Library of Congress Acquires Rare Civil War Photos

From the April 4, 2015, Time-Warner Cable.

Several photos accompany the article.

The Library of Congress has oral accounts of slaves, but newly acquired photos help bring their story into sharper focus.

They recently purchased nearly 550 hard-to-come-by photographs for an undisclosed sum from an unidentified 87-year-old Texas woman who has been collecting them since the 1970s.

These were taken by Southern photographers.

They are all over 150 years old and many are what are called stereographs which are the 3D pictures of the period and are amazingly detailed.

--Old Secesh

Civil War Identity Puzzle Solved-- Part 2: Finding It

The tintype of Co. H, 124th New York Infantry was donated to the Smithsonian by Tom Liljenquist of McLean, Virginia, who bought it four years ago for $3,500 at a collectors' show at Gettysburg.

There was no identification on it. Last month, Garry Adelman, vice president of the Center for Civil War Photography posted it on his Civil War Facebook Page.

That is when Ryan McIntyre, a high school social studies teacher in Ellenville, New York, saw the picture and recalled seeing it at the Historical Society of Walden and the Wallkill Valley in Orange County, New York, in what was a real "A-ha!" moment.

A-Ha.  --Old Secesh

Civil War Identity Puzzle Solved-- Part 1

From the March 8, 2014, Washington Post by Michael E. Ruane.

For years, the Library of Congress' tintype of 26 Union soldiers taken in late 1863 or early 1864 was captioned only as "unidentified company of soldiers."

But last month, a New York high school teacher spotted it on a Civil War Facebook page and recognized them. They were Co. H of the 124th New York Infantry, a unit called the Orange Blossoms because they were from Orange County, New York.

Two years later, at the end of the war, two had been killed in combat, one had been captured and died at the infamous Andersonville and another had been awarded the Medal of Honor.

More to Come. --Old Secesh

The US Capitol Takes a Beating...By Union Troops-- Part 2

The Capitol Building had become sort of a half-way house for troops arriving in DC.

As one regiment would get its orders and move out, another would move in.

US Capitol Doorkeeper Isaac Bassett was extremely angered when he found the regiment of New York City's Fire Zouaves (recruited from the fire department) using their bayonets to destroy a desk in the Senate chamber that they believed to have been used by Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.

They further rigged ropes from the cornices of the unfinished dome and passed time swinging back and forth over the Rotunda.

Troops quartered in both chambers spent time conducting mock debates and shout obscenities at each other from the galleries. Smoke from bakeries in the building got into the Library of Congress, located in the Capitol's west front and caused soot in the stacks.

Boys Will Be Boys. --Old B-Runner