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Burning of the U.S. ship of the line Pennsylvania, 140 guns : and other vessels, at the Gosport Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va. on the night of April 20th 1861 – Historic Reproduction

Burning of the U.S. ship of the line Pennsylvania, 140 guns : and other vessels, at the Gosport Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va. on the night of April 20th 1861, [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1861. — antique lithograph
Burning of the U.S. ship of the line Pennsylvania, 140 guns : and other vessels, at the Gosport Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va. on the night of April 20th 1861, [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1861.. Antique lithograph 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 rare antique lithograph captures Burning of the U.S. ship of the line Pennsylvania, 140 guns : and other vessels, at the Gosport Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va. on the night of April 20th 1861 in remarkable detail. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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Burning of the U.S. ship of the line Pennsylvania, 140 guns : and other vessels, at the Gosport Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va. on the night of April 20th 1861

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Few images from the first weeks of the Civil War show a warship destroyed by its own crew, but this Currier & Ives lithograph does. It depicts the burning of the ship of the line *Pennsylvania* and several other vessels at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, on the night of April 20, 1861. As Virginia moved toward secession, Union officers at the yard, unable to hold it, set fire to the ships so they would not fall into Confederate hands. The print was issued in New York in 1861, when the northern public was eager for images of the war's early events.

Created / published[New York] : Currier & Ives, 1861.
Medium1 print : lithograph.
GenreLithographs 1860-1870.
NotesCurrier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, c1983, no. 0838.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,043 px · prints to 5 × 3 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-110996

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