Robert E. Lee in War and Peace

The Photographic History of a Confederate and American Icon

Donald A. Hopkins

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781611214215
• eBook ISBN: 9781611211214
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Robert E. Lee is well known as a Confederate general and as an educator later in life, but most people are exposed to the same handful of images of one of America's most famous sons. It has been almost seven decades since anyone has attempted a serious study of Lee in photographs, and with Don Hopkins's painstakingly researched and lavishly illustrated Robert E. Lee in War and Peace, the wait is finally over. Dr. Hopkins, a Mississippi surgeon and lifelong student of the Civil War and Southern history with a recent interest in Robert E. Lee's "from life" photographs, scoured manuscript repositories and private collections across the country to locate every known Lee image (61 in all) in existence today. The detailed text accompanying these images provides a sweeping history of Lee's life and a compelling discussion of antique photography, with biographical sketches of all of Lee's known photographers. The importance of information within the photographer's imprint or backmark is emphasized throughout the book. Hopkins offers a substantial amount of previously unknown information about these images, how each came to be, and the mistakes in fact and attribution other authors and writers have made describing photographs of Lee to the reading public. Many of the images in this book are being published for the first time. In addition to a few rare photographs and formats that were uncovered during the research phase of Robert E. Lee in War and Peace, the author offers—for the first time—definitive and conclusive attribution of the identity of the photographer of the well-known Lee "in the field" images, and reproduces a startling imperial-size photograph of Lee made by Alexander Gardner of Washington, D.C. Students of American history in general and the Civil War in particular, as well as collectors and dealers who deal with Civil War era photography, will find Hopkins's outstanding Robert E. Lee in War and Peace a true contribution to the growing literature on the Civil War. About the Author: Born in the rural South, Donald A. Hopkins has maintained a fascination with Southern history since he was a child. In addition to published papers in the medical field, he has written several Civil War articles and The Little Jeff: The Jeff Davis Legion, Cavalry, Army of Northern Virginia for which he received the United Daughters of the Confederacy's Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal. Dr. Hopkins served as Battalion Surgeon for the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, (better known as "The Walking Dead") in Vietnam. He was awarded the purple heart and the Bronze Star with combat "V." Dr. Hopkins is a surgeon in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he lives with his wife Cindy and their golden retriever Dixie.

CHAPTER 1

ANTEBELLUM PHOTOGRAPHS OF ROBERT E. LEE

“Secure the shadow ‘ere the substance fades.”¹

As noted in the Introduction, Robert E. Lee's lifetime (1807-1870) spanned the period from the early development of the photographic image to the dawn of modern photography. The earliest two known photographic images of Lee have always been considered to have been made as daguerreotypes.²

The Daguerreotype Process

In 1839, when Robert E. Lee was in his early thirties, one of the first types of photograph, the daguerreotype, was developed in France, and was introduced into the United States shortly thereafter. Samuel F. B. Morse—better known for his work with the telegraph and the Morse code—described in the New-York Observer a visit to his friend Monsieur Louis Daguerre in Paris on April 20, 1839. Morse wrote of the Daguerretipes [sic]: “They are produced on a metallic surface, the principal pieces about 7 inches by 5, and they resemble aquatint engravings³ … not in colors. But the exquisite minuteness of the delineation cannot be conceived. No painting or engraving ever approached it.” The daguerreotype was, for its time, an amazing development.

Called by some a “mirror with a memory,” a daguerreotype was a positive image on a silver-plated sheet of copper. The basic process consisted of exposing a thin sheet of copper, plated on one side with silver which had been polished to a mirror-like sheen, to iodine and bromine. This created a light-sensitive coating over the thin layer of silver. When the photographic plate was exposed through the lens of a camera to a subject surrounded by light, a chemical reaction occurred on the plate. (Appendix A)

The photograph was developed by placing the exposed plate in a vapor of mercury that brought out the image on the silver-plated surface. The fragile photograph then received minimal protection from scratches and abrasions with a coat of varnish. In order to further protect it and prevent oxidation, the picture was sealed into a glass “sandwich” to form a packet, which was then placed into a small wooden or composition (thermoplastic) case. (Appendix A)

Photographic Plate Sizes

The first thin copper daguerreotype plates fabricated in France measured about 8½ by 6½ inches; this is called “whole-plate size” today. However, the actual image size was identical to the size of the exposed plate, which could be one of several other standard sizes governed by the size of the plate-holder behind the lens of the camera. Some of the early plates manufactured in the United States were even larger than whole-plate size.⁴ (Appendix A)

The daguerreotype was a unique, one-ofa-kind image; each was an original. It was fixed on a metal plate, and did not involve a negative. If two copies were required, two cameras had to be set up side by side. A copy of the image could be made later only by taking a photograph of the original daguerreo-type.

The image usually presents the subject laterally reversed, similar to an image in a mirror. Special reflecting lenses that preserved normal lateral orientation were available but not commonly used. To see the subject clearly, the daguerreotype had to be held at a slight angle to prevent reflection of light as from a mirror.

The quality of these relatively expensive photographs could be stunning. However, the process had its weaknesses, and by 1860 most photographers were using other, slightly less complicated techniques to produce their pictures. But in the daguerreotype's early days, even as the clear, lifelike images became more widely known, the concept was still so novel that it was considered almost magical by many who had little understanding of the technique. Consequently, photographers were sometimes asked to do the impossible. Two anecdotes reported in the Boston Daily Advertiser on June 28, 1853, which first appeared in the Springfield Republican, serve as illustrations.

NOT DEAD YET. A few days since, a man called at a Daguerreotype room in Northhampton and bargained to have a group picture taken of his family of nine persons. The next day he appeared with his family, and on the operator's ‘counting noses' and making out only eight of the family, and inquiring for the ninth, he was informed that one of the sons had been dead for five years but the father thought that he could describe him so exactly, that there would be no trouble in adding him to the picture. Another funny case is told by the same ‘operator.' A woman whose husband had been dead for some months, wished to have a copy ‘took' of a ‘picter' of her late husband, which she had in her possession, and which, she said, it was good except the eyes and she wished to know, if the ‘picter' could be ‘took' or copied with the addition of a brother's eyes, which she said were exactly like her late husband's and the brother could call and sit for the eyes if it could be done.⁵

Robert E. Lee's First Photograph

The first known image taken of Lee was identified only through the statement of a post-war photographer, Michael Miley of Lexington, Virginia. According to Miley, in the late 1860s one of Robert E. Lee's daughters brought an original daguerreotype to Miley to have more modern paper copies made.⁶ Tradition had it that Mathew Brady of New York made the original. After Miley copied the image, somehow the original daguerreotype portrait—of Lee with one of his sons at his side—was perhaps either lost or broken, as it can no longer be found. This scenario has heretofore been accepted by most students of Lee photographs, including Roy Meredith, Philip Van Doren Stern, and Marshall W. Fishwick.

Captain Lee's U.S. Army assignments from 1841 until August 1846 consisted primarily of engineering duty at Fort Hamilton, New York,⁷ and Washington, D.C., interspersed with leave time at Arlington,⁸ his wife's family estate, near the U.S. Capitol.

In 1844, Mathew Brady established his daguerreotype studio in New York City. Lee would have had easy access to the studio during this period. The young boy pictured in the daguerreotype alongside his father is one of Lee's two oldest sons: G. W. Custis Lee, born in 1832, or W. H. F. (“Rooney”) Lee, born in 1837; Lee's third son, Robert, was only a toddler at the time. The boy in the daguerreotype appears to be about eight, but no more than 10 years of age. Assuming that Brady did make this daguerreotype, it would have been within the first two years after he opened his New York Gallery, before Lee left for service in the Mexican War. Custis would have been 12 to 14 years old during these years, whereas his younger brother Rooney would have been seven to nine years old, which seems to approximate closely the age of the lad in the photograph. Lee, born in 1807, would have been in his late 30s, which also seems to correlate well with the formal-looking gentleman in the picture. Some serious students of Robert E. Lee photographs have suggested that this image was perhaps a daguerreotype of Robert E. Lee's older brother Sidney Smith Lee and his son Fitzhugh. Though there is a striking similarity of the appearance of Robert and Sidney Lee, the author has not been able to confirm this assertion.⁹ (Appendix B)

Certainly some photographer other than Brady may have made this picture, but the ages of the subjects at least narrow down the period during which it was made—that is, sometime between 1844 and early 1846— and Lee's army assignments serve to strongly suggest that the location of the photographic studio was in New York.

Collodion/albumen paper copy of original daguerreotype made by Michael Miley after the war. The original, one-of-a-kind daguerreotype was probably made by Mathew Brady of New York and Washington, D.C., in about 1845. Virginia Historical Society

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In late August 1846, Lee was reassigned to combat engineering duty during the Mexican War, during which time his “gallant and meritorious service” resulted in advances in rank to brevet colonel.¹⁰ After returning home from the Mexican War at the end of June 1848, Colonel Lee was assigned to duty in Washington, D.C. The day after he returned home from Mexico, he wrote to his brother, giving a playful description of his family's reaction to his changed appearance: “Here I am once again, my dear Smith, perfectly surrounded by this Mama & her precious children, who seem to devote themselves to staring at the furrows in my face and the white hairs in my head. It is not surprising that I am hardly recognizable to the young eyes around me, perfectly unknown to the youngest. But some of the older ones gaze with astonishment & wonder & seem at a loss to reconcile what they see, to what was pictured in their imaginations… .”¹¹

The “West Point” Image

In April 1849, Lee was reassigned to engineering duty at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor.¹² He remained in Baltimore until September 1852, at which time he assumed duty as superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.¹³ He had his

second photographic sitting around the time he began his new duties.

At the time of his reassignment to West Point in 1852, Lee was noted as being five feet eleven inches tall, weighing 175 pounds, and having black hair inclined to curl at the ends. His eyes were hazel brown, and his face was smooth shaven except for a black mustache.¹⁴ He appears to be nearing his mid-forties in this portrait. The original image, either a daguerreotype or a salt print (discussed in Chapter 2) was copied later using the collodion/albumen silver technique (discussed in Chapter 2) to print the photograph on paper. These “second-generation” photographs were copied and recopied multiple times, usually altered or “enhanced,” and widely sold during the early years of the Civil War. After the war, Michael Miley of Lexington, Virginia, also made copies of this so-called “West Point” image. The original photograph can no longer be found.

Collodion/albumen paper copy of the “West Point” daguerreotype made about 1867 by Michael Miley of Lexington, Virginia. The original, one-of-a-kind daguerreotype was likely made by Mathew Brady of New York and Washington, D.C., in about 1852. Virginia Historical Society

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From September 1852 until March 1855, Colonel Lee's duties compelled him to be at the Military Academy on the Hudson River, with an occasional official trip to the cities of New York or Washington, D.C., Mathew Brady had opened a studio in Washington in 1849. Lee also spent some leave time at Arlington, in close proximity to Alexandria, Virginia. T...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Antebellum Photographs of Robert E.Lee
• Chapter 2: Civil War Period Photography
• Chapter 3: Robert E. Lee's Wartime Photographers
• Chapter 4: General Lee as He Never Was
• Chapter 5: A General Steps Forward
• Chapter 6: In All His Martial Splendor
• Chapter 7: Wartime Original “From Life” Images of R.E. Lee
• Chapter 8: Robert E. Lee's Postwar Photographers
• Chapter 9: A Warrior Transformed
• Chapter 10: The General Mounts Up
• Chapter 11: Lee the Academician
• Chapter 12: A Champion for Unity,Both North and South
• Chapter 13: The Final Years
• Chapter 14: Mysteries of Time and Place
• Chapter 15: The Legend Lives On
• Appendix A: Evolution of the Daguerreotype Portrait
• Appendix B: A Family Resemblance
• Appendix C: The Bazaarat Liverpool
• Appendix D: Lee in Profile
• Appendix E: Prints from Photographs
• Appendix F: An Interview with Author Donald A. Hopkins
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author