Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Missouri in the Civil War

By Frank R. Ankersmit

A deeply divided border state, heir to the “Bleeding Kansas” era, Missouri became the third most fought-over state in the war, following Virginia and Tennessee. Rich in resources and manpower, critical politically to both the Union and the Confederacy, it was the scene of conventional battles, river warfare, and cavalry raids. It saw the first combat by organized units of Native Americans and African Americans. It was also marked by guerrilla warfare of unparalleled viciousness. This volume, the ninth in the series, includes hundreds of photographs, many of them never before published. The authors provide text and commentary, organizing the photographs into chapters covering the origins of the war, its conventional and guerrilla phases, the war on the rivers, medicine (Sweeny’s medical knowledge adds a great deal to this chapter and expands our knowledge of its practice in the west), the experiences of Missourians who served out of state, and the process of reunion in the postwar years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781610753173

Book preview

Image: GEORGE MADDOX ambrotype

GEORGE MADDOX

ambrotype

Portraits of Conflict

A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF MISSOURI IN THE CIVIL WAR

William Garrett Piston

Thomas P. Sweeney, M.D.

With a Foreword by the General Editors,

Carl Moneyhon and Bobby Roberts

Portraits of Conflict Series

The University of Arkansas Press

Fayetteville

2009

Copyright © 2009 by The University of Arkansas Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-155728-913-1

eISBN: 978-1-61075-317-3

26   25   24   23   22        5   4   3   2

Designed by Alice Gail Carter

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Piston, William Garrett.

     Portraits of conflict : a photographic history of Missouri in the Civil War / William Garrett Piston, Thomas P. Sweeney ; with a foreword by the general editors, Carl Moneyhon and Bobby Roberts.

          p.     cm. — (Portraits of conflict series)

     Includes bibliographical references and index.

     ISBN-13: 978-1-55728-913-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

     ISBN-10: 1-55728-913-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

     1. Missouri—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Pictorial works. 2. Missouri—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Photography. 3. Documentary photography—Missouri—History—19th century. 4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Pictorial works. 5. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Photography. I. Sweeney, Thomas P., 1943–   II. Title.

     E468.7.P57     2009

     977.8'03—dc22

2009022898

Preface and Acknowledgments

We live in a world in which we are bombarded incessantly by sound and color, a world of twenty-four-hour news cycles, media spin, and instant reports from even the most distant corners of the globe. And here is a book of old photographs. Do these staid, posed, and dated images from the middle of the nineteenth century have anything to say to us residing in the opening years of the twenty-first? They present a record of war, the terrible American Civil War of 1861–65. But subsequent wars have also been terrible, and they have been photographed far more extensively and perhaps more poignantly. Can any Civil War photograph compete with the image of the American flag being raised at Iwo Jima; of bombs exploding on the airfield at Khe Sanh; of Humvees advancing into Kuwait against a sky black with burning oil? Modern photography can be crisp and colorful, freezing the fastest motion with clarity, bringing distant action into close-up view. What can images of Civil War soldiers, staring rigidly into a camera only a few feet away, offer us?

They offer us a great many things. Perhaps the key difference between images of soldiers fighting in the streets of Iraq today and the images of the Civil War soldiers in this book is that the Civil War soldiers are, for the most part, staring rigidly into a camera set only a short distance away. These men from the past offer their likenesses to us with a deliberate, self-conscious intensity that today’s fast-speed cameras cannot match, even when the subject is also posing rather than caught in action. There are, of course, Civil War photographs that capture casual poses and lighthearted moments. But on the whole, being photographed was not a casual act in 1861, and not merely because one had to remain still. This was the first generation of Americans who, in the face of death, had an opportunity for their exact likeness to be preserved, an image that might be sent home to family, passed to a friend, or shared with a sweetheart. These are not action shots, yet even when set against the most artificial indoor backdrop safe within a photographer’s studio, these are portraits of conflict. They are portraits that capture the spirit as they record the flesh. Look closely. Note how often the soldiers’ eyes seem to speak to us. They are intensely alive to their moment in time. Their war is one we can scarcely visualize, yet through their images the past comes into the present and possesses us. We see our own mortality as well as theirs.

This book contains only a small fraction of the extant images of Missourians during the Civil War. We focus on soldiers, although we do convey, in both text and pictures, the manner in which civilians were affected. The first chapter provides a brief history of photography and discusses photographers in Missouri during the war. Photography was just emerging as a profession, and photographers were still struggling to be perceived as artists. Equipment was bulky and fragile, and images were still relatively expensive despite a decline in prices due to technological advances. A photograph costing one dollar was a significant purchase given a Civil War soldier’s meager pay (thirteen dollars a month for a Union private). Missouri photographers usually remained in cities and towns, and since most of the major ones fell to Union hands early in the war, Missouri’s Confederates had few opportunities to be photographed within their home state. Missourians who fought for the Union were far more likely to have their images made.

Subsequent chapters examine the war in Missouri, both chronologically and thematically. We cover the campaigns that secured Missouri for the Union, Confederate attempts to retake the state, and the guerrilla war that devastated it. One chapter chronicles those Missourians whose wartime experiences took place largely out of state. Another tells the story of the postwar veterans. We pay particular attention to two areas in which Missouri’s significance in the war is often overlooked or undervalued: rivers and medicine. Because of its geographic position and the facilities at or near St. Louis, Missouri played an indispensable role in the Union forces’ successful exploitation of rivers as routes of invasion and operation. In addition, the medical community, particularly in St. Louis, played a far more important role in Union success in the West than most people realize.

The authors wish to express their thanks to the many people and institutions that made this book possible. Our gratitude goes first and foremost to our wives, Nancy and Karen, for their patience, encouragement, love, and support. Equally supporting and even more patient have been the good folks at the University of Arkansas Press. In creating the Portraits of Conflict series, Carl Moneyhon and Bobby Roberts have made an unequalled contribution to the history of photography and the Civil War. It is an honor to be included in such distinguished company as our fellow authors. Our thanks also go to Julie Watkins, editor at the press, for her kind assistance and help and to Kevin Brock, a most diligent and patient copyeditor.

We have benefited beyond words from the conscientious and hard-working professionals who staff the many institutions that allowed us to use their images. We are deeply grateful for their help. In Missouri we wish to thank Joan Hampton-Porter and John E. Sellars, The History Museum for Springfield–Greene County (Springfield); Walt Bush, Fort Davidson State Historic Site (Pilot Knob); Steve Weldon, Jasper County Records Center (Carthage); Christopher J. Wiseman, Joplin Museum Complex; Carmen Beck and Antonio F. Holland, Lincoln University (Jefferson City); Chris Gordon, Dennis Northcutt, and Ellen Thomasson, Missouri History Museum (St. Louis); Melody Lloyd, Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla); Bill Popp, St. Charles County Historical Society (St. Charles); Jean Gosebrink, St. Louis Public Library; Chris Montgomery, Sara Przybylski, and Lynn Wolf Gentzler, State Historical Society of Missouri (Columbia); William T. Stolz, Western Historical Manuscript Collection (Columbia); and T. John Hillmer Jr., Connie Langum, and Jeffrey L. Patrick, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield (Republic). We also express our gratitude to Lisa Keys and Nancy Sherbert, Kansas State Historical Society (Topeka); Linda Hein, Nebraska State Historical Society (Lincoln); and Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. and Clifton P. Hyatt, U.S. Army Military History Institute (Carlisle, Pennsylvania).

We have also benefited enormously from the willingness of individuals to share their images with us. Some come from impressive collections; others are treasured images of ancestors. In Missouri we owe thanks to Robert J. Bartholomew (Jefferson City); Marcheta Bray DeVries (Seymour); Len Eagleberger (Springfield); Joanne Chiles Eakin (Independence); Daniel Furtak (Springfield); Terry Henderson (St. Louis); Dennis Hood (Boliver); Larry A. James (Neosho); Sue Joplin and the late Jim Joplin (Springfield); Robert C. Lee (Springfield); Kip A. Lindberg (Ft. Leonard Wood); James E. McGhee (Jefferson City); Jeffrey L. Patrick (Republic); James R. Sharp (Springfield); and Edward L. Ziehmer (St. Louis). Thanks also to Flora Arnold (Jonesboro, Arkansas); Emory Cantey Jr. (Fort Worth, Texas); John N. Dahle (Denver, Colorado); Thomas P. Doherty (Wilmington, Delaware); Gordie Dammann (Leana, Illinois); David Hodge (Ventura, California); Alex Peck (Charleston, Illinois); Bobby Roberts (Little Rock, Arkansas); Douglas D. Scott (Lincoln, Nebraska); Ronnie Townes (Nashville, Tennessee); Mary E. Younger (Dayton, Ohio); and J. Dale West (Longview, Texas).

Some individuals have earned our gratitude because their kindness, advice, encouragement, help in locating images, scanning images, and/or willingness to share their photographs went beyond the ordinary. A few of these are mentioned above, but their names bear repeating. We owe a particular debt to Bruce Nichols (St. Louis); Steve Ross, SR Graphics (Springfield); John F. Bradbury, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla); Jeffrey L. Patrick and Connie Langum, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield (Springfield); Robert P. Neumann, director, Greene County Archives (Springfield); John Graham (Alexandria, Virginia); and J. Dale West (Longview, Texas). Finally, but by no means least of all, we extend special gratitude to that incomparable researcher, Joe Furtak (Ozark).

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Foreword

1. Photography in Missouri during the Civil War

2. The Long Road to War

3. Securing Missouri for the Union

4. Confederate Initiatives and Their Consequences

5. The Guerrilla War

6. Missourians and the War on the Rivers

7. Civil War Medicine in Missouri

8. Missourians Serving Out of State

9. Missouri’s Veterans

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Foreword

Portraits of Conflict is a series of state histories of the Civil War era that combine photographic evidence and narrative to personalize the story of these monumental years. The editors are excited to add this ninth volume, with its focus on the border state of Missouri. Its authors, William Garrett Piston and Dr. Thomas P. Sweeney, bring to this work the eyes of a preeminent historian of the Trans-Mississippi and an expert in the photographic legacy of the war years. As in previous volumes the reader will find that Missouri offers its own unique tale, with the pivotal role of St. Louis and the fighting of guerillas adding to the traditional story of the confrontation of armies on battlefields. The series has always sought to introduce photographic images previously unpublished. Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of the Civil War in Missouri continues that tradition, offering images that are exciting not only in their numbers but also in their quality and content.

The format of this volume is the same as those before it. The authors have tied photographs and stories to an overall narrative of the Civil War in Missouri. The goal always has been to offer a fuller appreciation of the basic humanity of the wartime experience. Hopefully the reader will emerge from this work with an understanding that the war involved more than grand strategy and tactics, that real men and women ultimately fought, sacrificed, and often gave their lives in this great national struggle.

The editors have been pleased with the reception of the previous volumes of Portraits of Conflict and hope that readers will find this new entry equally exciting.

CARL MONEYHON AND BOBBY ROBERTS

General Editors

Chapter 1

Photography in Missouri during the Civil War

The story of Civil War photography in Missouri parallels the history of photography in other states and the nation at large. Missouri was home to a large number of photographers between 1861 and 1865, proprietors continuing to operate despite extremely unsettled conditions in part due to persistent guerrilla activity. Whether located in the relatively safe environs of St. Louis or in small towns across the state, photographers preserved the portraits of a people deeply divided by the conflict.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre produced what would become the first commercially successful photographic process during the winter of 1838–39 in Paris. The daguerreotype was an image captured on a silver plate or a copper plate coated with a silver emulsion and exposed to iodine vapor. This cumbersome and expensive technique was extremely popular in the 1840s, and many photographers began their careers as daguerreotypists. But daguerreotypes were not common in Missouri during the Civil War, for their popularity began to decline in the mid-1850s as simpler processes came to the fore. One was the ambrotype, a negative image produced on a collodion-coated glass. When placed on a black background, the image appeared positive. At the beginning of the war, this was the most common process available. While cheaper than daguerreotypes, ambrotypes were similarly delicate and required a protective case; they were seldom used after 1864. Tintypes (ferrotype or melainotype) were images on a collodion-coated japanned iron, making them more durable and easily mailed. This process was introduced in the United States in 1856 and continued to be used into the 1900s. Albumin paper prints from glass negatives also were available in two forms. Stereography images were popular from their beginning in 1851 to the middle of the twentieth century. The carte de visite (CDV) was produced from 1854 to about 1925 and became the most common format for photography during the Civil War. Simple to make and inexpensive to reproduce, the small, affordable, and sturdy images were easily carried or mailed. Mounted on 2½ x 4 cards, CDVs become extremely popular with soldiers, their families, and the public in general.

The first photographers known to have operated in Missouri were daguerreotypists Justus F. Moore and a Captain Ward, who arrived in St. Louis in June 1841. Moore and Ward remained in the state just a few months, but they were followed by other daguerreotypists. During the 1850s many more photographers arrived, bringing with them newer and more efficient techniques, such as glass-plate negatives and paper-print photographs. John A. Scholten, who opened a St. Louis studio in 1857, may have been the first to introduce the CDV. By the outbreak of the Civil War, a growing number of photographers were scattered throughout Missouri. While only a few of these men actually followed the armies in the field, many gravitated to busy camps or garrison towns, where soldiers would have their likeness made to send home to family and friends. Due to its safety and function as an inland port, St. Louis was home to the largest concentration of photographers during the conflict.

But St. Louis was a center of photography long before the Civil War began. Enoch and Horatio H. Long arrived there from New Hampshire in the late 1840s. They had studied daguerreotypy in Philadelphia and operated their first gallery in Augusta, Georgia, from 1842 to 1845. They became itinerant daguerreotypists until settling in St. Louis, opening the Long Brothers Studio in 1846 on the southeast corner of Third and Market streets over Annon’s Drug Store. They then engaged the corner of Fourth and Market, considered the best location in the city, but they were obliged to wait a year before moving in. Meanwhile, they plied their trade in Alton, Galena, and Quincy, Illinois, before opening their new gallery in December 1847. By 1850 the brothers had separate establishments, Enoch at Fourth and Market and Horatio at Third and Market. Horatio died in 1851. The following year Enoch added the largest skylight in the West up to that date and began producing photographs on glass, a precursor to ambrotypes. In 1861 he sold his gallery and moved his studio to Benton Barracks, next to the fairgrounds in north St. Louis, which had become a busy induction center for troops from Missouri and other states. Many of Long’s military cartes de visite and tintypes bear the Benton Barracks address. He left Missouri in 1866 but settled just across the river in Quincy, Illinois. Enoch ran a photographic-supply business there until retiring in 1879. He died in 1898.

John Fitzgibbon arrived in St. Louis in 1846 shortly after the Long brothers. He became one of the best known early St. Louis photographers, capturing the interest of the public with his restless, friendly personality as well as his advanced techniques. Born in London, his parents emigrated to the United States while he was still a child. As a youth he lived in New York City, Philadelphia, and Lynchburg, Virginia. Fitzgibbon apprenticed as a saddle maker and went into the hotel business before opening a daguerreotype gallery in 1841. His first business in St. Louis was located on Fourth Street between Market and Chestnut. Typical of Fitzgibbon, who did everything on a large scale, he moved in 1849 to a sixteen-room gallery at 1 North Fourth Street, at the corner of Market. Two years later his fellow artists elected him vice president of the American Daguerre Association. In 1853 he branched out from St. Louis, becoming a partner with William H. Douglas in a gallery in Jefferson City. That same year Fitzgibbon won a bronze medal at the New York Crystal Palace Exposition. In 1854, while his partner W. H. Tilford took care of the St. Louis gallery, Fitzgibbon became an itinerant daguerreotypist, touring the backwoods of southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas, and Indian Territory. He worked unassisted all day and traveled by night. One customer told him, Stranger, you’re the greatest dogman [daguerreotypist] that’s been in these parts.¹ Fitzgibbon introduced ambrotypes to St. Louis in 1854. His exhibition gallery, one of the most distinguished in the nation, featured images of prominent citizens and celebrities who had visited the city as well as Native American warriors. The gallery later included scenes from his travels in Central and South America in 1860. Although he moved to Vicksburg at the beginning of the war, Fitzgibbon or his partners maintained the St. Louis gallery throughout the conflict, and many wartime cartes de visite bear its backmark. When the Federals besieged Vicksburg, they arrested Fitzgibbon as he attempted to leave the city, holding him in New Orleans. After gaining his release, he went to New York City and established a gallery there. In 1866 he returned to St. Louis and opened a gallery opposite the Planters’ House Hotel. While in Vicksburg his wife had died, and in 1869 he married a skilled photographer, Maria L. Dennis. She kept the studio opened after her husband’s retirement in 1876 to edit the St. Louis Practical Photographer and Illustrated Monthly Journal. Fitzgibbon died at age sixty-five, but Marie remarried and continued to operate the studio and journal under the name Fitzgibbon-Clark.

The war did not bring prosperity to every Missouri photographer. Thomas Martin Easterly began a career as an itinerant daguerreotypist about 1844, and his travels took him to several locations around the state in 1846. The next year he opened a gallery in St. Louis. Respected during his lifetime, he is recognized today as one of the foremost American daguerreotypists, producing works of true artistic merit. Unfortunately he never adapted or changed, and after the daguerreotype technique began to lose its popularity in the late 1850s, his fortunes declined. He did not photograph soldiers, limiting himself to documentation of the St. Louis scene. A fire in 1869 destroyed his studio and priceless daguerreotype collection. He died destitute in 1882.

By contrast John J. Outley overcame the significant prejudice against Irish immigrants to achieve commercial success. Arriving in Missouri 1849, he was already an established daguerreotypist and ambrotypist. Unlike Easterly he mastered each new technological development as it came along. St. Louis city directories from the 1850s list his studios at various locations but usually between Third and Fifth streets, a common neighborhood for photographic galleries. By 1858 he had several operators working for him and had obtained a camera capable of taking life-sized images. Poor health led him to take George L. Williams as a partner in 1859, but Outley continued to prosper, partly by hiring other photographers to work for him and by investing in other enterprises. His frequent moves and the changing names of his ventures were typical of even successful photographers in St. Louis. In 1859 he was in business as Outley and Williams, and the following year had studios at two locations. By 1863 he had opened Outley’s Photographic Palace of Art at 39 North Fourth Street and continued there until at least 1866. The following year he moved to a position on Fourth Street just opposite the prestigious Planters’ House Hotel, employing Charles Meiers, C. H. Smith, and D. B. Wolcott as staff photographers. From 1868 to 1871 the firm of Outley and Bell conducted business on North Fourth Street, but a fire destroyed their gallery in the latter year. Outley later resumed his business in the same location under the name Outley’s Photographic Gallery of Art. In 1879 his studio was located at the southeast corner of Fourth and Market streets. Outley died in 1892.

Andrew J. Fox, a New York City native, was in business in St. Louis from 1852 to about 1886 as a daguerreotypist, ambrotypist, photographer, and portrait painter. His studio occupied various locations, usually on or near Fourth Street. In 1856 he and one of his competitors were criticized in Photographic and Fine Art Journal for an exchange of vulgar and disgraceful advertisements in the St. Louis press. Whatever he did to earn the ire of some fellow professionals did not hurt his business, for the 1860 census listed him as a thirty-three-year-old Daguerrian Artist with two galleries. By 1863 he had only one gallery but remained at prestigious Fourth Street addresses throughout the war. During the postwar years he won multiple awards at the yearly St. Louis Fair. He was ninety-three years old when he died in 1919.

Fox employed at least one apprentice, John A. Scholten, a native of the Rhine valley who immigrated with his family to the United States around 1842, initially settling in the German community at Hermann, Missouri. Around 1846 Scholten moved to St. Louis, where he worked in a dry-goods store. After a two-year apprenticeship under Fox, which ended in 1857, he entered photography on his own. By 1858 Scholten was proprietor of a gallery on South Fifth Street, a rather uncelebrated location. But he kept up with the latest advances and in 1860 won a Grand Silver Medal for plain photographs at the St. Louis Fair. His reputation grew throughout the war years, by the end of which he had moved to a prominent North Fourth Street address in partnership with James Sidney Brown. Scholten won many St. Louis Fair awards in the postwar years and maintained his prosperity. Like many photographers, he had multiple talents and also earned money as an engraver and lithographer. In 1874 he moved into a spectacular new gallery, which was destroyed by fire in December 1878. The blaze consumed thirty thousand negatives, but he reopened his gallery in less than six months. Scholten died of pneumonia in 1886.

Nicholas Brown had been an operator at Mathew Brady’s Gallery in New York until 1857, when he arrived in St. Louis and became an operator at Fitzgibbon’s Gallery. From 1859 to 1866 Brown was the proprietor of the Great Western Photographic Gallery on North Fourth Street. After the war he opened nearby Brown’s Daguerrian and Photographic Gallery with his sons. The family soon moved to New Mexico, however, and finally settled in Texas.

William M. Brown (no relation) was a St. Louis native, active as a daguerreotypist and photographer in the city between 1857 and 1868. Like other photographers, he sought and obtained a North Fourth Street address. The concentration of business in one area should have spurred competition, but Brown became involved in a price-fixing agreement with his peers, a practice perfectly legal at the time. Such arrangements might appear to be the reason why many photographers could operate in one city, but the growing market was more important. St. Louis was the fastest growing city in the United States during the 1850s, thus there was room on Fourth Street for William L. Troxel, who arrived in 1857 from Louisville, Kentucky. Troxel employed a wide variety of photographic techniques, offering his pictures at prices from one dollar to one hundred dollars—the latter being an astonishing sum at a time when a laborer might be satisfied with wages of a dollar a day. Troxel also copied small Daguerreotypes, or other pictures, to the size of life and colored in oil or pastel.² By 1860 he employed an assistant, David C. Williams. During the war his brother Frank joined the business, allowing William to move to New York and open a studio there.

Multiple enterprises and partnerships were common among Missouri photographers. Stephen B. Eaton, a Massachusetts native, owned several St. Louis studios, including ones on Market and Walnut streets. His residence, which included a commercial gallery, was at 39 North Fourth Street opposite the Planters’ House. Over the years he also ran establishments with Augustus Plitt (or Plitzz) and Ephraim Shirley Mansfield. Mansfield in turn was partnered with a photographer named Eaton (possibly Stephen B. Eaton) and also operated galleries in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. Photographer Ansel R. Butts was active in Columbia, St. Louis, and Benton Barracks. The 1864 city directory lists Butts as an artist residing in St. Louis, while the 1865 directory shows him as the owner of a photographic studio opposite the U.S. Army Quartermaster Department at Benton Barracks. A Chris Butts was also listed as a photographer at Benton Barracks in May 1864; his relationship to Ansel is not clear.

Although city directories indicate that St. Louis photographers changed addresses frequently, perhaps as a result of economic fluctuations, a person could make a good living in the profession. Albert W. Wood (or Woods), born in Maine about 1822, was a daguerreotypist and photographer who arrived from Chicago in 1859. Although his studio was located on the slightly less fashionable Market Street, the 1860 census credited him with $9,000 of personal property (a value equivalent to more than $250,000 in 2009). By 1863 Wood had moved to Fourth Street, but he later returned to Market. He was a member of the St. Louis Photographic Society, located (almost predictably) at the corner of Fourth and Market streets.

Since St. Louis was home to an exceptionally large German population, it is hardly surprising that some of the city’s most prominent photographers were either German immigrants or of German heritage. Hermann E. Hoelke was born in Germany about 1832. In 1859 he was in business on Market Street as a photographic artist, using a studio he apparently rented from Enoch Long. When Sterling Price’s bold attack on Lexington in September 1861 made news across the county, Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper published an engraving of Price after a photograph taken by Hoelke. The publicity may have given him confidence, for he soon purchased Long’s former gallery in partnership with Robert Benecke. After spending his youth in the Hartz Mountains, Benecke had immigrated to the United States in 1856. He worked at various artistic occupations before beginning a career in photography. In December 1858 he formed a partnership with Joseph Keyte, a landscape painter from Brunswick, Missouri. Benecke worked as a photographer for a short time in St. Louis but was living in Brunswick when the war erupted. Like many German Americans, he rushed to support the Union cause, but after only a few months’ service in the Eighteenth Missouri Infantry, he was discharged due to an injury to his right eye. He returned to St. Louis for treatment and joined Hoelke to open the Hoelke and Benecke Gallery, which became one of the city’s most prominent studios during the war years. In 1866 Benecke undertook a photographic expedition through Germany, using portable equipment of his own design. He also served as a traveling photographer for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Although he dissolved his partnership with Hoelke in 1869, Benecke remained in business for many years and won a number of prizes at the St. Louis Fair. He died in November 1903.

Another German native, Gustav Cramer, arrived in St. Louis in 1859 and became an apprentice to photographer and fellow countryman John Scholten. Although he operated his own studio briefly, Cramer joined the Third Missouri Infantry, a regiment of three-month volunteers, in 1861. He fought at the battle of Carthage that July but apparently mustered out prior to the battle of Wilson’s Creek in August. In May 1863 he was a photographer in Carondelet, just south of St. Louis, but returned to the city the next year to go into partnership with Julian Gross, opening a studio known as Cramer and Gross on South Fifth Street. After the war he partnered with Herman Norden, another German immigrant. Cramer died in July 1914.

German natives Emil Boehl and Lawrence H. Koenig had a partnership that lasted more than thirty years. Boehl arrived in St. Louis with his family in 1854 and became a store clerk. He joined the Union army and was honorably discharged in 1864. In May of that year, Boehl formed a partnership with Koenig, a Prussian immigrant, and started a photo gallery on North Fourth Street. In November he married his partner’s sister, Katherine Koenig; another Keonig sister was married to photographer Robert Benecke. Throughout their partnership, Boehl concentrated on St. Louis landmarks while Koenig devoted himself to studio portraiture. Between them they chronicled the city and its people during the war and postwar years. Their partnership ended in 1897. Afterward Boehl continued to work up to 1919, the year of his death. The details of Koenig’s later life are not known.

John A. Seibert, a German American, moved to St. Genevieve, Missouri, from Illinois in 1859. During the war he moved to St. Louis, where he remained in the photography business until the 1870s.

Some St. Louis photographers were native Southerners. Thomas L. Rivers was born in Virginia in 1825. He was a daguerreotypist, ambrotypist, and photographer active in Jacksonville, Springfield, and Quincy, Illinois, before going into business in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1857. Three years later he opened a gallery in St. Louis on North Fourth Street. Rivers’s political sympathies are not known, but he remained in business in St. Louis throughout the war, going into partnership with A. J. Evans. Another Southerner, Thomas J. Merritt, arrived in St. Louis just as the conflict began, having previously earned his living as a photographer in Nashville, Tennessee. He opened a studio in a location once occupied by Rivers and remained in the city for the duration of the war. Like Rivers, his political views are not known.

Photography was sometimes a family affair. Between 1863 and 1864, John C. Nichols and Lorenzo Nichols ran the Nichols and Brother Portrait Gallery at 60 North Fourth Street. They supplied CDVs as well as plain photographs, which they offered to color by hand. They also promoted the copying of older daguerreotypes and ambrotypes with more modern techniques allowing multiple prints. Lizzie Dixson, one of the few female commercial photographers during the war, advertised her New York Gallery at 80 North Fourth Street as under the ownership of L. Dixon and brother. Although the phrasing concealed her gender, she took precedence over her partner, bother Joseph Dixon. The Dixons were in business in St. Louis between 1863 and 1864.

In all at least 145 photographers plied their trade in St. Louis during the Civil War. Some were transient and remained a short time, while others stayed on throughout the conflict. Although photographers worked throughout the state, they tended to congregate in strategic locations, such as Rolla, Springfield, and the Kansas City area. The state capital, Jefferson City, attracted remarkably few.

Because Rolla was the rail head of an important railway route running out of St. Louis toward the southwest, that small town in Phelps County was home to a large Federal garrison for almost the entire war. At least ten photographers did business there between 1861 and 1865, yet there are relatively few photographs of the tens of thousands of Union soldiers who passed through the military installation. Moreover, no photos of the extensive field fortifications protecting the town or the multitude of structures erected by the military are known to exist.

Photography in Rolla preceded the war. Albert Neuman was the first photographer in Phelps County. Born in either Poland or Prussia, he immigrated to the United States while a young man and entered the photographic profession in New York. After operating briefly as a daguerreotypist in St. James, Missouri, he relocated to Rolla about 1860. He advertised in the Rolla Express as an Artist and Dentist, though there is no known record of his dental education. Neuman found many customers among the soldiers, railroad men, and camp followers who flooded into Rolla (among them was young James Butler Hickok, later famous as Wild Bill, who worked as a scout for the army). Neuman gave up photography after the war and engaged in many different enterprises up to the time of his death in 1920. His competitors included W. Lewis, a photographer with the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry, who made images at Rolla until his regiment left in March 1862. Brose Fanning, another military photographer, made images in Rolla while his unit, the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, was stationed there. R. S. Mitchell, a daguerreotypist from Illinois, opened Mitchell’s Fine Art Gallery in Rolla on June 7, 1862, but his enterprise was apparently short lived.

The buildup of troops throughout 1862 for Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis’s Army of the Frontier attracted other photographers to Rolla. Daguerreotypist and ambrotypist H. D. Wall, who started work in Kansas City in 1856, arrived in Rolla late in 1862, as did Daniel Chamberlain, whose Chamberlain’s Picture Gallery was located opposite the depot. Chamberlain remained in Rolla until his death in 1896. His combination residence and studio, constructed during the war, still stands on the southeast corner of Sixth and Olive streets. Its peculiar wooden cupola incorporates a skylight that provided light for the photographer’s work.

The Federals who passed through Rolla in order to participate in the Arkansas campaigns of 1862 and 1863 often stopped at Springfield, a major supply depot some one hundred miles to the southwest. Several photographers were established there before the war. Jessie (or Jesse) Sadler did not arrive until 1858, but he was in business in the community continuously until his death in 1885. A Virginia native, he began his career as a traveling daguerreotypist in