New photography by Pat Cagney captured with a digital camera.

Front of "Slave Pen," Alexandria, Va.

Artist Andrew Joseph Russell (American, 1830-1902)

Dateunknown date

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall: 10 1/2 x 15 in. (26.7 x 38.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 28 1/8 x 32 1/8 in. (71.4 x 81.6 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of David L. Hack and Museum purchase, with funds from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., by exchange

Object number98.32.3

Terms

U.S. Civil War
Slavery
Slave
Black
White
Alexandria, VA

Collections

Photography

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThe David L. Hack Civil War Photography Collection. This is a photograph of a brick building with seven windows and the words "Price, Birch & CO Dealers in Slaves" printed across the front. Four soldiers stand outside the building. One man is leaning against the doorframe, two others are sitting on a bench, while another stands off farther to the right with his gun at his side. Off to the left is a pile of wood and farther back a house or other building in the distance. The photo is also flanked with trees on both sides. This is from Alexander Gardner, _Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War_ (New York: Dover Publications, 1959 and 1972) (Hack Collection No. 36).

Label TextAndrew Joseph Russell American, 1830−1902 Front of “Slave Pen,” Alexandria, Va., 1863 Albumen print (photograph) Before the Civil War, this building in Alexandria, Va., housed one of the nation’s oldest and largest slave-trading firms. A mere seven miles from the White House, its proximity to Washington, D.C., infuriated abolitionists. The Union Army seized the notorious property in 1861 and converted it into a prison for captured Confederate soldiers. On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln liberated all enslaved people in the nation’s capital, and on January 1, 1863, his Emancipation Proclamation extended freedom to Virginia and the other rebel states. Gift of David L. Hack and Museum purchase, with funds from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., by exchange 98.32.3