of the hoofs of the horses added to the tumult

as the Union troops entered the city. At daylight the approach of the

Federal forces could be plainly discerned. The war cameras came into

Richmond with the army. The Union soldiers began to fight the flames,

blowing up houses to check their advance. There was a cavalry rush for

Libby prison to bring freedom to the Union soldiers confined within its

walls, but upon reaching it not a guard nor an inmate remained. The

doors were wide open. An old negro placidly remarked: "Dey's all gone,

massa!" The day following a mighty cheer was heard near the abandoned

residence of Jefferson Davis. President Lincoln walked down the street

with his usual long, careless stride. After viewing the situation and

impressing upon the officers his desire that they exert the most humane

influences, Lincoln returned to Washington. One of the most valuable

negatives in the Civil War collection is the ruins of Richmond on the

day that Lincoln inspected the condition of the city.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN OF THE RUINS AT RICHMOND THE DAY AFTER

ITS EVACUATION IN 1865]

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT THE MCLEAN HOUSE AT APPOMATTOX THE

DAY THAT LEE SURRENDERED TO GRANT, APRIL 9, 1865]

WHEN Lee, with the remnant of his army, fled from Richmond and

Petersburg, he was closely pursued by Grant and attacked vigorously at

every approach. For seventy miles it was a race that was marked by a

long track of blood. There were collisions at Jestersville, Detonville,

Deep Creek, Paine's Cross Roads, and Farmville. At Sailor's Creek the

Confederate lines were broken by Custer. The Confederate General Ewell,

with four other generals and his entire corps, were captured and on the

eighth of April the Southern Army, under Lee, was completely surrounded.

Lee had but 28,000 men left and his brave dead were lying in heaps along

the route of his retreat. Hemmed in at Appomattox Court House a last

desperate effort was made to cut through the Federal cavalry. He was

gaining ground when Sheridan's bugles rang out the signal for a general

charge and a halt was called under a flag of truce. The two historic

armies never exchanged another shot. General Lee left his camp on the

morning of April 8 and was conducted to the McLean house, where he found

General Grant awaiting him. The actual surrender took place on April 12,

1865. The Confederate officers and men were paroled. Lee returned to his

men and bade them farewell. The scene was one of the most pathetic in

the records of war. The Confederate veterans wept like children as they

looked upon the face of their beloved leader. His last words to his men

were: "You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the

consciousness of duty faithfully performed. I earnestly pray that a

merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection." A few

hours after Lee's surrender this photograph was taken at Appomattox.

IT is here in these closing pages the sad duty of these wonderful old

negatives to record one of the deepest tragedies in the history of the

world. In it the greatest Republic of the earth, at the close of the

most terrific conflict ever waged by fellow countrymen, saw its champion

of Liberty fall at the hands of an assassin. The great Lincoln looked

forward to years of peace among a re-united people. On the night of

April 14, 1865, he was murdered at Ford's Theater. The bitter tidings

swept the country. The American Nation was bowed down with grief. The

rendezvous of the conspirators was found to be the house of Mrs. M. E.

Surratt, located in the very heart of Washington. Mrs. Surratt, her

daughter Anna, Miss Fitzpatrick and a Miss Holahan were arrested. George

A. Atzerott, and one named Powell, were later captured. The principal

assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was found eleven days after the murder and

was shot when he refused to surrender. His companion, Harold, who had

been a fugitive with him, was taken prisoner. The trial of the

conspirators took place in Washington before a military commission. On

July 6, 1865, sentence was pronounced and on the following day the four

conspirators--Harold, Atzerott, Powell and Mrs. Surratt--were hanged.

Two of Brady's cameras were taken into the prison yard and placed near

the scaffold. When the warrant was being read one camera was used and

the historic view is now in the Eaton Collection. When the drop was

sprung, the second negative was exposed and the tragic scene is here

recorded. Mrs. Surratt is hanging at the left. The ghastliness was such

that many of the guards turned their heads. It is believed to be the

first time that the camera has been used to perpetuate the execution of

political conspirators. The negatives are in excellent condition and

their historic value is beyond purchase.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN PRISON YARD IN WASHINGTON AT HANGING

OF MRS. SURRATT AND THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION CONSPIRATORS IN 1865]

THE funeral procession of Lincoln as it passed through New York was

witnessed by nearly a million people. The body was taken to Springfield,

Ohio, his old home town to which he had not returned since he left it to

go to Washington as President of the United States. Lincoln was buried

at Oak Ridge Cemetery, about two miles from Springfield. Immediately

after the close of the war the Government began inquiry into the

cruelties alleged to have taken place in many of the prisons. The result

was the arrest of Captain Henry Wirtz, the jailor at Andersonville. He

was given trial before a military commission and convicted of brutally

murdering Union prisoners. Wirtz was sentenced to death and hanged on

the tenth of November, 1865. The execution took place in Washington

within short distance of the National Capitol, and Brady's cameras were

taken into the prison yard. The negative was taken as the condemned man

stood on the scaffold, with head bowed, listening to the reading of his

death warrant. Another negative was secured after the noose had been

tightened around his neck and the drop had been sprung. The photographs

perpetuate a tragic moment. It will be seen that the soldiers on guard

were standing at "attention." The evidence against Wirtz was

overwhelming. Many witnesses testified to the cruelty of the accused man

and the horrors enacted within the dead lines at Andersonville.

Prisoners were forced to go forty-eight hours without food. Many of them

became insane; others committed suicide. There were deliberate,

cold-blooded murders of peaceable men. No opportunities were afforded

for cleanliness and the prisoners were covered with vermin. The

execution of Wirtz met public approval and this photograph shows him in

his last moments of life.

[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE DEATH WARRANT WAS BEING READ TO

WIRTZ, THE KEEPER OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON IN 1865]

[Illustration: HERO OF THE AMERICANS WHO WORE THE BLUE

Ulysses Simpson Grant--Born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27,

1822--Died at Mt. Gregor, New York, July 23, 1885--Graduated from West

Point in 1843 and fought gallantly under the Stars and Stripes in the

War against Mexico--Commander-in-chief of the victorious Union Army in

the Civil War in the United States--This photograph was taken when he

was forty-two years of age, during the Civil War, and was never before

published--It is protected by copyright]

AMERICANS--true to the blue or true to the gray--bow in reverence to the

memory of these two great fellow countrymen--the greatest leaders that

mankind has ever followed. Under the same beloved flag they fought in

their early days, only to stand arrayed against each other as foes in

their latter days, and to finally die as loyal Americans. Never before

has the public looked upon these photographs, which were taken by the

war cameras at Appomattox at the end of the war. When Lee offered his

sword to Grant it was courteously returned to him. The two gallant

generals lifted their hats and parted forever. Grant mounted his horse,

and started with his staff for Washington. Lee set out for Richmond, a

broken-hearted man. The armies returning from the field were brought to

Washington for a grand review and mustered out of service. The news of

Lee's surrender passed from army to army through the South and West, and

six weeks later the last gun had been fired and musket laid down in the

Civil War of the United States. In closing these pages, acknowledgment

is made to the many eminent historians whose scholarly works have been

consulted and quoted in narrating the incidents surrounding these

photographs. Mr. Edward B. Eaton, who has prepared this remarkable

presentation from his valuable collection; Mr. Francis T. Miller, the

editor and writer of this book; and Mr. George E. Tracy, associated with

Mr. Eaton in placing this volume before the public, wish to express

their appreciation for the cordial interest taken in the work by the

department commanders of the Grand Army of the Republic, many of whom

testify to having seen the Brady cameras on the battlefield when these

negatives were being taken. To these men--and to all who witnessed the

scenes herein perpetuated--this book is dedicated with the benediction

of the victorious Grant:

[Illustration: HERO OF THE AMERICANS WHO WORE THE GRAY

Robert Edward Lee--Born at Stratford, Virginia, January 19, 1807--Died

at Lexington, Virginia, October 12, 1870--Graduated at West Point in

1829 and fought gallantly under the Stars and Stripes in the War against

Mexico--Commander-in-chief of the vanquished Confederate Army in the

Civil War in the United States--This photograph was taken when he was

fifty-seven years of age, during the Civil War, and was never before

published--It is protected by copyright]

"LET US HAVE PEACE"

THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS OF AMERICAN RECORDS

PRESS OF THE DORMAN LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY