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Private Samuel Shoop, Company F, 200th Pennsylvania Infantry

April–May 1865
Not on view
The last great battle of the Civil War was the siege of Petersburg, Virginia—a brutal campaign that led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. Samuel Shoop, a twenty-five-year-old private in Company F of the 200th Pennsylvania Volunteers, received a gunshot wound in the thigh at Fort Steadman on the first day of the campaign (March 25) and was evacuated to Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C. His leg was amputated by Dr. Reed Brockway Bontecou, surgeon in charge, who also made this clinical photograph. It was intended, in part, to serve as a tool for teaching fellow army surgeons and is an extremely rare example of the early professional use of photography in America.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Private Samuel Shoop, Company F, 200th Pennsylvania Infantry
  • Artist: Reed Brockway Bontecou (American, 1824–1907)
  • Date: April–May 1865
  • Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
  • Dimensions: Image: 18.9 × 13.1 cm (7 7/16 × 5 3/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gift of Stanley B. Burns, M.D. and The Burns Archive, 1992
  • Object Number: 1992.5134
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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Robert Stevenson, Reed Brockway Bontecou American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Robert Stevenson
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Judson C. Albright, Reed Brockway Bontecou American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Judson C. Albright
Reed Brockway Bontecou
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Stephen D. Wilbur, Reed Brockway Bontecou American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Stephen D. Wilbur
Reed Brockway Bontecou
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Frederick Hohmann, Reed Brockway Bontecou American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Frederick Hohmann
Reed Brockway Bontecou
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Herman Rice, Reed Brockway Bontecou American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Herman Rice
Reed Brockway Bontecou
1865

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