The Untold Story of Shields Green by Louis A. DeCaro Jr

Author:Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. [DeCaro, Jr., Louis A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000 History / General
Publisher: New York University Press

6

Emperor Seen

Image and Identity

Historical enquiry must match the depictive content of the art-work.

Sarah Barber

In early November 1859, while John Brown and his men sat in their jail cells awaiting execution, the Boston sculptor Edward Brackett arrived in Charlestown on a mission to capture the Old Man’s image in a bust. Brackett was financed by one of Brown’s most generous supporters, George Luther Stearns of Medford, Massachusetts, but the task was an unpleasant one because of the hostility of the Virginians toward their prisoners. When Brackett arrived in town, he was cordially greeted by community leaders but soon began to realize that their courtesy belied a determined opposition. Finding himself sent back and forth between the judge and the jailer to no avail, Brackett became increasingly disturbed at getting the runaround by his hosts. When he finally complained to authorities, he was curtly informed that he was suspected of being an abolitionist spy. As coincidence would have it, Brackett found a secret ally in Edward “Ned” House, the undercover New York Daily Tribune journalist with whom he was acquainted. House duly relayed Brackett’s frustrations in the pages of the Tribune, lamenting that it appeared the sculptor would be “obliged to return without accomplishing his object, for it is wholly impossible to satisfy the jealous Virginians that there is not in his visit here a great deal more than meets the eye.”1

Amidst these frustrations, Brackett found fleeting hope when he discovered that a daguerreotype operator—a man with a camera—was accessible, his idea being that he might at least depart from Charlestown with a photograph of John Brown from which to work. However, as House reported, the notion of the camera also “was met with opposition” by leaders in Charlestown. The Tribune journalist noted that the daguerreotype operator was a “traveling” photographer, but it may be that he was introduced to Brackett by a local artist named Lewis Graham Dinkle, who may also have had a facility for photography.2

The idea of using a camera perhaps came to Brackett when he learned that ambrotype images were being made of some uniformed militia men near the site of Brown’s incarceration. The extant ambrotypes show cheerful young Virginians in uniform, one of which often was presented as a Civil War photo during the twentieth century.3 According to another researcher, the ambrotypes were made at the instigation of some of the Richmond Grays, a militia unit that included the actor John Wilkes Booth, later the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.4 Outraged by the attack on Harper’s Ferry, Booth had abandoned his performance role at a Richmond theater and went to Charlestown in the guise of a Virginia Gray so that he could participate in the execution of John Brown.5

Despite Brackett’s efforts and the proximity of a camera to the jailhouse, history was deprived of photographic images of Brown and his men in their jail cells, the only reason being the prejudice and resentment of the Virginians. Notwithstanding opposition from officials in town, however, Brackett did finally manage to steal a meeting with Brown.

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