Next in digging into this American Civil War POW escape story, I made a National Archives discovery as the story of the photograph itself began to become more intriguing. “Photograph of a Group of Confederate Prisoners” was the description at the National Archives website. What does that mean?
Reaching out to the National Archives
With this in mind, I sent an inquiry to the National Archives and received the following email: “The series of records, 111-B: Mathew Brady Photographs of Civil War-Era Personalities and Scenes, came from the Army Signal Corps after they received Mathew Brady’s original glass plates from the War Department Library in 1921 to make photographic prints. The specific captions in our catalog came from the shelf-list created by the Signal Corps when they made the prints. Those captions would have originally come from the listing of photographs published by the War Department.”
National Archives discovery – a glass-plate copy negative
made by Mathew Brady’s operation. (Click to enlarge)
With this version of the photograph it became obvious that there were multiple copies out there. Which ones were original prints? Which ones were copy photographs? I began to feel like an archaeologist digging through the layers into the story of the photograph.
As a result, further research of the National Archives discovery, revealed more about the negative. The War Department Records Office purchased almost 6,000 negatives from Matthew Brady studios between July 1874 and April 1875. Brady was in need of money, and a Congressional authorization allowed for the purchase of his massive archive of negatives.
Discovered copy negative poorly made
The copy negative is in bad shape The left side of the image is slightly out of focus. The right side of the image is not. The negative has been subject to poor handling, with scratches all over he emulsion. However there is one scratch in the negative that was deliberately made. When the image is reversed and turned sideways, the words “Rebel Prisoners” are revealed. The National Archives interprets this as Rebels who are prisoners, which is incorrect. Rather than prisoners of the Rebels, which would be correct.
When the National Archives discovery – reversing the glass plate negative reveals the words “Rebel Prisoners” scratched into the emulsion. (Click to enlarge)
Dating this version of the photograph points to made before 1874 by Brady’s studios. By comparison making it the second version of the image following Benson L. Lossing’s engraving. So where did this copy negative come from? It could be connected with Lossing, who knew Brady. What became of the original photograph contained in the oval matte?
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