Image: Trenches petersburg

Description: "Soldiers in the trenches before battle, Petersburg, Va., 1865. 111-B-157." This description is incorrect. The online file at the National Archives, ARC Identifier 524576 / Local Identifier 111-B-157, states "The Petersburg identification appearing in the official caption received by NARA from the Army Signal Corps, and appearing as well in the 1897 War Department Library Catalogue, based presumably on rough captioning that came to the War Department from the Mathew Brady Studio when the War Department purchased the glass negatives from Brady in 1874-1875, has been disputed by Civil War historians and photo-historians for a number of years. In the early 1980s, research by Larry Strayer, Brian Pohanka, Harris Andrews, and William Frassanito uncovered documentary evidence suggesting that this image of Union forces was taken by Andrew J. Russell just before the Second Battle of Fredericksburg in the spring of 1863, not at Petersburg Virginia, as the caption for the image among NARA's holdings of Brady photographs notes. A group of five Russell photographic prints bearing Fredericksburg references in their captions, including another copy of this image, can be found in the holdings of the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) in Cleveland, Ohio. The hand written caption on the WRHS copy of the photo (presumably by A. J. Russell the photographer) is “Line of Brooks' Division at Fredericksburg, May 2, 1863. Rebels charged here 20 minutes after the picture was taken but were repulsed and driven back.” As well, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center has this same photo listed with a Fredericksburg origin, and a smaller archive at the Medford, Massachusetts Historical Society has it listed as “Entrenched Union soldiers, May, 1863” which corresponds to Fredericksburg rather than Petersburg."
Title: Trenches petersburg
Credit: Select Audiovisual Records, National Archives and Records Administration #115. Direct link
Author: Not indicated
Permission: PD
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No