American Historical Ephemera & Photography

148 hand-colored glass slides featuring illustrated scenes, each housed in 7 x 4 in. wooden mounts with circular viewing windows. Most with remnants of original paper labels identifying titles and/or series names. Conditions vary, though most are fine, with moderate to heavy soiling/wear to paper labels.  

Highlights include at least 7 slides from the "Life of Grant" series; 20 slides featuring political cartoons satirically representing such subjects as Jefferson Davis, John Bull, and the Confederacy; and 42 portraits of generals and political figures including Generals Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, George B. McClellan, William Tecumseh Sherman, Henry Halleck, William Rosencrantz, Franz Siegel, Joseph Johnston, Philip Sheridan, Winfield Scott, John C. Fremont, Benjamin Butler, George Custer, and political figures including Andrew Johnson, Stephen Douglas, and others. 

Also of note are 4 slides related to the martyrdom of Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, including 2 depictions of the moment of his death, a portrait of Ellsworth himself, and a portrait of Frank Brownell, "the Avenger of Col. Ellsworth;" and one slide depicting the famed Unionist, Barbara Freitchie, waving an American flag out of an upper-story window of her home as Confederate troops look on. John Greenleaf Whittier published a poem about Barbara Freitchie's heroics in 1863 (based on a likely apocryphal story about Freitchie waving a flag and shouting at Confederate forces outside of her home in Frederick, Maryland), and her memory has occupied an important place in American folklore ever since.