GRAPHIC Dead at Fort Mahone

The second view shows more of the larger trench structure: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003005135/PP/resource/

Also the stereoscopic version has some info on it but I don't know how accurate it its- the water certainly doesn't look "2 feet deep":
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011649962/resourc
e/

When a person (or animal) is shot in the head they twitch and jerk something awful but eventually relax and usually remain largely in its last position, just with no tension on the muscles. When a body sits for a while it starts to stiffen (rigor mortis) and the muscles and tendons contract. The back tends to arch, the wrists bend, and the fingers curl under, and other joints move according to which muscles controlling them were the strongest. Only a slight movement usually, but it's worse if the weather is hot (starts to dry out- look at the Antietam dead) or very cold (sudden release of calcium from the sarcoplasmic reticulum which causes muscles to tense). So curling of the fingers could mean that the hands were clutched in pain at the last moment but it could also just be that the body has been sitting there a while.
 
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I don't think its a firing step because 1. there isn't any logs or gabions in place above the berm to support the wall for a parapet (as there usually was to the back of the parapet), and 2. the wall seems to gently slope upward from that berm, wheres the back of the parapet would typically be a strait 90 degree angle.

Sometimes a berm was dug at the edge of the outer ditch so that the walls of the parapet wouldn't erode due to the water in the moat. I think that's what it probably is.
You are correct. Slope with no revetment. Nice correction.
 
......A couple minor critiques on the coloration- the left half of his vest is grey and the other half yellow. His pocket linings should be white or beige-ish. Some of the colors are not how I imagined it but of course that's not important.

Excellent job and it's exciting to see this photograph colorized. The background is particularly well done- I can almost smell the mud and muck and... other stuff.

Thanks so much for your comments. I had not looked at this image in a few years and you are right. I originally did this image in 2011 with some minor updates in 2013. The areas that you mentioned was part of the 2011 colorization. I pulled up the original file and made the corrections mentioned as well as added some blood to the skin and hair areas.

I have left the original for comparison. Here is the updated version.

02542_w2.jpg
 
The second view shows more of the larger trench structure: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003005135/PP/resource/

Also the stereoscopic version has some info on it but I don't know how accurate it its- the water certainly doesn't look "2 feet deep":
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011649962/resourc
e/


When a person (or animal) is shot in the head they twitch and jerk something awful but eventually relax and usually remain largely in its last position, just with no tension on the muscles. When a body sits for a while it starts to stiffen (rigor mortis) and the muscles and tendons contract. The back tends to arch, the wrists bend, and the fingers curl under, and other joints move according to which muscles controlling them were the strongest. Only a slight movement usually, but it's worse if the weather is hot (starts to dry out- look at the Antietam dead) or very cold (sudden release of calcium from the sarcoplasmic reticulum which causes muscles to tense). So curling of the fingers could mean that the hands were clutched in pain at the last moment but it could also just be that the body has been sitting there a while.

Thanks so much for the link to the other version. I had done this image originally as part of a work I did comparing 1860's colorization's vs. modern ones. The hand colored version of this image can be found here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011649995/

Here is the image full size of the hand colored. Note that when you look at the image they have the soldier clearly colored as if he is in a Union uniform. This was fairly common since the image was in B&W and painting gray did not add anything to the image so it was just easier to color him as if he was Union. Lot's of Confederate dead ended up looking like Union dead when the got done. :sneaky:

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and the 2011 version that I did for comparison: (note it does not have all of the updates I made in 2013 or 2015)
p1324519464-6.jpg



and here is the full size version of the stereo card you mentioned. This is actually a slightly different angle and not the same card as the original image for this post. It is the same body though.

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Here is the correct stereo card version for the image above that can be found here.
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as well as another version that can be found here.
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Interesting. I never cared much for the hand colored card; it just looked kind of sloppy and the wrong colors bugged me. Somehow missed the second stereo card version. Thanks for sharing.
 
Interesting. I never cared much for the hand colored card; it just looked kind of sloppy and the wrong colors bugged me. Somehow missed the second stereo card version. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah the colors of the period cards vary widely. That is why I had done this presentation. It was to show period colors of an image with the modern colorization of the same image. I had about 35 images in the program that show comparison of old and new. Most of these images are from private collections and I only had permissions to show them for the presentations I made and not to sell or make them available otherwise.

There are a few examples in the LOC collection though, that are really interesting. Here are one of the worst and one of the best:

For worst, I would have to say this image of Pinkerton and the Secret Service agents is by far the worst. What is really sad was that this card belonged to Pinkerton personally and was given to him by the photographer. You think they would have taken more care with it.

1s02889.jpg


Then (in my opinion) the best of the hand colored stereo cards in the LOC collection. There are a few in private hands that I have seen that are better, but this is the best in public domain.
1s02416.jpg
 
The first one wouldn't be bad... if it was a watercolor sketch.

I suspect it was some type of water color that was used. I have produced both of these as reproduction cards and the one of Pinkerton is so bad you can hardly view it in 3D at all. I can only hope that this is because it has faded over time. When you compare it to the same image remounted with modern colorization it is really amazing.
 
Curious question, why the different sleeve colors? Would have thought they would be the same color.

Above his head you can also see what look like 'tread' marks from a shoe/boot.
 
He was originally lying on his right side and the looters rolled him over, I'm guessing about an hour or maybe less before the photographer showed up. Thus his right sleeve is still wet and looks darker.
 
Curious question, why the different sleeve colors? Would have thought they would be the same color.

Above his head you can also see what look like 'tread' marks from a shoe/boot.

About the "tread" marks, you might be right. I had not noticed it before. It may be something else as well though, since there only seems to be one of them and there is a lot of evidence of people walking and stepping in the mud, but only one that looks like a tread mark.

Good observation on the sleeves. Actually they are the same color. The reason one appears so much darker than the other is due to a few things that naturally occur. When applying color the original B&W determines how dark it will appear. For example if I apply the same shade of red to a light gray image it will appear more pink, while if I apply that shade to a dark gray object it will appear very dark red. The color has not changed, but the image pushes it one way or the other.

In this case the coat may have been stained on that side (blood perhaps), or is in shadow, or has worn differently.

If you have a look at this image you will see some of the differences in how color is applied. The background is just a gradient that goes from pure black at the top to pure white at the bottom. There are 256 different levels to slow shade it from black to white, so you really get all the possible combinations.

On the right is a reference color of red. This is just a solid red with no changes. On the left are different ways to apply exactly the same red strip so you can see what it does with color. These are "blending modes" in Photoshop and allow the color from the layer underneath (in the case the B&W gradient) to show through. From left to right the blending modes are: Color, overlay, multiply and soft light.

Black_and_White_gradient.jpg

You can see that each blend mode produces a different result at the same point in the gray scale. For the most part I use Soft Light, color or Overlay and you can see on all of them that the color disappears completely at both the pure black and pure white ends of the spectrum. If you look at the B&W version of the image below you can see that it is much darker on one side of the coat than the other which produces the differences you noticed.

02543v.jpg
 
speaking of the Roches series of 20-30 dead CSA only the postion of one has been identifed

Now its only my personel opinion this series of a dead CSA

But the pictures show the deceased lying very near a small drain in the mud

Similar to these pictures

According to researchers the deceased in the first picture was accidently killed by friednly fire when he was going from CS to US forts..
Regarding the second John Doe the wound in his face--possibly from a shell burst...possibly he was killed by the same burst and dropped dead feet away from John Doe #1....
 
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