[Army Wagons and Transports, City Point, Virginia] 1861 - 1865

Andrew Joseph Russell made this albumen silver print, "Army Wagons and Transports, City Point, Virginia," during the American Civil War. As a documentary photograph, it captures a bustling supply depot that supported the Union Army. However, beyond the surface, it reveals a more complex story about race, labor, and logistics during wartime. The image is filled with army wagons and ships, but look closer. Who is loading, unloading, driving? What of the role of enslaved African Americans, whose forced labor was instrumental in the Confederate war effort? They were now being used to supply the Union army. City Point became a crucial hub after its capture by the Union forces, and that transition embodies the shifting dynamics of the conflict. Russell's photograph invites reflection on the human cost of war. It encourages us to consider whose stories are told and whose are left out of the historical record.