Spiritualism in the American Civil War by R. Gregory Lande

Author:R. Gregory Lande
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2020-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Spiritual photography (Harper’s Weekly, May 8, 1869).

Mrs. Lincoln met with Mumler enshrouded in secrecy, no doubt hoping to avoid the probing press in her emotional quest. She was not successful in that venture, but during this visit to Mumler’s studio she left with a picture of Captain Todd, a Confederate soldier assumed by all to have died. The picture’s value precipitously fell when the subject was later found alive.

William Mumler was the impresario of the first spirit photography emporium, and in his personal memoirs he dwelled at length on a supposed visit by Mrs. Lincoln. His recollection of the encounter was published in 1875 in the third installment in a series of six that were mostly testimonials designed to “prove that these forms are actual likenesses of those who have passed to ­spirit-life.”44

According to Mumler’s recollection, a heavily veiled woman entered his studio and while awaiting the proprietor casually questioned a man on the verge of leaving after sitting for a photo. The woman seemed reassured by the conversation, and when Mumler asked her if she desired a spirit photograph she quickly agreed.

Mumler needed the woman to remove her dark veil, which totally obscured her features, an arrangement that his visitor would only grant in the moments before the photographer snapped her image. After Mumler captured her picture on the photographic glass the woman identified herself as Mrs. Lindall, a name the photographer neatly printed on the envelope with the negative inside. Mumler advised his mysterious customer to return in a few days, during which time he would develop and print the photograph.

Mumler’s studio was a ­one-stop supernatural shop, with the man selling spirit photographs and his charming wife a medium. When the inscrutable woman returned, Mumler was out of town, leaving his wife in charge, and at the behest of the customer she retrieved the previously taken spirit photograph.

Immediately after fetching the photograph and handing it to the mysterious customer Mrs. Mumler fell into a trance and, speaking in a boyish falsetto, asked Mrs. Lindall if she recognized the photograph’s phantom. Overcome by the photograph and the disembodied voice, Mrs. Lindall timorously ventured, “I do recognize it; but who is now speaking?” The spirit replied, “Thaddeus.” It was more than the poor woman could bear, hearing from her dead son supposedly returning from the spirit world.

A long, emotional conversation followed with her son as it became clear that Mrs. Lindall was actually the heavily disguised wife of President Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln left Mumler’s Boston abode with a warm glow and a spirit photograph showing her husband “standing behind her, with his hands resting on her shoulders, and looking down, with a pleasant smile.”

A gossipy insert in a Vermont newspaper from 1872 spread the word that Mrs. Lincoln had visited a medium in Moravia, New York, and through that agency had seen her husband, and while a motherly hug might have been more satisfying, she settled for shaking hands with Tad.45

Like today’s paparazzi, reporters kept an eagle eye out for

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