History Mystery: Sharper Focus Uncovers Truth Behind Famous Civil War Photo, Karen Gardner, Frederick [Maryland] Magazine, April 22, 2019.
The slightly blurred,
black-and-white image is one of the iconic photographs from Civil
War-era Frederick. Confederate soldiers are marching down a Frederick
thoroughfare, believed to be Patrick Street, as the rebels march toward a
fateful meeting with Union soldiers at Antietam Creek near the town of
Sharpsburg.
Two history buffs, however, are turning the tables on the accepted story behind the photo.
Erik Davis, of Frederick, and Paul Bolcik, of Rockville,
aren’t historians. But they are tenacious researchers, and after two
years of careful investigation, their findings have punched holes in the
accepted story surrounding the photo. The two have unearthed a trove of
information about the photo and they are now certain it was taken on
Market Street. They are also fairly certain the soldiers were marching
south to what would be known as the Battle of Monocacy in July 1864, not
west toward Sharpsburg in September 1862.
The photo matters not only to those interested in
Frederick history, but also to Civil War buffs and people who study the
history of photography. That’s because it’s the only known photo of
Confederate soldiers marching in Union territory, Davis says.
The photo, first published in Civil War Times Illustrated
in April 1965, shows Confederate soldiers marching past a sign that
read, “J. Rosens[tock] Dry Good & Cloth[ing Store].” It’s that sign
that led generations of historians to conclude that the photo was taken
on Patrick Street. But the photo gave Davis, a geographer by profession,
and Bolcik, a landscaper, valuable clues that led them to determine it
was actually taken from the third floor of a building where Hunting
Creek Outfitters now sits at 29 N. Market St.
“I like history and mysteries about history,” Davis says
during a tour of Downtown buildings. His work creating maps for car
navigation systems gives him access to many street photos. In 2015 he
got the idea to re-create the historic photo from the same vantage
point, showing the area as it is today. “It would be a then-and-now,” he
says. “I seriously thought it was here on Patrick [Street].” A
historical marker, still on East Patrick Street, backs up the common
story.
Davis and Bolcik, friends and members of the Center for
Civil War Photography, got to work on their project. Their first task
was to match up Patrick Street buildings with the images in the photo.
But there was no match, so they decided to do a little digging. “Once I
started researching, I realized that wasn’t the place,” Davis says.
Davis and Bolcik went to the Maryland Room at the C. Burr
Artz Library, where manager Mary Mannix supplied them with old news
clippings from the era. “We stumbled upon a newspaper article that
showed J. Rosenstock Dry Goods opening on Market Street,” Davis says.
“We knew if we could find this guy’s business, we could find the
location.” Property records showed the Rosenstock building on Patrick
Street, which served as the home to Rosenstock’s department store for
much of the 20th century, didn’t open on East Patrick Street until 1868.
Newspaper ads showed Rosenstock opened his first store in April 1860 at
what today is 25 N. Market St. Today, that building houses The Perfect
Truffle.
ORIGIN OF A LEGEND
Most historical accounts say that Frederick photographer
Jacob Byerly took the photo, and on that point Davis and Bolcik agree.
Byerly’s studio at the time was on North Market Street, next to the
original Rosenstock’s store. It’s out of this studio where the photo was
taken, with caution.
During his tour, Davis notes the many architectural
features in the photo that match the North Market Street location,
including hatchway cellar doors, a dip in the sidewalk and the family
home of George Murdock Tyler, identified by fuzzy awning poles.
In the photo’s upper left, across from the marchers, is a
darkened building. Later demolished, it’s where Cacique Restaurant is
today. To the left, just out of camera range, was the Fredericktown
Savings Institution, now home to the Frederick County Treasury
Department. The bank told another part of the story.
“This was the bank that had just coughed up [$64,000] for
the ransom,” Davis says. In 1864, Confederate Gen. Jubal Early, who had
pillaged Hagerstown and Middletown, demanded that Fred-erick pay him
$200,000 to prevent his troops from burning and looting Frederick. Local
businesses and residents agreed because they feared the Confederates
would follow through on their threat. Several banks joined together to
pay the ransom.
Whether the photo was taken in 1862 or 1864 is less
certain, however. Still, there are some clues in the photo itself,
Bolcik says. There are several wet patches in the photo, indicating
possible rain. Weather records show it didn’t rain during the
Confederate visit in 1862, but it did rain overnight July 8-9, 1864.
Another clue is that many of the soldiers appear bedraggled, as though
they had been fighting for years, Davis says.
“The situation on July 9 [1864] was different,” Bolcik
says. Frederick banks were trying to come up with the ransom, but
outside, downtown was almost deserted, except for the soldiers.
“It was a crisis situation in Frederick,” he says. Byerly
was probably holed up in his third-floor studio at the time, hoping to
save it from the invaders. Nineteenth-century photographers typically
located in the top floor of a build-ing, carving out skylights needed to
provide natural light for photos.
Curiously, it was the economic depression created by the
ransom payment that drove Rosenstock to close his North Market Street
store in 1865.
AFTERMATH
There are no known original prints of the Confederate
march photo. The now-famous photo is a copy of a photo from Albert
Brown, who inherited three prints from his father, Benjamin Brown, a
suspected Con-federate spy. Albert made the photos available to Ben
Rosenstock, who had them copied by the Edmonston Studio, which operated
in Frederick from 1925 to 1934. The original photos seem to have
disappeared, although Bolcik and Davis hope one is eventually unearthed.
The photo likely didn’t measure up to Byerly’s standards,
Bolcik says. Byerly used a portrait, not a landscape, lens, probably
because he didn’t have much time to set up his equipment after seeing
the soldiers. There’s a thumbprint in one corner of the glass. “This
photo’s out of focus,” he adds. “And he probably thought no one would
want to buy a photo of the bank robbers.”
Frederick tourism officials are looking into changing the
sign to reflect the new research. The revelations about the photos are
not surprising, according to Mannix of the Maryland Room. “History’s
always open to interpretation,” she says. The pair did an enormous
amount of old-school research, using newspapers and property records,
she adds. “Erik and Paul read this stuff, and this is the result.”
Full Text and Image Source: Frederick Magazine
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