Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2012.

Images(2)

Embalming Tent at Camp Letterman, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Artist Peter S. Weaver (American, 1835 - 1906)

CultureAmerican

DateOctober or November 1863

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 6 1/4 × 8 3/8 in. (15.9 × 21.3 cm)
Overall: 9 5/16 × 12 3/8 in. (23.7 × 31.4 cm)
Overall, Mat: 18 × 20 1/16 in. (45.7 × 51 cm)

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

Object number98.32.224

Collections

Photography

Not on view

DescriptionThe David L. Hack Civil War Photography Collection. In this photograph four men stand in front of a tent. To the left and right of the men stand two upright coffins with two men inside. In front of the four men is a table with a third body lying on top of it. The tent is decorated with green garlands and a wreath. A sign on the tent reads "Dr. Chamberlain and Lyford's Office." In the background stand several trees. The text below the photo says "Embalming tent Camp Letterman, Gettysburg, Pa." This is from _Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War_ (Hack Collection No. 2].
Label TextPeter S. Weaver American (1835-1906) Embalming Tent at Camp Letterman, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, October or November 1863 Albumen print on Weaver mount, 6 1/4 x 8 1/2 in. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA 98.32.224 Samuel Weaver established Gettysburg's first daguerreotype studio in 1852. His son, Peter, entered the business, and by 1860 was operating the studio on his own. By November 1861, Peter had moved the gallery to nearby Hanover. Although he made his living primarily through the sale of portraits, after the Battle of Gettysburg, Weaver did his own series of views of the battlefield as well as a series on Camp Letterman. Note the living men posed in the upright coffins. Edited By: DS Edited Date: 01/2006Exhibition History"Civil War Photographs from the David L. Hack Collection and Civil War Redux: Pinhole Photographs by Willie Anne Wright," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, February 3 - October 29, 2006; Cape Fear Museum, Wilmington, NC, February 15 - May 28, 2007; Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, July 26 - September 21, 2008 Published ReferencesCarole Haber, _The Trials of Laura Fair: Sex, Murder, and Insanity in the Victorian West_ (Chapel Hil, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013) 92. "Dr. Letterman's Primitive MASH Unit," _America's Civil War_, July 2015, 32. _Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History_, directed by Ric Burns (New York: Steeplechase Films in association with Lois Pope, 2015).