Plate 63. Breaking Camp
date: label: date made
content: 1864-05
name: label: maker
content: Gardner, Alexander
notes: label: Description
content: Text and photograph from <i>Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War</i>, Vol. II. Negative by James Gardner, text and positive by Alexander Gardner.
label: Description
content: Here is represented the deserted quarters of Gen. Sharp, Chief of the Secret Service of the Army of the Potomac, at Brandy Station, Virginia. The tents have been removed, and the sketch depicts the scene when the camping ground, which had been occupied by headquarters during the winter, is being abandoned for the spring campaign. In the back-ground are the stalls for the staff horses, and the stockade or "bull pen" for prisoners arrested by the Provost Marshal General. The photograph possesses interest only as an illustration of the mode of life of the army in winter. No sooner is it known in camp that the quarters are likely to be permanent, than every man commences the erection of substantial quarters, which, in the winter season are made as comfortable as any village. Floors are laid in the tents, log huts are built, and their inner walls neatly covered with illustrated papers, and chimneys with capacious fire-places erected, rendering the winter home of the soldier, if not desirable, at least a very pleasant residence. Storms and frost are unheeded, and the long evenings pass in mirth, with no care for to-morrow's hardship or future perils.
label: Description
content: What sad reflections crowd upon the mind in visiting these relics of the past! All through the South in many a lonely waste such columns stand as mournful monuments of forgotten joys and aspirations; sealed volumes, whose unwritten lore none can interpret save those who made the record. Fragments of a sorrowful era, and witnesses of events which the world may pray shall never be re-enacted, the visitor beside each wreck will ask:
label: Description
content: "Why standest thou, lone mark?
label: Description
content: Gray ruins, mist and mould
label: Description
content: Are dripping where thy spark
label: Description
content: Glimmered in the times of old.
label: Description
content: Within thy bosom now
label: Description
content: The snake hath made his home:
label: Description
content: The owl, from 'neath thy brow
label: Description
content: Hoots [sic] in nightly gloom."
label: Description
content: "The chirping cricket's song has ceased,
label: Description
content: The silent spider spreads his feast;
label: Description
content: Here did thy winter welcome shine,
label: Description
content: Where darkly creeps the poison vine.
label: Description
content: So hopes too bright forsake the breast,
label: Description
content: And canker comes a constant guest.
label: Description
content: Old fragment! perish with thy lore,
label: Description
content: Nor longer memory implore."
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Virginia, Brandy Station
topic: label: related event
content: Civil War
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
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content: Gardner's Sketchbook
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content: Military
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content: Engineering, Building, and Architecture
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content: Photography
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1986.0711.0283.13
label: accession number
content: 1986.0711
label: catalog number
content: 1986.0711.0283.13
objectType: label: Object Name
content: albumen photograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 3/4 in x 8 15/16 in; 17.145 cm x 22.64842 cm