army. There is an extended series of views of gunboats and transports, and a very valuable one showing the operation, construction, and repair of military railways as conducted by the Railway Division of the Quartermaster's Department. These photographs exhibit experimental bridges, the manner of straightening bent rails, of various expedients for crossing streams, of barges carrying freight cars, with appliances for loading and unloading, from which originated the great transfer railway ferryboats, which are still peculiar to America only. The Adjutant-General's photographs consist of nearly seven hundred portraits of distinguished officers who served in the war. Very few of these photographs have ever been reproduced, the collection not being accessible until now. Among views obtained from private sources the most important collection is that belonging to Captain W. C. Margedant, about fifty views of Chattanooga and its surroundings in 1863–64.
Far the greater number, and those possessing the greatest popular interest, are contained in the views and negatives known as the Brady war photographs. The Brady collection covers the operations of the war in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. It also comprises photographs of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, and their cabinets, senators and members of the House of Representatives, judges, many distinguished citizens, and a large number of military and naval officers. Secretary of War William W. Belknap purchased for the War Department in July, 1874, a large number of photographic negatives of war views and portraits of prominent men. The government secured a perfect title to the entire collection in April, 1875, at an aggregate expense of nearly $28,000.
For nearly twenty years subsequent to the passing of these negatives into the possession of the United States, the story of the Brady war photographs is practically one of neglect or misfortune. Intrusted to the care of subordinate officials, who were either indifferent to or ignorant of the value and interest of the collection, it suffered to an extraordinary degree from the lack of proper care in handling. Passing from one official to another, it was nearly ten years before any attempt was made to make a list of the six thousand negatives. Meanwhile, for various official and historical purposes, free and unguarded access was allowed to the negatives, which naturally suffered from inexperienced and careless handling. Many negatives were broken, some defaced by handling, some destroyed by neglect and exposure, while others were lost.
When in 1894 Secretary Lamont ordered that the civil war photographs be grouped and catalogued, the labor of identification, cleaning, repairing, and putting beyond the possibility of further damage of this Brady collection seemed at first a hopeless task; but fortunately, after a period of three years, this has been in a measure done, except three hundred unidentified negatives. The perfected work is now, through a published catalogue of the War Department, in such shape as to be available to historical students, and the original negatives of the various collections, in dust-proof envelopes, have been so arranged, classified, and stored that any one of them is immediately accessible.
Future generations, in dwelling on the civil war, must necessarily revert to these war photographs for information and impressions; and, as man is always of greater interest than his environment, the portraits of the prominent actors in this stupendous war must be ever of the greatest value. The wealth of the collection in this direction may be appreciated by the names of a few of the Federal and Confederate commanders, now dead, whose deeds and services have won renown.
Among these are Anderson, Bartlett, Beauregard, Birney, Boggs, Buell, Buford, Burnside, Casey, Corcoran, Combs, Custer, Dahlgren, Davis, Dix, Dupont, Emory, Farragut, Foote, Foster, Fremont, Garfield, Grant, Gregg, Griffin, Hancock, Hazen, Heintzelmann, Hooker, Hunt, "Stonewall" Jackson, Johnston, Kearney, Lee, Logan, McClellan, McPherson, Meade, Morris, Ord, Paulding, the Porters, Rodgers, Rowan, Schenck, Scott, Sedgwick, Sheridan, Sherman, Slocum, Terry, Thomas, and Warren.
In short, there are but few Federal officers of rank and distinction whose lineaments are not preserved in this collection, which in another generation will be considered one of the inestimable treasures of the American nation. The genius of the artist may well be looked to for the delineation of the heroic figures of the American civil war. But it is safe to say that, however beautiful may be these works of art, they can never touch the heart or awaken the imagination as do certain photographs of this collection.
