Author’s Note: The lead for this post is coutesy of Jenn Cortes at Collectors’ Quest (http://www.collectorsquest.com/). The site, which features extensive collections of a variety of items, includes a selection of militaria, including those who collect Civil War militaria (http://www.collectorsquest.com/featured-week/Militaria.html). Ronald S. Coddington’s collection was recently featured on the site and Jenn was kind enough to direct my attention to it via a comment on this site. I would like to thank Jenn for the lead and I appreciate Ron for taking the time from his very busy schedule as art director of USA Today to conduct an e-mail interview which serves as the basis of this post. The photos appearing in this post are courtesy of Ron’s website Faces of War. In addition, I have maintained a relatively low-profile in the CW blogospehere of late due to working on this post and illness in the family. This is the first post of its type on my blog, but I want this to become more the rule on here, rather than an aberration.
Ronald S. Coddington has produced two volumes of Civil War era cartes de visite and the stories of the soldiers whose images are included -- one of Union soldiers and one of Confederate soldiers. He is currently working on a volume of African-American soldiers who served in the Union army.
The Civil War was the first war in which photographed images of people and places played an important role in shaping public support or dissatisfaction with the progress on the battlefield. Fought during the infancy of photography as both an art genre and a medium of communication, Civil War photographs served the purpose now held by CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and the rest of broadcast media and the Internet, as well as some movies like Jarhead and Stop Loss.
To say that death was a very real part of the American Civil War is probably a very gross understatement. After it became apparent that the war would last more than a few months, many soldiers had tintypes, ambrotypes or cartes de visite, small photographs printed on card stock and given to wives, mothers and sweethearts as momentos of a soldier who really never knew if he was coming home or what condition he might be in if he did. Memories of happier times or images of when the soldier was at the peak of his youth and vigor could be looked at as reasons for these soldiers taking the time to have these expensive (at the time) snapshots created.
While these photographs have usually been kept by the descendants of the soldiers, sometimes one will get into the open at a flea market, garage sale or estate sale, mainly because the person in possession of the image doesn’t realize what it is they have. Unless one is a genealogist, historian or a very interested history buff, these things are often parted with and lost.
More often than not, even when these images stay in families for years, the families may not be aware of the stories attached to these images. Historians, students, geneaologists, and history buffs lose out on the rich stories of the lives of the soldiers in these images. Thanks to visual journalist Ronald S. Coddington we now have at least 154 preserved in his books Faces of War, a compilation of 77 Civil War cartes de visite of Union soldiers and their accompanying stories, and Faces of the Confederacy, a collection of 77 images and stories of Confederate soldiers. Coddington is currently working on a volume of images and stories of African-American soldiers in the Union army, with the goal being to collect another 77. He also contributes a column to Civil War News, “Faces of War,” which focuses on the stories and images of soldiers in a serial format.
In addition to compiling two volumes of Civil War cartes de visite and working on a third, Ronald S. Coddington also writes a column, "Faces of War" for the Civil War News and works full time as the art director for USA Today.
Coddington began collecting cartes de visite in 1977 at age 14. His interest in the medium was spawned by an incident with collecting baseball cards. “I collected baseball cards in a big way in the early seventies, amassing tens of thousands of cards pack by pack. In 1976, I bought the entire Topps set — all 660 cards in mint condition — and it killed the hobby for me,” said Coddington. ”Soon after, I discovered old photos at a flea market. Looking back, I was attracted to them, aside from their aesthetic qualities, because they were the size of baseball cards and part of a series I could never complete.”
Coddington, who grew up in New Jersey, said his early interests in history were mainly devoted to the Revolutionary War. He said that was “probably due to being surrounded by ‘George Washington slept here’ markers around New Jersey, where I grew up.” His interest in the Civil War was sparked after a family trip to Gettysburg. “I still can’t explain what exactly set me off, but I can tell you I left knowing that this battlefield, and the Civil War, was a significant historical event that I needed to know more about. After that, I was completely hooked.”
Coddington ”struggles” with how to define his work: whether it makes him a “historian” or whether it has become an outgrowth of his collecting hobby and a desire to publish a printed work. “I recently read an essay by Gary Gallagher in Civil War Times. He classified Civil War writers as non-academic and academic historians. The non-academics focus on battles, famous generals, and all things military. The academics focus on politics, culture, and the effects of the war on the home front. By education, I’m a non-academic. My degree is in art. But I write about topics that cross over both classes.”
Coddington said “the pursuit of knowledge” is what drives his research into the stories of these soldiers, even without the family connection that prompts research by most people who find their third great-grandfather’s carte de visite in a trunk in the attic of the family homestead. “I’ve been an avid reader of books about the war for years, and thought I knew just about everything there was to know about the subject,” he said. ”Then I researched my first soldier, a Massachusetts captain who suffered a serious leg wound at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and later died of blood poisoning. His story moved me like no other Civil War account. Moreover, it made me realize that I have so much to learn about the war and the generation of Americans that participated in it. I learn something new with every profile. I am, and always will be, a student of the Civil War.”
Coddington’s initial project, Faces of War, was really the only volume he had directly planned to write, based on his extensive collection of Union soldiers’ cartes de visite. “I began with the idea of writing only one book based upon my collection, predominately Union soldiers from eastern states.”
After the release of Faces of War, it was his editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press who suggested the second volume, Faces of the Confederacy, focusing on soldiers from Southern states who served in the Confederate army. “I possessed no identified Southern soldier photographs, and spent two-and-a-half years tracking down 77 cartes de visite — that number matches the Union book. I spent slightly more time hunting photos than researching them. Most authors start by writing, then locating images to support the text. I work in the opposite way. The photos I seek are scattered in the hands of families, private collections, dealer’s inventories, historical and genealogical societies, and libraries and museums.”
Coddington’s approach to identifying and researching a soldier’s image almost mirrors that of a detective trying to locate a missing person. As he describes it, sometimes he has a name, but more often he doesn’t even have that. When he does finally have a name and some sort of information, his research approach includes digital archiving and a lot of leg work. “I start by scanning the original photograph at high resolution for archival purposes, then post a low resolution version on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8026096@N04/ ) with a caption that includes the solder’s name and regiment, and a request for more information from anyone who may have a letter, journal, or other personal or public document. Other queries are posted on the Civil War Message Board Portal and GenForum. I include the Flickr link with each post. Next, I visit a variety of sites, free and subscription: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, American Civil War Database, Official Records at Cornell University, Library of Congress, Google Books, and other sources. I contact historical societies in the towns where the soldier lived. I make a trip to the National Archives to view military service and pension files, and tap into the interlibrary loan program at my local library. On average, I spend about three months gathering information, another month compiling notes, and a week to write the profile. Everything is organized on my laptop, and in paper folders with printouts. In some cases I’ve spent two years tracking down all the sources. And with new details coming online every day, I’m always seeking the latest databases and collections.”
He said his “collecting focus” includes “Civil War period cartes de visite (CDVs) of identified and unidentified soldiers and citizens that are compelling subjects, aesthetically pleasing, and of top condition and quality.” He said he only uses identified soldiers for his Civil War News column, but “the web site (particularly Flickr) can include any and all images from my collection.”
Coddington said he is still in “the very earliest stages of identifying images” for his latest project on African-American soldiers in the Union army and is “searching everywhere for original photographs.” He said they are difficult to find and hopes he can garner some assistance through the increased exposure to his work this blog post (and possibly others) might generate.
“Considering the rarity of black soldier images, I will be featuring ambrotypes and tintypes in addition to CDVs,” he said. ”This is a departure from the other two books, which included only CDVs. This is the biggest change so far. As for their stories, the impact of the early-war bias against black soldiers remains to be seen. I will know more once I’ve had an opportunity to research a number of individuals. The first black regiment was organized in 1862, and from that time on USCT (U.S. Colored Troops) served through the end of the war and beyond. African American troops were at Appomattox when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army in April 1865.”
Between his career as art director for USA Today, his collection, his column for Civil War News, his research and his writing, it is surprising Coddington is able to balance it all. “I wake up each morning about 5 am and work for three hours, then get my wife a cup of tea and prepare for the rest of the day. I find the long-term commitment of a book project contrasts nicely with the daily deadlines I face as a visual journalist. At this time in my life, I find joy in both.”
Coddington takes a rather simple approach to his contributions to Civil War scholarship. “The history of the Civil War is the stories of its soldiers,” he said. ”By telling their stories, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the war on the battlefield and the home front.”
While Coddington’s current focus is on the volume of African-American Union soldiers, he said he has several other projects he wants to work on after that is complete. “I am certain that I will collect historic images and write about them for the rest of my life.”
