Abraham Lincoln: Unpublished Stereo View of 1865 Inaugural Parade....

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Abraham Lincoln: Unpublished Stereo View of 1865 Inaugural Parade. Photographs of Lincoln's two inaugurations are quite rare. The earliest photograph of an inauguration is a daguerreotype from Buchanan's 1857 ceremony, although he is not seen in the image. As time went on, more and more photographs were taken but, in 1865, it was still a novelty and not standard practice. Alexander Gardner took two images of Lincoln delivering his inaugural address and these sell in the $12,000-$14,000 price range. The Library of Congress owns four glass negatives, also attributed to Gardner, that depict the crowds and participants in the inaugural procession as they gather and get into formation, preparatory to the procession getting under way en route to the Capitol. These were just recently discovered, having been mislabeled as dating from Grant's inauguration in 1869. This stereo view is a fifth, previously unknown, view from this series. It shows a large crowd of spectators and soldiers assembled in the street. There are soldiers with rifles & bayonets, soldiers with plumed hats, a carriage parked on the street. Two houses appear in the background. Just out of view (based on the negatives in the L.O.C.) is the Capitol. As things got organized, the street was cleared and soldiers stationed along the route that the procession would utilize. The 1865 inauguration was the first one in which African-Americans were allowed to march. A unit of soldiers and two black fraternal groups were participants. The line of soldiers on the bottom of this image may be from that group of black soldiers, but we cannot identify them with certainty. The black unit does appear in approximately the same position in one of the L.O.C. views, but people were in flux and changed positions as the event drew near. This unique view has normal, light soiling. It is identified on the back as "Lincoln's Inaugural Procession" and, on the right side, "C.G.G. 57".