Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

[Vindice]

( http://www.old-picture.com/civil-war...ampfire-by.htm )

It's hard to imagine that this is an original photograph though I have yet to find a fake on the site. The soldier on the left seems to have civilian trousers along with what may even be a civilian sack. I doubt he's an officer with the bedroll, bayonet and cartridge box.

The two with blankets have them over what I would consider the 'wrong' shoulder.

One guy has on a greatcoat AT GETTYSBURG!!! No way he could be cold.... I even considered the photo was taken there months after the battle however all of the foliage around the 'camp' shows that it is during a very green season. He also has his trousers tucked into his socks btw.

It also looks like the soldier in the poorly set up tent and the one walking in the background may have on greatcoats.

Everyone seems quite clean here too.... :confused_

[yeoman]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

Seems this image has been up for discussion a while back..., did you notice the fellow in the tent and the gent in the back ground by the tree?

[FloridaConscript]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

I've seen this image discussed too, but I can't recall where. Something about it doesn't smell right though.

[ScottCross]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

This just screams reenactors. The fellow with the beard sure looks like Cal Kinzer of the old Union Rifles.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

A couple of previous threads about this photo:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?16213-Interesting-Photo&p=96922&highlight=gettysburg+photo#post96922

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12365

In the second thread, Eric Mink links to another similar photo of the some "dead" soldiers, maybe even including the same greatcoat-and-bloused-socks guy from the campfire. There's discussion that the series was posed by painter Albert Bierstadt, as studies for paintings.

Here's another thread on the other photo of the "dead":

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16243&highlight=photo

These photos clearly have the feel of posted artist's reference pictures, but they also have the feel of post-war images, and Bierstadt lived a long time, until 1902.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[dixieflyer]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

My first thought when looking at it was "There's Cal!" as Scott pointed out. Nice call on Bierstadt too Hank.

Warren

[Skutatos]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

About the blanket roll being on the wrong shoulder... I would disagree. There are many photographs and illustrations that show it was not at all uncommon, for whatever reason.

Take a look at this photo from another thread:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11346&d=1219208963

[AZFarrier]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

Here's my two cents.
Why would they be in full marching gear while cooking grub. From the back ground it looks like they were pitching camp. I don't know about you but the first thing I did when I stopped for lunch (dinner) was to strip off my pack, at least something to sit on.
Andy Miller

[Paul L Muller]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

I don't know much about anything, But look at the tin can boiler...are those ribs? If my feet were held to the fire, I'd saw Reeactor too. plm

[Matthew.Rector]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

In general, if you haven’t read the two or three threads that have already discussed this image. Please do! There is some very good information and observations found within them. Here is a more detailed citation concerning this and the referenced “dead” at Bull Run photograph:

Title: Gettysburg [?]
Date Created/Published: [between 1861 and 1869]
Medium: 1 negative : glass, wet collodion.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpb-03522 (digital file from original neg.)
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: LC-B811- 4021 [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003005491/PP/

Title: Dead on battlefield at 1st Bull Run
Date Created/Published: [between 1862 and 1865]
Medium: 1 negative : glass, stereograph, wet collodion.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpbh-03383 (digital file from original neg.)
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: LC-BH822- 432 [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003001320/PP/

One other note. The above photograph, “Dead on battlefield at 1st Bull Run,” is found on page 102 of The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War. (1960: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.)

[Jim S]

Re: Wonderful photo from old-picture.com collection

I'm surprised in all the threads about this image on this site, that no one (that I can find) has brought up Frassanito's "Antietam", in which he discusses at length the "Dead on Matthews Hill" photo. According to him, the photo surfaced in 1954, and a few years later a negative of it was discovered in the Brady-Handy collection of the LOC.

What is remarkable is that Frassanito located an image of the same men standing and pretending to load and fire in exactly the same spots in which they were photographed playing dead (see page 31). The picture in the book is of pretty lousy quality, but it gives you a better look at the guys in the background, one of whom appears to wear a sack coat and have a large bedroll over the right shoulder. Looking closely at both of those pics, and at the men around the fire, the argument that they're the same group is even stronger.

So, whatever the mystery photo is, it's pre-1954, part of this series, and somehow ended up in the Brady photo collection of the Library of Congress.


Frassanito, William A. Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day. Gettysburg: Thomas, 1978.