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Description
Both armies had a reckless habit of leaving the roads and bridges in a condition which ought not to have been permitted by the selectmen of the towns through which the army passed. This railroad bridge is so badly used up that there is no reasonable expectation that the trains can make a schedule time for some days.
1861- Photographic History-1865
This series of pictures are ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS taken during the wat of the Rebellion. More than a quarter of a century has passed away since the sun painted these real scenes of that great war, and the "negatives" (made by the old "wet plate" process) have undergone chemical changes which renders it slow and difficult work to get "prints" from them. Of course no more "negatives" can be made, as the scenes represented by this series of war views have passed away forever. The great value of these pictures is apparent. Some "negatives" are entirely past printing from, and all of them are very slow printers.
A WORD AS TO PRICES
A gentlemen living near Watkin's Glen, New York, wrote us that he though 30 cents each too high a price for the stereographic war views, as he could buy views of Watkin's Glen for $1.50 per dozen. We wrote him to this effect:
"If there was but one negative of Watkin's Glen in existence, and if Watkin's Glen itself were entirely wiped off the face of the earth, and if this one negative was old and 'dense' and very slow to 'print' and if all the people of the country were as much interested in a view of Watkin's Glen as they are in seeing the real scenes of our great war, so faithfully reproduced, THEN, and ONLY UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, should Watkin's Glen pictures be compared to photographs taken 'at the front' during the days of 1861 to 1865."
The gentlemen "acknowledged the corn," took the war views he wished for, paid the reasonable price asked for them, and was satisfied.
The above is the only answer we shall ever make to the question of PRICE. We deem it necessary to say this much, as many persons write and ask us for CHEAP war views; when we change the price of these war views, it will be to double it; they will never be any cheaper than now. They can be obtained only if the undersigned or our duly authoritized agents.
If you wish for a catalogue of the war views, send a stamp and your address to
Yours in F. C. and L.,
The War Photograph & Exhibition Company
Sole Owners of the Original War Views No. 21 Linden Place, Hartford, Conn. A black and white medium shot of a demolished bridge after war. Four figures stand overlooking it in the distance. In his book Stereo Views, William Culp Darrah states that there are stereographs of the aftermath of war because the photographic technology made it difficult for the photographers to capture action shots of the war. Darrah writes "Action views were seldom possible. For one thing, photographic equipment was too cumbersome. The wet plate was still in universal use and exposure time too long to catch an "instantaneous" picture…The most telling scenes are the aftermath of war." (Darrah, Stereo Views: 68).
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