Second Friday Lecture: Port Hudson: The Most Significant Battlefield Photographs of the Civil War 2.0

Friday, July 10  |  12pm – 1pm  |  Presented by: Dr. Lawrence Hewitt

Between June 14 and July 9, 1863–the final 25 days of the 48-day siege of Port Hudson–the photographic firm of McPherson & Oliver moved about the battlefield memorializing soldiers in action–and in combat! In the process of making this visual record of opposing armies actively engaged, the photographers created one of the greatest visual records of the Civil War. Their images included one taken at midnight (the first ever taken in the dark), one converted into a composite print (created by combining portions of two negatives), the Confederate army at the surrender ceremony, and examples of time-lapse photography. Sadly, the duo seldom receives credit for these images. Other studios, including Matthew Brady’s, published the McPherson & Oliver’s images as their own work. As with the battlefield they immortalized, McPherson and Oliver deserve better.

Lawrence Lee Hewitt was a professor of history at Southeastern Louisiana University. He has authored Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi and coedited four volumes of essays under the collective title of Confederate Generals in the Western Theater and three volumes of essays under the collective title of Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.