![]() ![]() “A lover of liberty, he was an abolitionist from his earliest recollection, and remained an enemy of slavery until it was destroyed,” according to A Eulogy of the Life and Character of Alexander Gardner, by Joseph M. Gardner believed in the ultimate success of the North. Time stood still as the musket slid out of his hands, and he lowered himself to the ground. But we imagine him recoiling and slumping against the boulder adjacent to the rock wall. A Yankee sharpshooter was one step ahead of the confident Confederate. Instead, we are stunned to see that the predator became the victim. His breathing shallow, he would have taken careful aim at Union artillerymen posted along the exposed crest, then slowly squeezed the trigger to send a bullet on its merciless errand of death. Gardner’s rebel sharpshooter would have stood silently behind the wall, gazing intently at the hilltop from behind the barrel of his musket, a lion in his lair watching a herd of gazelles. ![]() And he makes it easy for us to fill in the rest of his fictitious narrative. The view occupies a small portion of the overall composition, but plays an enormous role in Gardner’s story. Little Round Top is visible beyond the rock wall in Gardner’s photograph. There they were repelled by hastily organized blue troops arrayed along its heights. To our right was Plum Run Valley, which became forever known as the Valley of Death after gray infantry advanced along its lowlands to Little Round Top. Kirby heads up operations at Gettysburg, and he is clearly at home there among the supersized boulders.Īs the three of us stood on hallowed ground and took in the same view that Gardner captured through his lens, I noted the area outside the frame of his iconic image.ĭirectly behind us was the gently sloping rise from which waves of Confederates descended upon the thin blue line of infantry spread out along the rocks on the afternoon of July 2, 1863. ![]() Robert Kirby of the National Park Service accompanied us. A talented writer with a passion for history, Myers is a meticulous planner who leaves no stone unturned in his quest for information. I walked through Devil’s Den a few weeks ago with Chuck Myers, a veteran reporter and photographer for McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Credits: Chuck Myers (left), Library of Congress. Coddington at the infamous site right: Alexander Gardner’s photo of the mortally wounded Confederate sharpshooter. The Gardner team worked with what they had, and were mindful that they were in Gettysburg to tell the story of what some instinctively understood was the turning point of the war in favor of the Union.ĭevil’s Den now and then. Only three days had passed since the brutal fighting in this sector had littered the landscape with broken bodies and debris, but most of the human remains had been recovered. We know from an analysis of photographs by Gardner and his assistants that this same body and musket appears in several images made during their visit to the battlefield on July 5, 1863. The story that the photo seems to tell is fiction. The brilliant pioneer photojournalist is responsible for misleading us into believing that a Confederate sharpshooter was mortally wounded, and, moreover, that the fatally injured rebel calmly placed his musket against a rock, lay supine upon the ground, and cushioned his head on a pillow made from a haversack to await death. It is an undeniable fact that Alexander Gardner staged “Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter,” one of the best-known photographs of Gettysburg. ![]()
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