Russell, Andrew J. Russell's Civil War Photographs. 116 Historic Prints by Andrew J. Russell.

Dover, 1982. With a preface by Joe Buberger and Matthew Isenberg.  

Andrew Joseph "A.J." Russell (1829–1902) was a 19th-century American photographer celebrated for his seminal documentation of the American Civil War and the expansion of the American West. Raised in upstate New York, Russell originally trained as a portrait painter before enlisting in the Union Army in 1862, where he served as a captain in the 141st New York Infantry. After learning the wet-collodion photographic process, he was reassigned to the U.S. Military Railroad Corps, becoming the War Department's sole official military officer-photographer and capturing critical battleground scenes, engineering feats, and wartime infrastructure. Following the war, Russell was hired as the official photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad, producing over 200 large-format plates and hundreds of stereoviews culminating in his landmark 1869 album The Great West Illustrated. His most famous photograph, East and West (or "The Joining of the Rails"), famously captured the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, cementing the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. He later returned to New York City, working for two decades as a pioneering photojournalist and illustrator for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

Russell's Civil War Photographs: 116 Historic Prints by Andrew J. Russell is a significant visual monograph that compiles the wartime documentation of Andrew J. Russell, the only line officer of the Union Army appointed as an official photographer during the American Civil War.

Historical Scope and Focus

The collection primarily documents the operations of the United States Military Railroad and the Quartermaster Department of the Army of the Potomac. The photographs focus heavily on the Virginia theater of war, capturing the vital logistics, infrastructure, and engineering feats that sustained the Union military campaigns.

Key Visual Content

• Military Logistics and Engineering: The core of the book features detailed images of Union supply bases, locomotive yards, experimental bridge construction, and railroad track-laying operations.

• The Aftermath of Battle: Russell’s lens captured stark, unvarnished views of battlefield devastation, including the ruins of Richmond, Petersburg, and Alexandria, as well as the immediate, grim realities of trench warfare.

• Portraits and Camp Life: The prints include candid and posed photographs of Union officers, enlisted men, contrabands (escaped slaves), and civilian laborers, providing insight into daily life behind the front lines.

Technical and Narrative Value

• Glass Plate Clarity: The book reproduces 116 of Russell's wet-plate photographs, prized by historians for their exceptional sharpness, depth of field, and compositional balance.

• Historical Commentary: The imagery is accompanied by a preface and detailed, informative captions written by historian Joe Buberger, which identify the locations, individuals, and strategic military contexts of each plate.

Copies available:

• Wraps, 9x12 inches, near fine reprint with $7.95 original price.
• Wraps, 1st edition with original $6.95 price, VG with a few crimps on cover.
• Wraps, 1st edition with original $6.95 price, VG- with moderate edge wear and darkening at edges of covers.