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The Civil War Through the Camera

Name: The Civil War Through the Camera
Author: Henry W. Elson

by Henry W. Elson

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Subjects

United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Pictorial works

In: History - American·History - Warfare

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #42655.

About this book

The work is a pictorial chronicle of the American Civil War, assembled by Henry W. Elson and illustrated with photographs, engravings, and contemporary prints. It opens with a dramatic account of the first shots at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, describing the surrender of the Union garrison, the ensuing bombardment, and the immediate political fallout. From that moment the narrative weaves together battlefield scenes, official statistics, and excerpts from government reports, while the accompanying images, such as Confederate troops on the day after the evacuation, a gun trained on Charleston, and street‑level views of wartime New York, give a visual texture to the text. The book’s purpose, stated in its preface, is to supplement official records with an impartial narrative that lets “the more intelligent people of the country” see the truth of the conflict through both words and pictures.

Elson’s voice is that of a late‑19th‑century historian, formal and reverent, employing the language of official reports and contemporary journalism. The style blends dense factual exposition with vivid description, reflecting the period’s penchant for exhaustive documentation and moral earnestness. Readers who appreciate a scholarly yet image‑rich survey of the war, students of military history, genealogy enthusiasts, or anyone drawn to the visual culture of the 1860s, will find this volume a compelling window onto the conflict’s scope and its human dimensions.

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New York McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie

This Federal major of artillery was summoned on April 11, 1861, to surrender Fort Sumter and the property of the government whose uniform he wore. At half-past four the following morning the boom of the first gun from Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor notified the breathless, waiting world that war was on. The flag had been fired on, and hundreds of thousands of lives were to be sacrificed ere the echoes of the great guns died away at the end of four years into the sobs of a nation whose best and bravest, North and South, had strewn the many battlefields. No wonder that the attention of the civilized world was focussed on the man who provoked the first blow in the greatest conflict the world has ever known. He was the man who handled the situation at the breaking point. To him the North looked to preserve the Federal property in Charleston Harbor, and the honor of the National flag. The action of the South depended upon his decision. He played the part of a true soldier, and two days after the first shot was fired he led his little garrison of the First United States Artillery out of Sumter with the honors of war.

SCENES OF '61 THAT QUICKLY FOLLOWED "BROTHER JONATHAN" (PAGE 44)

The upper photograph shows Confederates on Monday the fifteenth of April, 1861--one day after the momentous event which Holmes dimly prophesied in "Brother Jonathan" (page 44). The picture below, with the two following, were made on the 16th. As April wore on, North and South alike had been reluctant to strike first. When Major Robert Anderson, on December 26, 1860, removed to Fort Sumter, on an island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, he placed himself in a position to withstand long attack. But he needed supplies. The Confederates would allow none to be landed. When at length rumors of a powerful naval force to relieve the fort reached Charleston, the Confederates demanded the surrender of the garrison. Anderson promised to evacuate by April 15th if he received no additional supplies. His terms were rejected. At half-past four on the morning of April 12th a shell from Fort Johnson "rose high in air, and curving in its course, burst almost directly over the fort." The mighty war had begun.

Wade Hampton (the tallest figure) and other leading South Carolinians inspecting the effects of the cannonading that had forced Major Anderson to evacuate, and had precipitated the mightiest conflict of modern times--two days before.

The war which was carried on in the United States in 1861-5, called "The War of the Rebellion," "The Civil War," "The War of Secession," and "The War Between the States," was one of the greatest conflicts of ancient or modern times. Official reports show that 2,865,028 men were mustered into the service of the United States. The report of Provost-Marshal General Fry shows that of these 61,362 were killed in battle, 34,773 died of wounds, 183,287 died of disease, 306 were accidentally killed, and 267 were executed by sentence. The Adjutant-General made a report February 7, 1869, showing the total number of deaths to be 303,504.

The Confederate forces are estimated from 600,000 to 1,000,000 men, and ever since the conclusion of the war there has been no little controversy as to the total number of troops involved. The losses in the Confederate army have never been officially reported, but the United States War Department, which has been assiduously engaged in the collection of all records of both armies, has many Confederate muster-rolls on which the casualties are recorded. The tabulation of these rolls shows that 52,954 Confederate soldiers were killed in action, 21,570 died of wounds, and 59,297 died of disease. This does not include the missing muster-rolls, so that to these figures a substantial percentage must be added. Differences in methods of reporting the strength of commands, the absence of adequate field-records and the destruction of those actually made are responsible for considerable lack of information as to the strength and losses of the Confederate army. Therefore, the matter is involved in considerable controversy and never will be settled satisfactorily; for there is no probability that further data on this subject will be forthcoming.

The immensity and extent of our great Civil War are shown by the fact that there were fought 2,261 battles and engagements, which took place in the following named States: In New York, 1; Pennsylvania, 9; Maryland, 30; District of Columbia, 1; West Virginia, 80; Virginia, 519; North Carolina, 85; South Carolina, 60; Georgia, 108; Florida, 32; Alabama, 78; Mississippi, 186; Louisiana, 118; Texas, 14; Arkansas, 167; Tennessee, 298; Kentucky, 138; Ohio, 3; Indiana, 4; Illinois, 1; Missouri, 244; Minnesota, 6; California, 6; Kansas, 7; Oregon, 4; Nevada, 2; Washington Territory, 1; Utah, 1; New Mexico, 19; Nebraska, 2; Colorado, 4; Indian Territory, 17; Dakota, 11; Arizona, 4; and Idaho, 1.

It soon became evident that the official record of the War of 1861-5 must be compiled for the purposes of Government administration, as well as in the interest of history, and this work was projected near the close of the first administration of President Lincoln. It has continued during the tenure of succeeding Presidents, under the direction of the Secretaries of War, from Edwin M. Stanton, under whom it began, to Secretary Elihu Root, under whose direction it was completed. As a successor to and complement of this Government publication, nothing could be more useful or interesting than the present publication. The text does not aim at a statistical record, but is an impartial narrative supplementing the pictures. Nothing gives so clear a conception of a person or an event as a picture. The more intelligent people of the country, North and South, desire the truth put on record, and all bitter feeling eliminated. This work, with its text and pictures, it is believed, will add greatly to that end.

Knots of citizens still linger around the stands where Anderson, who had abandoned Sumter only six days before, had just roused the multitude to wild enthusiasm. Of this gathering in support of the Government the New York Herald said at the time: "Such a mighty uprising of the people has never before been witnessed in New York, nor throughout the whole length and breadth of the Union. Five stands were erected, from which some of the most able speakers of the city and state addressed the multitude on the necessity of rallying around the flag of the Republic in this hour of its danger. A series of resolutions was proposed and unanimously adopted, pledging the meeting to use every means to preserve the Union intact and inviolate. Great unanimity prevailed throughout the whole proceedings; party politics were ignored, and the entire meeting--speakers and listeners--were a unit in maintaining the national honor unsullied. Major Anderson, the hero of Fort Sumter, was present, and showed himself at the various stands, at each of which he was most enthusiastically received. An impressive feature of the occasion was the flag of Sumter, hoisted on the stump of the staff that had been shot away, placed in the hand of the equestrian statue of Washington."

Recruiting on Broadway, 1861

Looking north on Broadway from "The Park" (later City Hall Park) in war time, one sees the Stars and Stripes waving above the recruiting station, past which the soldiers stroll. There is a convenient booth with liquid refreshments. To the right of the picture the rear end of a street car is visible, but passenger travel on Broadway itself is by stage. On the left is the Astor House, then one of the foremost hostelries of the city. In the lower photograph the view is from the balcony of the Metropolitan looking north on Broadway. The twin towers on the left are those of St. Thomas's Church. The lumbering stages, with the deafening noise of their rattling windows as they drive over the cobblestones, are here in force. More hoop-skirts are retreating in the distance, and a gentleman in the tall hat of the period is on his way down town. Few of the buildings seen here remained half a century later. The time is summer, as the awnings attest.

MEMBERS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S OFFICIAL FAMILY

Other members were: War, Simon Cameron (1861); Treasury, W. P. Fessenden, July 1, 1864, and Hugh McCulloch, March 4, 1865; Interior, John P. Usher, January 8, 1863; Attorney-General, James Speed, December 2, 1864; Postmaster-General, William Dennison, September 24, 1864.

MEN WHO HELPED PRESIDENT DAVIS GUIDE THE SHIP OF STATE

The members of the Cabinet were chosen not from intimate friends of the President, but from the men preferred by the States they represented. There was no Secretary of the Interior in the Confederate Cabinet.

VICE-PRESIDENT STEPHENS AND MEMBERS OF THE CONFEDERATE CABINET

Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, has been called the brain of the Confederacy. President Davis wished to appoint the Honorable Robert Barnwell, Secretary of State, but Mr. Barnwell declined the honor.

Bull Run--the Volunteers Face Fire

There had been strife, a bloodless, political strife, for forty years between the two great sections of the American nation. No efforts to reconcile the estranged brethren of the same household had been successful. The ties that bound the great sections of the country had severed one by one; their contention had grown stronger through all these years, until at last there was nothing left but a final appeal to the arbitrament of the sword--then came the great war, the greatest civil war in the annals of mankind.

"Hostilities" began with the secession of South Carolina from the Union, December 20, 1860. On January 9, 1861, the Star of the West was fired upon in Charleston Harbor.

For the first time in the nation's history the newly-elected President had entered the capital city by night and in secret, in the fear of the assassin's plots. For the first time he had been inaugurated under a military guard. Then came the opening shots, and the ruined walls of the noble fort in Charleston harbor told the story of the beginnings of the fratricidal war. The fall of Sumter, on April 14, 1861, had aroused the North to the imminence of the crisis, revealing the danger that threatened the Union and calling forth a determination to preserve it. The same event had unified the South; four additional States cast their lot with the seven which had already seceded from the Union. Virginia, the Old Dominion, the first born of the sisterhood of States, swung into the secession column but three days after the fall of Sumter; the next day, April 18th, she seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry and on the 20th the great navy-yard at Norfolk.

Two governments, each representing a different economic and political idea, now stood where there had been but one--the North, with its powerful industrial organization and wealth; the South, with its rich agricultural empire. Both were calling upon the valor of their sons.

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