Confederate Prisoners???

[skulker]

Hi

Found this picture on a photo site, it is tittled "camp scene probably belle plain" zoomed in on the Tiff and found these guys who i think is confederate?
Could any of you gentlemen with a better eye help me out
If they are confeds it surely is a great photo!!
great deitails!, and could be awsome to diskuss

This is the adress of the site
http://narademo.umiacs.umd.edu/cgi-b....pl?item=45486

Just download the master image!

I want to upload it to the thread, could some body please help with this
i have not done this before!

Best
Nicholas O`Grady

[27thNCdrummer]

These guys are definitely Confederates. Great image and great zoom ability. I think it is interesting to note that all the tents behind them should be Confederates as well and there is an extremely large number of shelter tents back there. So these Confederates had shelter halves, hmmmmmmmm.....

[markj]

The individuals shown are, indeed, Confederates and this image has already been extensively discussed. This is one of several Belle Plain "Punch Bowl" images extensively analyzed by William Frassanito in his "Grant and Lee: The Virginia Campaigns, 1864-1865" (Gettysburg PA: Thomas Publications, 1983, p. 57-60). Under close examination, Frassanito was able to pick out a man wearing "Al 4" brass on his hat, indicating he was likely in the 4th Alabama Infantry (Law's Brigade, Field's Division, Longstreet's Corps), which was, in fact, heavily engaged in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Court House. Tentative dating for the photograph is either 16 or 17 May 1864 based on documentary evidence.

Given this, the odds are pretty good many, if not all, of the men shown in the immediate foreground were Alabamians as well--maybe even members of the same regiment.

Regards,

Mark Jaeger

Hi

Found this picture on a photo site, it is tittled "camp scene probably belle plain" zoomed in on the Tiff and found these guys who i think is confederate?
Could any of you gentlemen with a better eye help me out
If they are confeds it surely is a great photo!!
great deitails!, and could be awsome to diskuss

This is the adress of the site
http://narademo.umiacs.umd.edu/cgi-b....pl?item=45486

Just download the master image!

I want to upload it to the thread, could some body please help with this
i have not done this before!

Best
Nicholas O`Grady

[Dignann]

As Mark has stated, this is part of the "Punch Bowl" series. It's quite possible that the tents are US, either put up for the prisoners or carried by the Confederates. Many of the rebs captured at Spotsylvania were from the Second Corps, which had captured many US 6th Corps shelters in the Wilderness.

The Punch Bowl was a former winter 1862-1863 US camp. The holes the men are sitting in are the remnants of abandoned huts. Hunters who have been on this property believe it was the camp of regiments from the Iron Brigade, based on the Wisconsin buttons found there and the fact that it was the area occupied by the US 1st Corps during that winter.

Eric

[OleMissRebel]

[DougCooper]

Shelter tents were not something rare for CS soldiers, at least in the eastern theatre. As Eric mentions, many were captured at the Wildnerness and they are mentioned from time to time as being manufactured for CS troops as well. There is a great quote from a civilian witness to Lee's retreat from Petersburg who describes a "sea of white tents" where the ANV stopped on the night of April 4, 1865.

Note the RD pattern jackets - two of these men appear (front and lower left) to have RD 2's, with shoulders straps and belt loops. One wonders if the man in the center is from the Ambulance Corps - note the dark hat band. The man to the right in the forage cap may be US.

[RN_PAC]

Nothing says "make yourself at home...sit 'n stay awhile" like four field-pieces frowning down on you from the plateau above...