The San Francisco call., 1898-08-14

D I1ncla Sam is conducting the
 biggest photographic estaonsn-
 ment on earth and when the war is over there will be thousands upon thousands of negatives carefully hieo away in the National Library at Wasn- ington providing a pictorial record oL the war for future generations. Thou- sands of photographs are already plieo m at Washington and the stream VIII pour in until the end
 This Is one of the interesting 1unc- lions of the Signal Corps and Chief Signal Officer Greedy has organized the photographic service on a greater scale and with more completeness than was ever done by any nation in time of war before.
 The arrangements to photograph every conceivable feature Of the Phinp- pine campaign are typical or what IS being done even more extensively in Cuba and wherever land or naval oper- ations are going on. Uncle Sans chief photographer himself Is sailing west ward on the Newport with three other photographers, all members of the sig nal company of f1fty-fve which has gone forward This is Sergeant H. w. Chadwick, who has been with the Sig nal Corps for several years. He is an expert and for long time has been in charge of the photographic work of the
 Signal Corps. Before the beginning of the war he was stationed ~r the Ma tional Library at Washington in imme-
 diate charge of that great and price
 less collection of photographs of the
 civil war taken by Brady and sold to
 the Government for a fortune. In the
 same collection are photographs illus
 trating the recent Graeco- Turkish war
 for which Uncle Sam paid the modest sum of $27 ,00O. There are thousands of other pictures and negatives h,ed with every possible precaution for their pre- servation. Anybody who wanted copies
 of any of these pictures could get them
 after having little trouble with Ser
 geant Chadwick.
 On the breaking out of hostilities
 Chadwick was rushed to the front at . Tampa, and then he had influence
 enough to get into the Philippine ser
 vice. Chadwick came here with a big
 outfit and then started in buying. He
 spent over 5000 in a few days in sup
 plementing his outfit of the corps. Old
 photographic supply dealers say that
 so fine and complete a photographic
 field outfit was never seen before.
 Chadwick also took along everything
 needed for working by the old and al-
 most forgotten wet plate processes. If
 climate or accident spells his films and
 plates ne can start in and make his
 own plates. as they did a generation
 ago. His field dark room Is an in-
 geniously contrived tent.
 Sergeant Chadwick began taking and
 collecting photographs as soon as he
 arrived here. He photographed Camp
 Merritt in its every feature and se-
 cured copies of many views by pro-
 fessionals and amateurs. Before 1eav-
 inc ho rdad a hip NnnSjpnFn0nf of
 views to Washington and some anna teurs about town would be surprised to
 know that their pictures are already
 part of the official record of the war. The appearance of the troops, arriving, camping drilling, eating and leaving . was portrayed for the Government. and the troopships were likewise photo graphed inside and out and steanling away.
 The other photographers in the party , are Sergeant Charles H. Davis, T. B. Horn and Andy and Lieutenant Law renee.
 In case of military operations it will be the duty of these photographers of the signal corps to occupy advanced and commanding positions regardless [ of risk and take constant series of snap shots of the troops and the enemy showing every position and movement l of the action possible. Copies of a great number of photographs of this
 character illustrating both land and
 naval movements will go to West
 Point. to to Annapolis and to Newport : where they will hereafter be used by instructors. to illustrate and criticise military operations It is quite possi-
 ble that future cadets at West Point
 may thus see what the First Regiment
 of California Volunteers did at the f storming of Manila and debate the wis a dom of its positions and movements. a Other photographs will go to ordnance e experts, naval constructors, etc, who . study minutely the effects of shot and :. she'll etc. on this and that.
 i In addition the signal corps will t photograph the positions and defenses : of the enemy for the use of the con- f manders. Military photography is thus :. of great practical value as we'll as an 2 invaluable historical record, and in e this war Uncle Sam is attending to it d well himself instead of paying for q tunes afterward to other people Tn r Cuba the signal corps is prepared for s experiments in balloon and kite photo n graphy.
 e Their work is largely supplemented f by the amateur work of officers and k privates in all branches of the service. o There is a remarkable supply of cam II ! eras in the army and the war natural l, ly started a sudden and inordinate de- V mand for small cameras, especially for cz the folding pocket type. Every ama- "a ltuT pHOlOSIdpueE III the army IS TcduJ n to make any sacrifice to take a camera ,- along. Over hundred cameras went s- with the Minnesota regiment alone. | Every officer and private is keenly anx- " ious to keep and to send home pictures ii of the strange scenes of which he is a ts part and of his novel experiences. Hun- re dreds of thousands of photographs
 have gone to the old folks, showing the In young college graduate or the r, farmers boy marching gayly on Var ,d Ness avenue or getting shaved in camp l- Most of the thousands of Philippine a soldiers have also gone to gallery and