[Great group of ex-Union prisoners]

Archive record

1 photographic print on stereo card : albumen ; 11 x 18 cm. | Stereograph showing a group of veteran Union soldiers imprisoned during the Civil War in various Confederate prisons, Andersonville, Libby, Belle Isle, and Florence, gathered for a reunion. The portrait was possibly taken during the 18th National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Minneapolis in 1884.

About this photograph

This 1884 stereograph shows a group of Union veterans who had been held as prisoners of war in Confederate prisons during the Civil War, including Andersonville, Libby, Belle Isle, and Florence. They gathered for a reunion, possibly at the 18th National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Minneapolis that year.

The Grand Army of the Republic was the fraternal organisation of Union veterans, founded in 1866. Its local posts ran reunions and memorial observances for decades after the war.

The photographer is identified in the archive record as Daniel W. Webb. The image was made as a stereograph, a format that presented two nearly identical photographs side by side for viewing through a stereoscope, creating an illusion of depth.

By 1884, nearly twenty years had passed since the war's end, and such reunion portraits became common as veterans aged and looked back on their shared ordeal. The archive record notes the specific prisons where these men had been confined, suggesting their imprisonment was a defining part of their wartime experience and identity as veterans.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

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