The royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage (1719-87), responded to the flurry of news reports of the Battles of Lexington and Concord by sending official accounts of the confrontation to high officials in the adjoining colonies. He hoped that they would issue their own statements and quench the vitriolic and hyperbolic versions of the events appearing in most of the colonial newspapers.

This is a handwritten copy of the British account of events that also appeared as a broadside, A Circumstantial Account. This fair copy, made out by a clerk of Gage’s, was sent to Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-85) of Connecticut. Note the “x” under each capital letter. These notations specify how the document should be set in type, an indication that Gage hoped it would be published and transmitted to a larger audience than just Trumbull and his staff.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> This May 6, 1775, issue of John Dixon (d. 1791) and William Hunter’s Virginia Gazette illustrates how news of Lexington and Concord spread throughout the colonies. On the first page in the middle column are extracts of letters from Boston about the battles. As was common practice, the extracts had been lifted directly from another newspaper, in this case Story & Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury, and Universal Advertiser. Story & Humphreys’s had published them in its issue of April 28, 1775, among other letters about Lexington and Concord gathered from several express riders from various locations. 

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> By the beginning of the Civil War, photography had been around for over twenty years, but in many ways it was still a new technology. Only recently had the new albumen process, in the form of cartes-de-visites and stereographs, made photography cheap, reproducible, and accessible to the masses.

The daguerreotype, the first public photographic process, introduced in the United States around 1839, was the most common method until the 1850s. A daguerreotype is a unique object with no negative, created by polishing a sheet of silver-plated copper and treating it with fumes to make it light-sensitive. The result has a mirror-like quality and the image appears to float above the surface. Most daguerreotypes were sold in small leather cases and were meant to be held in the hand. The viewer would have to angle the case to catch the light and reveal the image.

Examining one woman’s reaction to seeing a daguerreotype for the first time gives a good sense of the immediacy and authenticity people felt photography to have, and thus its ever-increasing significance as the war dragged on and more loved ones left for battle. In 1841, Emory Washburn (1800-77), a future Massachusetts governor, sat for his portrait in Worcester or Boston. He sent the image by mail to his wife, Marianne (1810-98), who, with their three children, was visiting her parents in Walpole, New Hampshire. Upon receipt of the portrait, Mrs. Washburn wrote to her husband of the awe and amazement it inspired in the entire family:

I thank you most sincerely for sending the daguerreotype—to me it is invaluable. The truth of sunlight cannot be questioned or criticized. The dimness and indistinctness at first sight are pleasant to me in a miniature; you look at it, it seems like a shadow or a spirit; you turn it into a stronger light & the spirit becomes embodied. The longer you look & the brighter the light; the more & more you find comes out & he seems to be yours only. He seems to be yours, bright, clear & distinct, but dim, unreal & shadowy to others – & this feeling of monopoly, love, in its selfishness, likes. Father and Mother were affected almost to tears. Minnie declared it looked like Mr. Van Buren. Charlie said at first it was a little looking glass and then smiling said he “could see his Father, Mr. Washburn in it.” Emory said, “That is my Father.”
]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> This issue of the Virginia Gazette includes a summary of a meeting held to discuss resolutions with the representatives from Richmond County who would be attending the First Virginia Convention on August 1, 1774. (There would eventually be five Virginia conventions.) Virginia’s colonial government, the House of Burgesses, had been dissolved after calling for a day of prayer to show their support for Boston after the Boston Port Act. In response to the dissolution, the Virginians called for a convention to discuss their plans for action against the British and in support of Boston, as well as a meeting of all the colonies, the Continental Congress. In the meeting described, the participants strongly stated their support of the Bostonians in their “sister colony” of Massachusetts and their opposition to British policy, calling for a non-importation agreement and the repeal of all of the new acts laid out by Parliament. Despite their call for unity and fairness, they maintained their loyalty to the Crown.

Clementia Rind (d. 1774) was publisher and printer of the Virginia Gazette at this time, having taken over the printing business after the death of her husband, William Rind (1733-73). Rind’s Gazette was one of three by the same name, all located in Williamsburg, Virginia. Through this article, Rind informs her readers about the political activities of their representatives, while also illustrating Virginia’s solidarity with Massachusetts. Through articles such as these, printers spread the news about the activities of their patriot representatives, as well as demonstrated the bond that was growing among the colonies.

Click the image below to browse the full issue. 

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> Public readings of the newly minted Declaration of Independence took place in taverns, churches, town greens, or anywhere else people could gather. This July 27, 1776, issue of the Virginia Gazette records a public reading of the Declaration that took place in Williamsburg two days earlier. It was “received with universal applause, under a discharge of cannon, firing of small arms, illuminations in the evening, &c. &c.”

The news from Williamsburg also notes that, a week earlier, Virginia’s provincial council had ordered that the two printers in Williamsburg publish the text of the Declaration in their respective newspapers, which this Virginia Gazette, published by John Dixon (d. 1791) and William Hunter, did in its issue of July 20. The other Virginia Gazette, printed by Alexander Purdie (1743-79), included both the council’s directive and the text of the Declaration in its issue of July 26. To further ensure the spread of the Declaration, the council also ordered that the “sheriff of each county in this Commonwealth proclaim the same at the door of his courthouse, the first court day after he shall have received the same.” 

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> "Sumter First—Peace Afterwards." and Camp Scene from Photograph.]]> The cheapness of new printing techniques and technology meant that now not only could most households afford to decorate their homes with individual prints, but also that all kinds of ephemera—those items meant to be used and thrown away—could be decorated as well. During the Civil War, printed envelopes were one such type of ephemera. They became popular early in the war, particularly in the Union. Hundreds of different images were used during the war to put a personal and political stamp on the stationery that was carrying news to and from the front. Often the imagery on the envelopes featured patriotic poems and symbols, such as Lady Liberty and eagles. At other times they carried political cartoons and the likenesses of war generals and heroes. Still others were part of regimental stationery sets, which were emblazoned with a specific regiment’s name. Often they were left black and white, but many were lithographically colored—and some even hand-colored—as well.

Occasionally, the envelopes carried more news-related images, such as the ones seen here. The first, “Camp Scene From Photograph,” provides a sense of having firsthand knowledge of the front lines. Not only does it depict a camp, but it allegedly does so from a photograph, perceived to be the most immediate form of image capturing. The vibrant hand-coloring also adds a dimension of lifelike authenticity. The second envelope melds both news and patriotic symbolism, featuring Fort Sumter weathering a storm and a strong Lady Liberty holding a Union flag while standing on the Confederate flag. The quote, “Sumter First—Peace Afterwards,” implies that regaining and revenging the attack on Sumter takes precedence over attaining peace. In this case the lithographically printed coloring enhances the patriotic effect, utilizing only red, white, and blue.

The latest news, particularly victories or the death of war heroes, often spurred new envelope designs, fueling both the printers’ trade and morale. What initially began as simple patriotic stationery soon turned into collector’s items. Printers began issuing the elaborate envelopes in boxed sets (notice the number “19” on the bottom right of the “Camp Scene” envelope), and albums designed to hold the envelopes also appeared on the market. As the war dragged on and resources—including paper—became short, such illustrated stationery came to be seen as indulgent and expensive and its production was abandoned before the end of the war.

The majority of the illustrated Civil War envelopes at the American Antiquarian Society has been fully cataloged online

]]> AAS Catalog Record (Sumter)
AAS Catalog Record (Camp Scene)]]> GIGI: AAS Digital Image Archive,
click advanced search, and do a keyword search for "Civil War Envelopes"]]> Although tintypes and ambrotypes were both used to capture images of soldiers, by far the most popular form soldier portraits took were cartes-de-visites. Unlike the former two processes, whose glass and metal foundations made them delicate, bulky, and unreproducible, cartes-de-visites were inexpensive albumen paper prints mounted on cardstock, copies of which could easily be handed out and mailed to family and friends.

Like scrapbooks, cartes-de-visites became a way for soldiers and those at home to record their experiences. The cheapness, portability, and reproducibility of the prints meant that people collected cartes-de-visites not only of their personal loved ones, but also those of celebrities, military officers, and even famous artwork. All of these different types were often compiled into one album, giving a broad sense of how people were consuming and using media to make sense of life and war.

Although carte-de-visite albums often featured a mixture of public and private pictures, sometimes they were intended to tell a specific story. The carte-de-visite album here is full of thirty-eight portraits of soldiers and ranking officers primarily from one regiment, the Twenty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. Albums of this type were not only mementoes of the soldiers on the front, but also often served as a way to keep a history of a regiment, adding notes of battles and casualties in the album or on the cartes-de-visites. Most portraits in this album are identified on the cartes-de-visites, and some are signed with the autographs of the men depicted. Other images are heavily annotated on the versos with the rank of the man depicted and his fate during wartime. Many photographs were taken in Boston, but photographers from Philadelphia and Beaufort, South Carolina, are also included.

The entire album can be viewed here.

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View full album]]> Among the visual ways in which people tried to make sense of the Civil War were maps. Maps helped people visualize the places where their loved ones were fighting, places most of them had never seen. Though few newspapers outside of the illustrated press carried illustrations at this time, many would occasionally provide their readers with simple maps or diagrams. Outside of newspapers, lithography helped to provide more complex maps for public consumption. This 1862 lithograph by the Boston firm of Louis Prang & Co. used the popular “birds eye view” format to give an overview of the lay of the land where most of the fighting was taking place at the time, including significant bodies of water and railroads. As the subtitle explains, it shows views of “Washington, Baltimore, Harpers Ferry, Richmond, Manassas Junction, Ft. Monroe, Norfolk Harbor &c. Their R. R. Connections, & the General Surface of the Country in Maryland, Dist. Of Columbia, & Virginia.” 

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View larger image]]> In the 1840s and 1850s, thanks to steam-powered and rotary presses, newspaper dimensions were often enormous. The size of the printing presses, their ability to print evenly over a large surface area, and the speed with which they could print thousands of sheets meant that a four-page newspaper—one large sheet, printed on both sides, and folded once—could carry much more news. In the 1850s, with the development of folding and trimming machinery, a single large sheet could be folded twice and formed into an eight-page paper with smaller pages. This comic drawing by the famous cartoonist and satirist David Claypoole Johnston (1798-1865), which depicts several men sitting around an enormous newspaper all trying to read it at the same time, lampoons both the growing size of newspapers and the eagerness with which they were consumed. 

]]> AAS Catalog Record]]> View full issue]]> Charles Carleton Coffin (1823-96) was one of a dozen or so battlefield correspondents whose work during the Civil War made them into something new in American journalism: celebrity reporters. Writing under the penname “Carleton” for the Boston Journal, Coffin covered many of the famous battles of the war: Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and many others. He was the ideal writer for a New England audience because he viewed the war through the lens of abolitionism. For him the war was “a great moral convulsion, . . . a mighty conflict of ideas,” as he wrote in his memoirs. It was, quite simply, “the war between Slavery and Freedom.” His reporting was filled with vivid description of the chaos and utter carnage of battle. “How lavish was the expenditure of blood!” he wrote. But he believed that the righteous cause was worth the fearful cost: “The people of America, by example, have shown the world that civil and religious liberty for all, as well as for the few, is of more value than human life.”

Coffin’s ability to imbue narratives of “thrilling scenes” with moral meaning helped to make him a popular lecturer as well as writer. In antebellum America the lecture circuit had already become a kind of news medium, especially in the North. This is an advertising flyer for one of Coffin’s wartime lectures in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in May 1863. Because the Civil War took place on American soil in the age of the railroad, it was possible for battlefield correspondents to travel back home to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or other Northern cities immediately after a great battle. And they usually did. Through lectures, Civil War correspondents such as C. C. Coffin were able to further build their reputation and fame. 

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