THE PETERSBURG PHOTOGRAPHS
David Knox, Photographer on the Petersburg Front
Portrait of David Knox in 1862 by Alexander Gardner. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)
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 Photographer David Knox in November 1865 from a group image showing the officers of the St. Andrews Society.
Kittens, Puppies & PoniesDavid Knox was a Brady assistant at the Washington D.C. studio during the first part of the war and was responsible for numerous images of the defenses and defenders of Washington. He left Brady and worked for Alexander Gardner when that photographer opened his own studio in 1864. Gardner included four of Knox's negatives in his Photographic Sketch Book of the War. At Petersburg in 1864, Knox attached himself to the IX Army Corps, in particular, Gen. Orlando Willcox's First Division. Willcox's staff included two officers who free-lanced as artists for Harpers Weekly and other illustrated newspapers-- Andrew McCallum and Francis Knowles. Two of Knox's most circulated photographs were of Willcox's headquarters where posed officers are gathered for a cock-fight. Knox was also noted for images showing the 13-inch mortar mounted on a rail car, known as the Dictator.
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LC 03895. "Petersburg, Virginia. Cock fighting at Gen. Orlando B. Willcox's headquarters," photographed by David Knox on July 6, 1864.
LC 32420. "13 inch mortar "Dictator" in front of Petersburg, Va.," photographed by David Knox in Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the war. Washington, DC: c1866, vol. 2, plate 75.
LC 03801. "[Petersburg, Va. The "Dictator," a 13-inch mortar, in position]," David Knox, photographer, September 1864. A distant view of the mortar and crew depicted in the previous image.
LC 03801 detail. A close view of the mortar crew without its officers.
LC 33510. "Army forge in front of Petersburg, Va.," photographed by David Knox.
LC 04330. "[Petersburg, Va. U.S. Military Telegraph battery wagon, Army of the Potomac headquarters]," photographed by David Knox.
