Snapshots of the Past

Washington D.C. Gen. William Hoffman Commissary General of Prisoners (at right) and – Vintage Wall Art

Washington D.C. Gen. William Hoffman Commissary General of Prisoners (at right) and, 1865 — historic photograph
Washington D.C. Gen. William Hoffman Commissary General of Prisoners (at right) and, 1865. Historic photograph from the Washington DC 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

A window into the past: Washington D.C. Gen. William Hoffman Commissary General of Prisoners (at right) and, preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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Washington D.C. Gen. William Hoffman Commissary General of Prisoners (at right) and

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This wet collodion glass negative, made in 1865 in Washington, D.C., shows Gen. William Hoffman, the Commissary General of Prisoners, standing at right in a scene that also records the office he ran. Photographer James F. Gibson took the image during the final months of the Civil War, when the federal government was managing a vast system of prisoner-of-war camps across the North. Hoffman's office in the capital handled the housing, feeding, and exchange of captured soldiers, so the picture documents a bureaucratic front of the conflict rather than the battlefield. Its place in the Library of Congress selection makes it a useful record of the men who ran the Union's prison system.

Created / published1865
Medium1 negative : glass wet collodion.
NotesCivil War photographs 1861-1865 / compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge Washington D.C. : Library of Congress 1977. No. 0738 Title from Milhollen and Mugridge. Forms part of Selected Civil War photographs 1861-1865 (Library of Congress) · Gibson James F. b. 1828 photographer.
SubjectsWashington (D.C.)--History--Civil War 1861-1865. United States--History--Civil War 1861-1865.--Military personnel. United States--History--Civil War 1861-1865--Military facilities. Offices. Military personnel. Hoffman William.United States--District of Columbia--Washington.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Civil War Photographs
Original scan1,704 × 1,352 px · prints to 6 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-CIV-51930

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