Thomas C. Roche, Photographer at Petersburg

THE PETERSBURG PHOTOGRAPHS

Thomas C. Roche, Photographer at Petersburg

Thomas Roche, "Ordnance Wharf at City Point." Image posted by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Thomas C. Roche learned his trade in the late 1850s in New York City, photographing the city and its harbor for brothers Edward and Henry Anthony, who established one the country's first companies to reproduce and sell stereographic images on a commercial scale -- E. & H. T. Anthony & Company. With the coming of war, the Anthony's supported many photographers in the field, marketing the photos for sale and distribution. By Fall 1864, Roche had attached himself to the Army of the James and took numerous photographs on the Bermuda Hundred front. While documenting construction of the Dutch Gap Canal, he came under fire. When an artillery round exploded nearby, Roche moved his camera and tripod to the smoking site and coolly continued his work, on the the theory that "lightening" wouldn't strike twice in the same place (see quotation below). By 1865, Roche was taking photographs on the side for Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of the Regular Army. Meigs was intent on documenting the massive logistical effort that supplied the armies besieging Richmond and Petersburg. Roche was responsible for many of the images taken of the wharves and other facilities at City Point.

Photographer Thomas C. Roche posed in one of his photographs at Fort Sedgwick. (Source: Field, Ron. Silent Witness, 2017, page 276)

Roche was a shipping clerk and an amateur photographer from Brooklyn who opened a studio there in 1863. By Autumn 1864, Roche was free-lancing for E. & H.T. Anthony at Bermuda Hundred and Petersburg, he joined forces with Andrew J. Russell to take photos of the Dutch Gap Canal and City Point for the Quartermaster Corps. Roche was with Russell for the final assaults on Petersburg. Roche is best known to Civil War historians for his photographs of dead Confederate soldiers in the mud-filled trenches before Petersburg on April 3, 1865, the day after the trenches were abandoned. It is clear from several images that Roche was rushing to stay ahead of a burial party that had already buried the Union dead and had started covering Confederates in the ditches where they fell. Roche took at least twenty-four negatives of the dead from the picket lines along Jerusalem Plank Road and from Batteries 25, 26, and 27. These photographs were afterwards grouped together as taken at "Fort Mahone," a better known appellation for this section of Rives Salient.

Russell talks with Roche eve of battle

Because of his skill with the camera, Captain A. J. Russell had been detached from his regiment, the 141st New York Infantry, to work for Herman Haupt, Superintendent of the U. S. Military Railroad. Russell was well acquainted with Roche and recorded a conversation from the night before Roche photographed the Confederate Dead series.

On the right is an excerpt from Andrew J. Russell, "Photographic Reminiscences of the Late War," Anthony's Photographic Bulletin No. 13 (1882).

"Petersburg, Va. Dead Confederate soldier, in trench beyond a section of chevaux-de-frise," Roche (unattributed), LC--B811- 3183 [P&P]

Detail from the above photograph showing a half-buried corpse in the foreground. Under magnification, individual shovelfuls of dirt can be distinguished, as well as footprints on the corpse.

"I cannot but relate a little incident among the thousands that transpired. It was at City Point, just before the move on Petersburg. Mr. Roche (now with Anthony & Co.,) entered my headquarters, and said, 'Cap., I am in for repairs and want to get things ready for the grand move, for the army is sure to move to-night or tomorrow night. The negatives on hand I wish to send North with some letters, prepare my glass and chemicals; in fact, get everything ready for the grand move, for this is the final one, and the Rebellion is broken, or we go home and commence over again.'

This prophecy proved to be correct, for in this great final move Lee was captured and the confederacy collapsed. I sat up with Mr. Roche until the “wee sma' hours;” he had everything in A No. 1 order for the morrow. We sat smoking and talking of adventures, etc., etc., and among others of Dutch Gap Canal, and of the pictures taken there under difficulties a few days before, of which a friend of mine had been an eye-witness. The enemy were bombarding the works from Howlett's Point, throwing immense shells every few minutes, tearing up the ground and raising a small earthquake every time one of them exploded. He had taken a number of views and had but one more to make to finish up the most interesting points, and this one was to be from the most exposed position. He was within a few rods of the place when down came with the roar of a whirlwind a ten-inch shell, which exploded, throwing the dirt in all directions; but nothing daunted and shaking the dust from his head and camera he quickly moved to the spot, and placing it over the pit made by the explosion, exposed his plate as coolly as if there was no danger, and as if working in a country barn-yard. The work finished he quickly folded his tripod and returned to cover.

I asked him if he was scared. “Scared?” he said, “two shots never fell in the same place.” At this moment the heavy boom of cannons were heard in the direction of Petersburg. Roche jumped to his feet, and rushing to the door said, “Cap., the ball has opened; I must be off,” calling to his assistant. In the next quarter of an hour two horses were harnessed, everything snugly packed, and shaking my hand with a “we will meet to-morrow at the front,” said “good bye,” and the wagon rattled off into the darkness of midnight towards that doomed city above which was such another display of pyrotechnics as few photos. have ever witnessed – shells flying in all directions, leaving their trails of fire and fading away only to be replaced by others. This was not all. The whole world seemed alive; every road was teeming and the call to arms seemed to find a response from every foot of the ground; the rumbling of artillery, the clatter of cavalry, the tramp of infantry, the shrieking of locomotives, calling men to their posts, plainly told that the time had come - that the destiny of a nation hung in the balance.

"In the morning Petersburg was ours. I found Mr. Roche on the ramparts with scores of negatives taken where the fight had been the thickest and where the harvest of death had indeed been gathered - pictures that will in truth teach coming generations that war is a terrible reality. A few minutes later I saw his van flying towards the war-stricken city, and in the wake of a fleeing enemy. Many were the records he preserved that day that will last while history endures, to relate the eventful story of a victory sorely won."

Print of Roche photograph from New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing same dead Confederates but providing a more expansive background that could aid identification of the location.

Photographer Thomas C. Roche

Detail LC 11724. "Rebel gun in front of "Fort Hell," April 1865." Roche is posed with a gun spike in this image which was taken April 3d, 1865, about noon. He had just completed his series of dead Confederate soldiers in the trenches.

Wikimedia contains more than 200 files in the Category "Photographs by Thomas C Roche," including many images from his western expeditions. Attributions to Roche are from a variety of sources.