Discarded Confederate mortar at abandoned Fort Johnson, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, 1865 (b/w photo)

Heavy 10-inch seacoast mortar, deliberately abandoned in the shoreline sand by Fort Johnson’s Confederate defenders, upon abandoning James Island to Union occupation during the closing stages of the Civil War; note the American flag flying at half-staff beyond the gun-positions, in mourning for the recent assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865. Image produced by combining a stereographic pair of wet-collodion glass negatives into a single wide photograph, cleaned and repaired. Original 1865 glass-negative attributable to either George N. Barnard or Samuel A. Cooley.