Grant leans over Meade's shoulder (Library of Congress); balcony view today (Kathy Hart) |
Robert
Sullivan, in his new book, “Double Exposure: Resurveying
the West with Timothy O’Sullivan,” focuses on the enigmatic
photographer’s work after the Civil War.
O’Sullivan,
as the author tells the Columbia Journalism Review, left no autobiography, letters
or papers. While O’Sullivan is well-known
in Civil War circles, it’s safe to say most Americans know little to nothing
about him. He died at age 42 of tuberculosis.
Thankfully, O’Sullivan’s
work speaks for itself – from “A Harvest of Death” at Gettysburg (1863) to Iceberg
Canyon on the Colorado River, circa 1871.
At about noon on May 21, 1864, O’Sullivan (left), using a stereo camera, captured an extraordinary moment on the grounds and from the second-floor balcony of Massaponax Baptist Church in northern Virginia. Union generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade and others rested on church pews, wrote orders and surveyed a map after the bloody fighting at nearby Spotsylvania Court House.
John Hennessy,
retired chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military
Park and a history blogger, told the Picket the images are simply
remarkable.
“The series
at Massaponax Church is a rare, completely candid series of shots of the army
headquarters functioning,” he wrote. “I know of nothing else like it from the
Civil War.”
My sole visit
to the church came in 2016. With my parents, I walked the grounds. The
sanctuary was closed, so I could not ascend the balcony to see what O’Sullivan
saw below.
Since then, I
have been trying to get an image replicating the view, and late last year Kathy
Hart, a lifelong member of Massaponax Baptist Church and its history team, came
through, taking the photo above on a rainy day.
Hart has been helpful in describing soldiers’ graffiti still
on the walls of the church, Civil War tours she leads and more about the small
congregation today.
A team from the American Battlefield Trust last summer shot photos and video at Massaponax for its “Step into History” series. The video was released in February.
In the immersive
video, Garry Adelman, director of history and education for the Trust, says O’Sullivan
must have been excited as he ascended the stairs to record Grant’s council of
war.
I asked the
trust for more information about the video shoot at the church, which is at the corner of a very busy U.S. 1 (then called Telegraph Road) and
Massaponax Church Road. (The church address is 5101 Massaponax
Church Road)
Adelman (left) and team at Massaponax Church (Courtesy of Garry Adelman) |
O’Sullivan’s
treasured photographs are in the collection of the Library of Congress.
In one candid view, Grant leans over Meade’s shoulder to
study a map as they plot the next phase of the Overland Campaign -- a move
toward the North Anna River. In another, Grant sits with a cigar clenched in
his teeth. Also present is Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana and staff
officers. Wagons of the Federal V Corps rumble by in the background on what is
now Massaponax Church Road. Grant’s chief of staff John Rawlins also was
there.
Grant
realized on May 21 that Confederates remained in strong positions after fierce
fighting at Spotsylvania and he decided to move
to the southeast to try to get them out in the open.
Period map shows church and Telegraph Road (Library of Congress; click to enlarge) |
According to Cummings,
Grant wrote one dispatch from Massaponax, to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. One of
the O’Sullivan photographs shows Grant scribbling on a paper pad.
GENERAL: You may move as soon as practicable upon the receipt
of this order, taking the direct ridge road to where it intersects the
Telegraph road, thence by the latter road to Thornburg Cross-Roads. If the
enemy occupy the crossing of the Po in such force as to prevent your using it,
then you will hold the north side at Stanard's Mill until your column is
passed, and move to Guiney's Bridge. General Wright will follow you and will
cover the crossing of the Po for his own corps. At Guiney's Bridge you will
receive further directions if you are forced to take that road. If successful
in crossing at Stanard's your march will end at Thornburg.
U. S.
Grant,
Lieutnant-General.
Grant writer an order while seated on church pew (Library of Congress) |
“The
chaotic study is one of the most daring made by any Union photographer. …
Evidence suggests that it had been a disastrous day for the Union troops, as
the losses were heavy and no strategic advantage had been gained. In the
background are rows of horse-drawn baggage wagons and ambulances transporting
supplies for the next day’s engagement and the wounded to field hospitals.”
A soldier in one of the O’Sullivan photographs went on to receive the Medal of Honor for postwar gallantry. You can read about that here.
In 1863, during the middle of the conflict, Massaponax gave letters of dismissal to black members and they formed smaller churches.
Confederate and Union forces alternately used the church as a stable, hospital
and meeting place during various campaigns.
For a time, the graffiti on the balcony was covered by
whitewash that covered “unsightly marks and the sad stories were forgotten.” The
faded writing is now protected by Plexiglass.
A portion of graffiti left by Civil War soldiers (Massaponax Baptist Church) |
“A careful survey of the whole subject of the
inscriptions at Massaponax Church leads me to conclude that you have something
almost unique. The church was located in the no man’s land on the right flank
of the Confederate position at Fredericksburg. The church was consequently
visited by men of both armies. I do not know of another instance where
inscriptions of both sides have survived to this extent. To extinguish them in
any way would be to destroy a treasure which will become more and more
interesting to visitors as it is known.”
Today, the church has one foot in history and the other very
much in the 21st century, meeting the needs of those near and
far.
The congregation’s diverse 50 or so active members – many of whom commute to work in the Washington, D.C, metro area -- sponsor a food pantry. They also take part in the Samaritan’s Purse ministry, an international relief effort. “We teamed up with the local elementary school to help provide snacks for low-income students. Also, we visit the seniors at a nearby nursing facility playing bingo,” says Hart. (Photo, courtesy Kathy Hart)
A contemporary service is held at 11 a.m. on Sundays.
“Our mission
is to love God and each other through worship; to grow in Christ through
discipleship; to serve and fellowship together and to impact the community and
the world for Christ,” says Hart.
Civil War aficionados stop by all the time to gaze at the church or a historical marker outside about Grant’s council of war.
O’Sullivan,
160 years after he traveled to Massaponax, is getting new attention through
Sullivan’s book.
The
photographer was an integral part of Clarence King's survey of the West, undertaken between
1867 and 1872. It covered a vast swath of terrain, from the border of
California eastward to the edge of the Great Plains.
Sullivan, in his Q&A with the Columbia Journalism Review, says his subject “never stopped being a war photographer in the sense that there was violence enacted on the communities that the surveys moved through: either by the surveyors, or the way the surveyors framed the land, or the people who were there.”
Keith F. Davis and Jane L.
Aspinwall in 2011 published “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs.”
Davis, a photography curator, author and
collector, said O’Sullivan was a key and essential figure of his time.
“The
challenge was to grapple with a set of related but distinct questions: what he
did, why the pictures look the way they do and why this work remains so
relevant to today’s artistic practice,” Davis told the Picket in a recent
email.
“Despite (or
because of?) the dearth of information about O’Sullivan the person, his
pictures have had genuinely special resonance for every succeeding generation
of viewers. O’Sullivan is an extraordinary, mysterious gift that keeps on
giving.”
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