Revolutionary War

There are no photographs of the American Revolution. The war ended more than 50 years before the camera was invented, so nearly every picture in this collection was made either during the war by an engraver or long afterward by an artist imagining it.

The pictures made at the time are few and they were often meant to persuade. Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre in 1770 is the best-known example. It shows British soldiers firing in a neat line on a peaceful crowd, which is not quite what happened, and it was printed and sold to stir up anger. Maps of the battles were also drawn during the war, many by British military engineers, and they are among the most accurate images of the period.

Most of the famous Revolutionary pictures came later. Emanuel Leutze painted Washington Crossing the Delaware in 1851, in Germany, with a flag that did not yet exist in 1776 and a boat far too small for the men in it. Archibald Willard painted The Spirit of '76 for the national centennial in 1876. Printmakers such as Currier & Ives sold views of battles and heroes for decades. These images tell you how the 1800s wanted to remember the founding, which is a story of its own.

One small group of photographs does touch the war directly. In 1864 a minister named E.B. Hillard published portraits of a handful of very old men then claimed to be among the last surviving veterans of the Revolution. They are a strange link between 2 worlds, men who had been young during the war sitting for a camera during the Civil War.

When you look at any of these pictures, check the date it was made against the date of the event. The gap between them is often the most interesting thing about the image.