Snapshots of the Past

Pontoon bridge at Decatur – Historic Print

Pontoon bridge at Decatur, [image taken ca. 1864, published 1911] — historic print
Pontoon bridge at Decatur, [image taken ca. 1864, published 1911]. Historic print from the Historic Print Archive collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This historic print of Pontoon bridge at Decatur brings a moment of history to your wall. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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Pontoon bridge at Decatur

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A pontoon bridge spanning the Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama, shows the temporary crossings that Union engineers built to move troops and supplies through the region in 1864. The town was a strategic point for the Union during that year, and floating bridges like this one let wagons and men cross quickly where permanent spans had been destroyed or never existed. The photograph was taken around 1864, but this copy is a halftone reproduction published in 1911 in Francis Trevelyan Miller's multivolume *The Photographic History of the Civil War*, which relied on the printing process to bring period photographs into widely distributed books.

Created / published[image taken ca. 1864, published 1911]
Medium1 photomechanical print : halftone.
GenreBook illustrations 1910-1920.Halftone photomechanical prints 1910-1920.
NotesIllus. in: The Photographic history of the Civil War / Francis Trevelyan Miller, Editor-in-Chief. New York : The Review of Reviews Co., 1911, vol. 8, p. 207.
SubjectsPontoon bridges--Alabama--Decatur--1910-1920. United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Transportation.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,096 × 3,254 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-181090

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