William R. Pywell

SLAVE PEN, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

August 1862

In the very important Civil War photographic document Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War, the inhumanness of slavery can be sensed in William R. Pywell’s photograph of an empty slave pen in Alexandria, Virginia, taken in August 1862. One can envision it as it had been, crowded with men, women and children “defenseless in their wretchedness,” each to be sold, as Frederick Douglass wrote, “like a beast in the market.” Two of the other recurring themes developed through the photographs in this kit trace back to these early days: the drive for education and the patriotic service of African Americans in the nation’s armed forces.