The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division.
Hundreds of photographs from the Liljenquist Collection are now mapped to events of the U.S. Civil War. Soldiers’ portraits are linked to the many battlefields where they fought and died. The faces of nurses are connected to the sites where they cared for the wounded. Prisoners of war are associated with the camps that confined them.
The presentation begins with three famous battles: Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. Battle line maps illustrate the Union and Confederate positions for each engagement. You’ll also meet some of the people and be introduced to their lives.
Nurse Maria Hall worked at the Smoketown field hospital at Antietam, Maryland. After the war she worked with prisoners from Andersonville Prison.
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The arms of Sergeant Thomas Plunkett were shot off when he carried the colors at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1862. He received the Medal of Honor for his valor.
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The young musician James P. Mills was wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at Mine Run, Virginia.
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An interactive map is at the end of the presentation. You can explore more than 100 battles through this map from the most famous clashes to the lesser-known skirmishes. The larger and brighter the area of color on the map, the more portraits were found in the Liljenquist Collection to associate with that place.
Zoom in on the map to view locations in more detail and click the colored areas to see associated portraits. Use the arrows at the top right of the box to scroll through additional photographs of people who were present at each location. For more information about each photograph, click on the thumbnail image to view details about the item.
With special appreciation to Katie Daughtry, who created the core story map while a Librarian-in-Residence with the Preservation Directorate, in collaboration with Micah Messenheimer and Michelle Smiley, curators of photography, Prints & Photographs Division.
Learn More:
- Read the stories of other Civil War participants in the Civil War Men and Women: Glimpses of Their Lives Through Photography research guide.
- Learn more about the Liljenquist Family Civil War Collection.
- Discover more visual narratives in other Library of Congress Story Maps.
Comments (3)
Wow, that is so cool!
It is very gratifying to see the photographs in our collection used in such a powerful and meaningful way. You have created a deeply moving presentation that helps to put a human face on a war that killed more Americans that all of our other wars combined. This will be a great learning tool for teachers and a sure hit with students studying the Civil War. Thank you Katie, Micah and Michelle for putting this together!
I’m delighted to see this new use of the Liljenquist collection. I had not realized that so many of the portrait subjects were identifiable. Most of my work with the collection has been with the many “unidentified” soldiers and family members. Thanks for this.