Lincoln Images Rediscovered

No, they weren't images of the Grand Review of the Armies, nor were they of the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant- the three glass negatives previously mislabeled by the Library of Congress have recently been discovered to be of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address.

The pictures, taken on March 4, 1865-just one month before Lincoln was shot at the Ford Theater show a rainy day and mud soaked crowds thronging the area around the podium where Lincoln was sworn in as the 16th President of the United States. A curator of the Library of Congress spotted the misidentification on Friday, January 4th while checking old logbooks and discovering the annotation 'Lincoln' in the margin. The Library of Congress was able to confirm by "careful visual comparison" with the two existing photos of the event that the images were in fact from Lincoln's inauguration.

Carol Johnson, a curator of photography at the Library of Congress was prompted to review the negatives after a patron altered her to the fact that while the photos were visually similar, they had radically different identifications in the Library's online Civil War photographic negative collection. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any note of the savvy patron who pointed this out-who I think should get some credit.

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division has updated the catalog records. To view the full set of photos, visit the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog at www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html.

Here are the photo links:
Soldiers and crowd: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.01430
Soldiers lining up: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.00601
Soldiers lined up: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.00602
People arriving (previously known image used for comparison): http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.02927