Samuel Morse, c.1866

‘Samuel Morse’

J. Gurney & Son

c.1866

 

Samuel Morse is well-known as the co-inventor of the communication system that bears his name. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1791 and died at New York in 1872. Less well-known is the fact that he was also an accomplished artist and gained entry into the Royal Academy of Art in 1811. He also believed that slavery was a practice sanctioned by God. The stereograph shows Morse with the medals he was awarded in his lifetime. For example, the large medal under the top six was the Order of Isabella the Catholic, given to him in 1859.

 

Lt. Washington & Capt. Custer, Virginia, 1862

‘Lieutenant James B. Washington, a Confederate Prisoner, with Captain George A. Custer of the 5th Cavalry, Fair Oaks, Virginia, U. S. A.’

Matthew Brady

1862

James Washington, shown on the left, served as an aide to General Johnston during the Civil War. Both he and Custer were friends, having met at West Point military academy but during the Civil War they were on opposing sides. In 1862 Washington was captured carrying despatches for the Confederates and taken prisoner. This is when Custer and Washington met again and when the photographer Matthew Brady took this spinetingling stereograph. After the war Washington worked as an accountant in Boston and faded into obscurity. Custer met his end at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and secured his perhaps ambiguous place in history.

‘Mark Twain at his summer study’, 1874

‘Mark Twain at his summer study at Quarry Farm’

Van Aken

1874

 

 

Quarry Farm in New York State belonged to Twain’s sister-in-law, Susan Langdon Crane, and Twain and his family visited during the summer months for twenty years. The octagonal study, commissioned by Twain, was detached from the main farm building. The instantly recognisible figure of Twain is shown writing at a small table, his trademark stogie in his left hand. The study still exists but has been moved to Elmira College Old Campus and Quarry Farm is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Abraham Lincoln, 1865

‘Hon. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States’

Keystone View Company (original photograph by Lewis Walker)

1865

 

This is a later reprint of a stereograph of Lincoln made by Lewis Walker in February 1865, just three months before the President’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre, Washington D.C.

‘Grant’s Tomb’, 1897 & 1898

‘Dedication of Grant’s Tomb – West Point Cadets in Clouds of Dust’

Griffith & Griffith

1897

 

‘Gen. U.S Grant’s Tomb, Riverside, New York City, U.S.A’

Keystone View Company

1898

This enormous mausoleum, the largest tomb in America, houses the remains of former U.S. President and Civil War General Ulysses Grant. Work began in 1891 at Morningside Heights in Manhattan and the mausoleum was completed in April 1897. The twin sarcophagi of Grant and his wife are based upon that of Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris. Grant’s full name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. The famous ‘S’ arose from a mistake when he was nominated for entry into the academy at West Point. Grant liked it so he kept it.

Ulysses Grant & General Rawlins, 1864

‘Lieut. Gen. Grant and Chief of Staff Gen. Rawlins at his Head Quarters at Cold Harbor, Va. Taken June 14th, 1864’

E. & H. T. Anthony

14 June 1864

Taken during the Civil War, Grant is shown seated to the left. In the chair to the right is John Rawlins. Rawlins was to serve as Grant’s Secretary of War after Grant was elected as the 18th President of the United States in 1868. The stereoview was taken just a few days after the end of the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia, one of the war’s bloodiest battles which saw the deaths of thousands of Union soldiers.

Ulysses S. Grant, c.1865

‘Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Commander in Chief Armies, U. S.’

E. & H. T. Anthony

c.1865

Lincoln promoted Ulysses Grant to lieutenant general of the Unionist army on 10 March 1864. The stereograph must’ve been between then and 1869 when Grant was inaugurated as the U.S. President. Lincoln had asked Grant and his wife to attend the performance at Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln was assassinated but Grant declined. He later said of Lincoln that “he was incontestably the greatest man I have ever known.”