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Most of us are never very far from a reminder of the Civil War
and the warís devastating costs.
(dramatic music up and under)
This week brought a fresh reminder of those sacrifices,
as reported by a handful of newspapers and websites:
news that the Library of Congress
has received a big donation from a Virginia
collector of Civil War photographs.
Exceptional, invaluable, amazing, stunning, striking, rare
were some of the words used to describe
the hundreds of ambrotypes and tintypes
of ordinary soldiers,
most of the men barely old enough to shave.
(music up and out)
(battle drum up and under)
We know that one of the photos
was of a drummer boy, Sam Doble,
from Dixfield, Maine
who survived the war,
went back to Maine,
got married and had two children.
But most of the people in the collection are unidentified,
including a little girl in mourning dress,
holding a picture of her soldier-father,
and a black Union infantryman,
sitting with his wife and two daughters,
like a future First Family.
(Amazing Grace, marching feet, up and under)
The war claimed more than 600-thousand lives,
Union, ConfederateÖ and,
in Indianapolis, several
several black servants in the company of
of Confederate P-O-Ws.
With so much death it is likely
that many of the young soldiers
who posed for those early photographers,
never returned to their homes and families.
But a century-and-a-half later,
along with the other fading testimonials
to a period even more divisive than our own,
the photographs speak
in a timeless and haunting voice.
(Amazing Grace up full)