Woodchoppers' Huts in a Virginia Forest. On the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. Wood Supplied U.S.M.R. Railroads under Supervision of Major Brayton

Andrew Joseph Russell

June 1863 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

Commissioned by the United States Military Railroad to document all its operations, Russell seized the opportunity to record perhaps the most curious habitations of the Civil War: the crude, teepee-shaped mud and timber dwellings built by migratory woodcutters along the forested route of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad in northern Virginia. The habitations were constructed and primarily inhabited by African American men employed by the Union army to chop timber for railroad ties and bridges and fuel for military locomotives.

Artist

Andrew Joseph Russell

Date

June 1863

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2019