The Civil War Through the Camera - Henry W. Elson

A LIGHT BATTERY AT FORT WHIPPLE, DEFENSES OF WASHINGTON

This photograph shows the flat nature of the open country about Washington. There were no natural fortifications around the city. Artificial works were necessary throughout. Fort Whipple lay to the south of Fort Corcoran, one of the three earliest forts constructed. It was built later, during one of the recurrent panics at the rumor that the Confederates were about to descend upon Washington. This battery of six guns, the one on the right hand, pointing directly out of the picture, looks quite formidable. One can imagine the burst of fire from the underbrush which surrounds it, should it open upon the foe. At present it is simply drilling.

“STAND TO HORSE!”—AN AMERICAN VOLUNTEER
CAVALRYMAN, OCTOBER, 1862

“He’s not a regular but he’s ‘smart.’” This tribute to the soldierly bearing of the trooper above was bestowed, forty-nine years after the taking of the picture, by an officer of the U. S. cavalry, himself a Civil War veteran. The recipient of such high praise is seen as he “stood to horse” a month after the battle of Antietam. The war was only in its second year, but his drill is quite according to army regulations—hand to bridle, six inches from the bit. His steady glance as he peers from beneath his hat into the sunlight tells its own story. Days and nights in the saddle without food or sleep, sometimes riding along the 60-mile picket-line in front of the Army of the Potomac, sometimes faced by sudden encounters with the Southern raiders, have all taught him the needed confidence in himself, his horse, and his equipment.