Beschreibung:

Large-format Civil War photo album containing 91 individual prints made directly from original negatives during the 1890s, assembled by Colonel Albert Ordway, a pioneering photo historian of the Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS.) The leather binding is embossed Pictorial History of the War of the Rebellion - Miscellaneous - Vol. 1 (interior pencil notations indicates this is volume 36 of the 120 albums assembled). Each photo (with but two exceptions) is captioned in a beautifully-written 19th century ink script, identifying the subjects or scenes. The prints range in size as follows: 29 albumen-sized (roughly 8 x 10 inches or smaller), 4 imperial-sized albumens (full page), 37 stereo-sized (single prints), 5 imperial stereos (single prints) and 16 carte-de-visite-sized prints. The photos are all albumen, with the exception of 6 circa 1900 prints produced as silver gelatin images. There are a few copy prints of artist's illustrations or earlier photographic montages (refer to cowans.com for complete listing and additional photographs). Subject matter of this collection can be broken out into two main categories: officer group portraits (31 identified and one unidentified) and scenes from Washington's Grand Review in May 1865 (26 captioned and 14 uncaptioned.) The Grand Review photos represent the largest-seen group known to Cowan's and contain many unpublished scenes, showing crowds, troop formations and reviewing-stand dignitaries and spectators. Two vignetted montages entitled Executive Officers of the US Government for the Buchanan and Lincoln cabinets are included, with 15 carte-sized prints of Lincoln administration officials. Accompanied by photos of Sanitary Commission officials, court martial officers of the Lincoln Conspiracy trial, Signal Corps officers, mounted orderlies of a 4th Corps artillery brigade and 3 post-war portraits of officers. Most notably is the well-known 1867 outdoor scene at Fort Sanders, WY showing Generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, meeting to discuss completion of the trans-continental railroad. Other highlights include a group portrait entitled Generals of the Cavalry Corps showing from left, Generals P.H. Sheridan, G.A. Forsyth, Wesley Merritt, T.C. Devin and G.A. Custer, taken by Alexander Gardner Another famous 1865 Gardner group portrait shows General W.T. Sherman and his chief lieutenants: Generals Howard, Logan, Hazen, Davis, Slocum and Mower. An albumen portrait of two greater Cincinnati, German-American generals, August Kautz and Godfrey Weitzel, is posed at the latter's tent fly in 1865. A wonderful albumen entitled View on Pennsylvania Avenue between 9th and 7th Streets, shows the Army of the Potomac led by Collis' Zouaves in their distinctive white turbans. Another page contains two spectator scenes captioned Views at the Treasury Department Building and three stereo photos captioned Views on Capital Hill. All are either unpublished or infrequently published scenes. MOLLUS albums today are rare to the marketplace, with the majority residing in the US Army's Military History Institute at Carlisle, PA, which took possession of the Massachusetts Commandery collection in 1973. Other albums are known to exist at Cleveland's Western Reserve Historical Society and other national institutions. The importance of Ordway and his associate Major Arnold Rand's collecting efforts, in an era when many negatives and photos were discarded, cannot be over-estimated. Most new assessments and identifications of wartime photography come from their early collecting efforts. A complete list of the photo captions and comments follow: - Generals of the Army of the Potomac, March 1862, showing Generals McClellan, McDowell and Buell, posed outdoors with eight generals. - Generals of the Cavalry Corps, showing Generals Merritt, Gregg, Sheridan, Davies, Wilson and Torbert (from left.) Taken outside Sheridan's tent, this is a well-known portrait. - Genera