Confederate group image

[roundshot]

This interesting photo is also from the Tennessee State Library Archives and shows what is most certainly a group of Rebs. The venue is less certain. POW's in transit, maybe?

[Daniel]

Re: Confederate group image

Bob, great image. Thank you for posting that. It is interesting that the shop that is behind them advertises sewing machines.

Dan Stewart

[GrumpyDave]

Re: Confederate group image

I'm no photography expert but, the medium looks way post war. Thoughts?

[poilu1917]

Re: Confederate group image

This image may actually be one that is in a recent memoir I read. The confederate soldier referenced those in the image (including himself) as being taken just after being released from a northern prison after the war ended. I don't have the book with me to give specifics but if it's the same one, then these are definitely confederate POWs heading home.

[fortdonelsonrelics]

Re: Confederate group image

Fort Donelson National Battlefield has used this photograph and it is interpreted as being captured Confederates from Fort Donelson. There seems to have been a unit attributed to it - but I cannot remember at the moment which it is.

John Walsh

[doc]

Re: Confederate group image

Great image. Hat manufacturers could use it for ideas with the all the variations.

[Michael Comer]

Re: Confederate group image

They look almost too well dressed for returning POW's at the end of the war and certainly for Donelson POW's. Perhaps after an exchange earlier in the war?

[fortdonelsonrelics]

Re: Confederate group image

Initially thought the same thing, but there were many units that showed up just as the battle started. Wayside marker 3 I believe has it identified as "captured Fort Donelson soldiers".

John Walsh

[PogueMahone]

Re: Confederate group image

re: the hat shapes - many show the fold line for a flat shaped top, but the flat has been "punched out". I think this may have been done to keep rain from collecting in the hat crown and soaking the wearer. By experiment, I have also punched out my flat crown hat and find it repels water better.

Most of these hats were probably generically shaped and have just been very abused in the field. Something we reenactors tend not to do because of the expense of a good hat.

[Calum]

Re: Confederate group image

'morning,

Mr Comer wrote:

They look almost too well dressed for returning POW's at the end of the war and certainly for Donelson POW's. Perhaps after an exchange earlier in the war?

In Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade by John O Casler, p288, the author indicates that following the end of the war and his release from prison camp at Fort McHenry, "I met several of our prisoners on the train. ... The citizens of Baltimore were very kind to prisoners. It made no difference whether they had acquaintances and relatives there or not, they were furnished new suits of clothes, money to go home on, and plenty to eat and drink."

Not implying that this was the situation everywhere, but at least some of the civilian population seemed to have been willing to help their southern brothers.

Calum

[Utley]

Re: Confederate group image

I, too, have always seen it identified as a group of prisoners taken at Fort Donelson.

And I do love the sewing machine ad in the window!

[MuleyGil]

Re: Confederate group image

'morning,

Mr Comer wrote:


In Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade by John O Casler, p288, the author indicates that following the end of the war and his release from prison camp at Fort McHenry, "I met several of our prisoners on the train. ... The citizens of Baltimore were very kind to prisoners. It made no difference whether they had acquaintances and relatives there or not, they were furnished new suits of clothes, money to go home on, and plenty to eat and drink."

Not implying that this was the situation everywhere, but at least some of the civilian population seemed to have been willing to help their southern brothers.

Calum

That's not too surprising. Baltimore was known for being pro Confederate.

[Seth Hancock]

Re: Confederate group image

I realize this is an old thread, but this image is likely not an image of Confederate prisoners captured at Fort Donelson. This image is included in a book written by Marcus B. Toney, "The Privations of a Private," University of Alabama Press, 2005. The image is found on page 111 of the paperback. I cannot locate any photo credits in my version of the book. Note that Toney's memoir was originally published in, or prior to, 1907, as the Introduction cites to the 2d edition published in 1907.

Toney enlisted with the 1st Tennessee Infantry and fought with them until Chickamauga. Thereafter, he obtained a transfer to the 44th Virginia Infantry, and was captured on May 12, 1864. First held at Point Lookout, he was subsequently transferred to Elmira, New York. Toney states that this picture was of a number of men (he says 28) who had previously refused to take the oath. While somewhat unclear, the text implies that this picture was taken in July of 1865. Toney identifies himself as the man in the center of the photograph, "clad in a light hat and a linen duster." Immediately upon his release, Toney indicates that he went to a restaurant, then to a clothing store (presumably where he obtained the duster), and next received a shave.

[Doug Richardson]

Re: Confederate group image

To make it more confusing, the image is used in the exhibitry at Stones River National Battlefield, and the text states that it is a collection of Fort Donelson POWs "taken in Nashville," I think the text says.

I couldn't wrap my brain around why Fort Donelson prisoners would be taken to Nashville...or if it was inferred that once USG and Buell made it to Nashville they took Confederate stragglers as POWs.

Baffling image.

[OlszowyTM]

Re: Confederate group image

In addition to Toney's book, the image location is attributed to be the Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Company offices, near the Erie RR, in Elmira, NY. (pg 373, Holmes, The Elmira Prison Camp, 1912). The 1860 Elmira Directory confirms the presence of a Grover office on Lake St, 1st south of Haight's, Elmira NY. Lake St runs parallel just 2 blocks east of RR Ave. Haight's Hotel was located at the corner of Lake & Cross. The 1866 directory lists the Grover Office as 28 Lake. Haight's has become the Hathaway House at the corner of Lake & Cross.

There are several photographers listed on Lake St, including an AT Taylor at 30 Lake St.