Relics for Sale. Park View Before Work was Commenced. Albumen photograph on cardstock mount. [Vicksburg, Mississippi]: C.L. Longley, ca 1900. Printed orange label to mount verso with photographer's information and hand-written title.

An endearing circa 1900 mounted photograph of a group of African American boys who appear to be hunting for Civil War relics on the Vicksburg battlefield. A white man crouches by the boys and appears to be haggling with them over a pile of artillery projectiles. An ink inscription reads, “Relics for sale. Park view before work was commenced.”

C.L. Longley, a Civil War veteran and newspaper editor by trade, joined the Vicksburg National Park Commission in 1899. Having fought there in 1863 with the 24th Iowa Infantry, he relocated there after the War and was instrumental in the establishment of the battlefield as a National Park.

The photograph is a throwback to a time when battlefield relic hunting was both legal and fruitful. Enterprising locals, such as the boys shown, earned money by selling their finds to tourists. Many of these buyers were veterans who desired a memento from their past service.


[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Relics, Ephemera, Patriotic Textiles, Historic Photography, Early Photography, Tintypes, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Cased Images, Ephemera, Manuscripts, Documents]