c.1864 Andersonville Prison Sensationalized Civil War Lithograph Print

Item Details

Graphically fascinating — Let Us Forgive, But Not Forget hangs over a wide view of the prison’s hospital where many are portrayed in agony, at best at hard labor and worst held at gun point. Bottom margin key corresponds to these figures.

 

Along the edges is a newspaper style vignette of particularly dramatic stories — including two that center on Captain Wirz himself (the print’s salesman Felix LaBaume famously testified at Wirz’s murder trial).

 

LaBaume purported to have been at Andersonville (the artist George Frederick Keller actually was). Some documents have LaBaume on record & others report that was actually a German deserter from a New York regiment using an alias to sell this story. It is LaBaume’s face that we see at center.

 

Print line : Shober & Carqueville // Chicago, Copyright March 1864, Price 50c.

 

21 x 28” w/ full margins. Solid toning, water stains bottom edge & left. Does not affect subject and would likely clean. Minor tears to bottom edge have been stabilized.