Dead Confederate sniper at Gettysburg Battlefield. One of the best-known pictures from the Civil War.
Louise's grandparents immigrated from Ireland, settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and raised a large family. When her father was grown he immigrated to Maine, where he met and married Louise's mother. They moved to New York, then, when Louise was six, to Miami, where she grew up. Over the years Mr. Devlin gradually lost touch with his birth family. Around 2018 one of Louise's sisters was able to find and make contact with some Devlin relatives still in the Halifax area. So 2019 we hitched our Starcraft travel trailer to our valiant 2006 Chevy truck and set out for Halifax, Nova Scotia to visit relatives we had never met.
Coming home, we took our time and worked our way down the Maine coast, camping at various places and revisiting places we had first visited in the 1980s. We then went west to Niagara Falls, and from there south through Pennsylvania to Gettysburg, where we met with one of our nieces who lived in the area and her son. They gave us a tour of the battlefield.
Sniper's Den, Gettysburg National Battlefield Park
I especially wanted to see if I could find the location of the picture at the top of this post. One of the best-known photographs from the Civil War, it was made by Timothy O'Sullivan and Alexander Gardner after the battle. (They exercised a bit of "creative license" by moving a body 40 yards into position.) Nonetheless, it is a remarkably poignant photograph. The photo immediately above shows the sniper's hideout looking very much as it did in 1863. Rocks don't change much.
Our mighty Chevy truck and Starcraft camper at Gettysburg.
The next day we toured the old town of Gettysburg and ate in a very old restaurant. Then it was back to the road home.
My photos were made with a Fuji X-T20 camera and the Fujinon XC 16-50mm lens. I have no information about the camera used by O'Sullivan and Gardner, but it was undoubtedly very large and made negatives on glass plates.
Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment