AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE LINCOLN CONSPIRATORS EXECUTION PHOTOS: A STUDY IN DETAIL.
June 1, 2009
I wanted to let everyone who has been following my blog for the past year know that it has been a very successful venture. One of the most successful postings I produced was the 15-chapter series called The Lincoln Conspirators Execution Photos: A Study in Detail.
I have been working on formatting this study into a book version for several months and am glad to report that I have reached the point where I must regrettably remove the content from this blog and begin finalizing the document for print. The final version of this will grow from 15 chapters to about 20-25 chapters as I have lots of other tidbits that I want to add.
But to not cut people off entirely from the study, you still have access to Chapters 1 to 5 on line here so you can get a feel for how the overall project was produced. I’m sorry if it is like reading a story and then having to stop right when it’s getting good but regrettably, it is a necessary step I’ve had to take.
When appropriate I will report on how you can obtain a copy of this book if you wish. If you want to write to me and get on my mailing list, I’ll be happy to give you updates as I have them available. outreach@awesometalks.com
Best Barry
CHAPTER 5: The Execution Images: #1 The Empty Scaffold
The day before the executions were to occur, carpenters (soldiers) were ordered to build the scaffold. They had less than 24 hours to accomplish this task. These men worked all through the night and into the morning hours of July 7. Executioner Captain Christian Rath repeatedly tested the ropes, the traps, and the soldiers who would spring them, to ensure that all would work in unison. Carpenters made adjustments to the scaffold as required by Rath and by 11:00am, all was ready to go.
The scaffold was about 20′ wide and split in two operating sections. Two individual hinged traps were constructed, each supported by a vertically-placed wooden post. At the appropriate moment, these posts would be knocked away by two soldiers, allowing the traps to fall freely on their hinges.
When tested, the noise that the traps made as they slammed down could be heard throughout the penitentiary and surrounding streets. The four condemned prisoners would have certainly heard this, as well as the sound of the scaffold construction throughout the night. It was a cruel but unavoidable circumstance that they had to endure during their last night on earth.
Friday, July 7, 1865 – Execution Day: The temperature on this morning started out as hot and sticky in Washington. It would reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit by the time the executions took place. While a crowd of approximately 1000 people (soldiers, newsmen, artists and invited guests) waited inside the Old Arsenal yard for the execution party to arrive, Alexander Gardner took his first photograph of the event.
Technical note: To bring out the details in these photographs, it was necessary to lighten the images from the original exposure. However, the full size original photograph below was not manipulated.
PHOTO #1: The Empty Scaffold: The photograph below, known as “The Empty Scaffold”, shows the full image taken of the scene that afternoon. It was taken sometime before 1:00 pm. The execution party had not yet entered the yard, which eventually occurred at about 1:05 pm.
The Empty Scaffold - The scaffold is set up and ready to go. This photograph was probably taken sometime between noon and 1:00 pm on July 7.
A closer look at the scaffold. Two separate hinged traps are supported by vertical posts below.
Newsmen and soldiers relax underneath the scaffold to shade themselves from the hot sun. Vertical posts, each on heavy blocks, support the two separate traps above. It is these traps that the conspirators will eventually be forced to stand on: Mary Surratt and Lewis Powell on the left and David Herold and George Atzerodt on the right.
Soldiers line the wall behind the scaffold waiting to the proceedings to start.
Four chairs have been arranged on the scaffold for the prisoners to use. Gardner used these same four chairs when he took the group photograph of General Hartranft and his staff (see Chapter 4: The Executioners).
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Newsmen and artists gathered under the scaffold. The vertical post that holds up the trap which will support Mary Surratt and Lewis Powell sits on the heavy wood block below.
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Close up of some of the newsmen and artists.
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Soldiers stand underneath the scaffold awaiting their time to perform the duty of springing the traps. It was forbidden for anyone, other than these soldiers, to touch the two vertical support posts that held up the traps.
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Soldiers sit on the wall in the hot sunshine. Note the shadows cast by their legs indicating the sun is almost directly overhead.
Close up of one soldier
Chairs for Mary Surratt and Lewis Powell
Chairs for David Herold and George Atzerodt
End of Chapter 5.
Next Installment: Chapter 6 – The Execution Images: #2 Arrival on Scaffold. (Note: The link to Chapters 6 – 15 are password protected).
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If you are interested in reading the comments of some Lincoln experts, here are some interviews I did with several of them recently.
“An Awesometalk With” DR. THOMAS SCHWARTZ, Illinois State Historian (posted on December 08, 2008)
“An Awesometalk With” HAROLD HOLZER, Lincoln Scholar (posted on November 10, 2008)
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Best
Barry
Barry, You truly have the best Lincoln site on the web. You are a true professional and I hope that you will post as many zoomed pics in the near future that you can possibly post. I keep coming to this site everyday, anticipating new articles and awesometalks.
I am awestruck by this site. What software did you use to bring out such detail? I have tried to use photoshop on some old photos but they pixelate so badly that I can do little.
Good work!
Hey Bob: Thanks for the nice words. I use two software. One is a simple HP software I use strictly for cropping and positioning. The second is Adobe Photoshop 4. I could use Photoshop for all of it but I prefer doing my cropping with the other software. I use Photoshop primarily for adjusting the lightness/darkness/contrast that I need to manipulate to bring out the details in some of these photos. Although this helps a lot, it is not why my resolution turns out so good. The reason is simply file size.
I’m guessing that you find most of your images from on-line like I use to do. These are reasonably low-rez jpgs and so zooming in on the details doesn’t give you very satisfactory results. The key is to find high-rez scans that give you 20mb to 80mb files. With that much file size, you can zoom in quite nicely and still have as much clarity as the picture will allow. However, you have to remember that the clarity is only as good as the focus that the original photographs came in. Cameras from the mid-1800s had a very limited focal length. In other words, when they focused on a subject (say the eyes of a person), the eyes would be in focus but the tip of the nose and the back of their ears might not be. That is how restricted the early photographers were in taking photos. And movement just about ruined most pictures. So here we are 150 years later with our Nikons and Canons where focal range is easy to manage. It’s sometimes hard to remember that the early photographers had tremendous limitations. The reason I point this out is so when you look at some of the details in an old photograph you aren’t disappointed that it isn’t 100% completely in focus. The execution photos are very much like that.
But the real question is “How did I get such hi-rez photographs”? I will be posting that answer in my final chapter (Chapter 15) but I’ll give it to you here as well. The source of most of my photos came from the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs On-Line Division. If you go there and search under whatever topic you like, if they have it on line you will be given a list (which you can look at as thumbnails) and view all the pictures posted from your search. The photos are usually presented as both a lower rez jpeg and a hi-rez .tif file. In most cases I used the 20mb .tif files for what I did here. However, occasionally, the LOC also offers 80mb files. They take a long time to open but if you do, you can sometimes get even greater detail. I used this size of file for the Rooftop View seen in Chapter 14. Here is the link to the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html. Go see and play on it. I think you’ll enjoy it a lot. One really good thing if you look at these same images is that you can zoom in closer than this blog allows you to see. Due to width limitations on this blog, often some details are automatically limited when you could see much more if zooming in using your full screen. Give it a go and let me know how it goes. There are over 30,000 images currently listed (but that number was from 2 years ago so I’m guessing the number has grown since then). Enjoy.
Best
Barry