2022-07 Raynors HCA Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/16/2022
The 7” x 9” is mounted to largere board, double-matted and exquisitely framed with full description. The credit is from Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, Vol. II. “Negative by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, text and positive by Alexander Gardner”. The descriptive text is in part, “To the hero of Antietam belongs the credit of first developing and fully appreciating the value of a corps of signalists to an army throughout its active operations in the field, and especially during a great battle. His signal officers were most intelligently and advantageously posted, and seldom, even in later campaigns, has their assistance to a commanding general been more valuable, or more frankly and handsomely acknowledged, than in the momentous struggle on the Antietam ... A rebel correspondent of a Richmond paper, who claims to have been an eye-witness of that battle, thus writes on the succeeding day, of the part taken in it by the Signal Corps of the Union Army: "Their signal stations on the Blue Ridge commanded a view of our every movement. We could not make a maneuver in front or rear that was not instantly revealed to their keen look-outs; and as soon as the intelligence could be communicated to their batteries below, shot and shell were launched against the moving columns. It was this information, conveyed by the little flags upon the mountain-top, that no doubt enabled the enemy to concentrate his force against our weakest points, and counteract the effect of whatever similar movements may have been attempted by us."
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