Photos: Civil War Days Jefferson Iowa By G.C. Stevens U.S. Photographer

 

 All Photos by G.C. Stevens  

*U.S. Photographer: Photo gallery*

The Army of The Southwest Keeps History Alive!

The Army of the southwest (ASW) held the annual civil war reenactment in Jefferson Iowa as part of the Bell Tower Festival. Saturday was very damp due to the ongoing rainstorms that have passed through Iowa over the last few weeks. But Sunday was a beautiful day. Jefferson is located in a very bucolic setting in western Iowa and one of my favorite things about this event, was that the train horns can be heard in the air from the local Union Pacific railroad line. This was my first event for 2026, and I decided to incorporate one of my passions to my historic impressions as a field photographer. But it took some work to create this impression, so I built a camera housing that would accommodate both a traditional black and white film camera and a small digital camera. I was already in possession of a vintage Kodak Brownie Camera (120) that I purchased many years ago when I was experimenting with different film formats. I included a small digital camera for quick and expedient photos. I will be adding more photos to this article later when the roll of 120 film return from the processor.

Seargent OJ Fargo conducts drill

The camera housing with the digital camera

The digital camera in a home made adapter

The digital camera

The homemade camera housing

The camera hosing with the vintage Brownie inside

                                         Camp Photos

Drill

Trains, Trails & Outlaws, By G.C. Stevens: Now on Amazon

 

Trains, Trails and Out Laws: Western Poetry & Stories III invites readers onto dusty roads, steel rails, and prairie paths where the American frontier still breathes. G.C. Stevens blends original Western poetry, short stories, personal photographs, RPPCs, postal history, and vivid historical sketches to celebrate Iowa and the Midwest as the doorway to the West.

From Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Black Hawk, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid to the Pony Express, Chisholm Trail, Rock Island Railroad, and Sitting Bull, this collection captures legends, landscapes, and working people shaped by courage, hardship, memory, and myth, an affectionate tribute to Western heritage and imagination for readers of history and folklore alike.

 Also find Trains, Trails & Outlaws on Amazon.com and Jones Book Store

Trains Trails & Outlaws on Amazon (Paperback & ebook)

Jones book store

CHECK OUT OUR MERCHANDISE STORE AT BONFIRE

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DUSTY TRAILS BOOKS

Postmortem Photos, When Life and Death Lived Under the Same Roof. By G.C. Stevens

 

Photo courtesy of Gary Shamrock collection .

Cambridge, Iowa 

 The smell of wood smoke hung in the air; the old towns have their own ways. The past still lives here: old bank buildings, old brick jailhouses, old houses near the square. A railroad town, once bigger than now. The sign painted on the side of an old brick building read: The Big Store—Furniture—Undertaking—Rugs—Linoleum—S. E. Cooper and Sons.

A time when undertaking became a necessary side hustle and full time American profession.

 —G.C. Stevens 

An enhanced version of an advertisement painted on the side of an old brick building, 

See the faded original at the end of this article.

 Photo taken by the author in Cambridge Iowa

One of the lesser talked about aspects of living on the early frontier, even in small towns, up until the late 1800's. Is how families reconciled the death of loved ones. Thoughtfully speaking, it could be said that technology, legality, and the pace of life, not only made it more difficult for families to deal with the death of the departed, and it became more expedient to hand their loved ones over to morticians. The 1800's (and before) was however a very different era. A time in which death and life resided together as a fact of living. And the modern convenience of undertaking services, did not begin in earnest until the civil war created a need for trained and ready men and women to assume the roles of caretaker of the dead. But before that time, consider this, that many early homes were built with a room, which we now we refer to as "the living room." This particular space was at one time called a "parlor," and was in fact, not only living space, but rather the parlor where family members would lay out the dead for visitation and funeral after a death in the family had occurred.  For those of us living in current times, it is indeed difficult and sometimes perceived morbid for us to view such a lifestyle in connection with our relationship with the dead, but in those days, it was a very normal for family members to be close to the death in its final stages and the family would have the responsibility of preparing and interring the deceased.                                                               

                                                Enter Photography

In the autumn of 1839, the invention of the daguerreotype photo in America radically altered how the nation recorded its history and conceptualized its memory. Invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, this pioneering process utilized a polished, silver-coated copper plate sensitized with iodine vapors and developed over heated mercury to lock in a highly detailed, mirror-like image. While European audiences viewed the invention as a marvelous scientific novelty, Americans embraced as part of their culture.

​Prior to the 1840s, having a personal likeness recorded was a luxury exclusive to the wealthy who could afford commissioned oil paintings. The rapid proliferation of the daguerreotype galleries, pioneered by figures like Mathew Brady in New York and the partnership of Albert Southworth and Joseph Pennel, (also see Josiah Hawes who was a later partner) in Boston, for the first time, average working-class citizens could obtain an exact, enduring "likeness" of themselves or their families for the price of a few dollars. By the 1850s, the mainstreamed the medium had become so deeply woven into the American identity that international commentators frequently referred to it as "the American process."

 Postmortem Photography

​Beyond documenting the living, early American photography served as a profound and intimate partner in navigating the era's high mortality rates through the profession and practice of post-mortem photography. In the 19th century, death was a highly visible domestic reality for family members. Medical science was limited, epidemics were common, and families routinely cared for the dying and prepared corpses for burial within their own parlors. Because the photographic process was still relatively expensive and required long, perfectly still exposure times, many individuals—particularly infants and young children—passed away without ever having had their picture taken while alive.

​Consequently, mourning families frequently commissioned photographers to capture a final, permanent visual record of their deceased loved ones. Far from being viewed as macabre, these images were deeply cherished sentimental keepsakes. Early post-mortem photographs were thoughtfully staged to reflect the Victorian concept of the "Last Sleep." Deceased children were often photographed resting peacefully in cribs, tucked into couches with a favorite teddy bear, or cradled in the arms of grieving parents.

​To heighten the illusion of life, photographers employed various delicate techniques. Because living subjects often blurred due to micro-movements during long exposures, the deceased—who remained perfectly still—frequently appeared with striking, crystalline clarity in the finished image. Photographers would sometimes gently prop open the eyelids of the deceased or meticulously hand-paint lifelike pupils and a soft pink flush onto the cheeks of the cold tin or silver plates.

​By the dawn of the American Civil War, newer, cheaper and reproducible mediums like ambrotypes, tintypes, and paper albumen prints replaced the singular daguerreotype. As the 20th century approached, the rise of the commercial funeral industry and hospital care sanitized death, removing the corpse from the family home. Concurrently, the invention of affordable snapshot cameras meant families captured abundance of images during a person's lifetime, causing the cultural necessity for post-mortem photos to gracefully fade away. Today, these early photographs remain a poignant testament to a young nation's ingenuity and its tender, deeply intimate relationship with memory and loss.

Photo courtesy Gary Shamrock collection

Photo courtesy of Gary Shamrock collection.

Postmortem photo, photographer unknown, approx. 1850

Postmortem photography took a strange twist when photographers such as the famed Arizona photographer C.S. Fly went into the field to capture photos of the life of the wild west. Based in Tombstone, Arizona, C.S. Fly documented the peace treaty between Apache Chief Geronimo and the U.S. Army in 1886, as well as other iconic moments of the Old West. Many images were captured that showed the publics hangings and the results of clashes between law enforcement and famous bandits. The photos below are copies from the authors collection.

C.S. Fly's Gallery in Tombstone Arizona, photo public domain

Death photo of the Clanton and McClaurys after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881

Tom McClaury, Frank McClaury and Billy Clanton

Members of the Dalton gang killed in Coffeyville KS

Left to right, Bill Powers, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton and Dick Broadwell

​References

​Gillespie, S. K. (2016). The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology. The MIT Press.

​The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–60. (2004, October 1). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-daguerreian-era-and-early-american-photography-on-paper-1839-1860

​Post-Mortem Photography: An Overview. (n.d.). University of Michigan Clements Library. https://clements.umich.edu/exhibit/death-in-early-america/post-mortem-overview/

https://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/01/06/strange-past-post-mortem-photography-by-steve-huff/?amp=1

A faded wall advertisement for the business of  S.E. Cooper and Sons, Cambridge Iowa.

Photo by the author.

Wakinyans Fugitives: Return of The Dime Novel By G.C. Stevens

Coming soon

 The dime novels emerged in 1860's when publishers Erastus and Irwin Beadle released Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Ann S. Stephens, launching an affordable paperback revolution priced at a dime (with many later nickel weeklies even cheaper). These sensationalized, paperbound stories—often 100 pages of melodrama, adventure, and frontier action were read by young readers, exploding in popularity during and after the Civil War. Early volumes drew from James Fenimore Cooper's style, focusing on conflicts with Native Americans, but quickly shifted to cowboy heroes, outlaws, train robbers, and Wild West legends like Buffalo Bill. 

Dusty Trails of the Old West Publishing brings back the Dime (and nickel) western novel with issue #1 "Wankinyans Fugitives." With two new frontier heroes, Frontiersman-trappers Levi Boone and Jean Cadotte, two bold figures from the old northwest territory, who do battle with the great Dakota Warrior Chief Ackicita, at the sacred ground of Pipestone.

Story City Carousel Honors Wild West History: By G.C. Stevens

 

Story City Iowa is a very quaint and picturesque town located just north of Ames Iowa off of I-35. Once you arrive there you are greeted with beautiful parks, a nostalgic old downtown and fields of the color of Kelly green. But Story City has one really unique tourist attraction on the west side of town, and that attraction is the vintage Story City Carousel. The carousel dates back to 1913, and it is a beautifully preserved living mechanical artifact, that puts smiles on peoples faces. The old time ride is adorned with symbols of the American west and loaded with breathtaking hand carved horses. The carousel is a step back into a time within the confines of an Americana icon.

All Photos were taken by the author

Paintings on canvass deck out the upper part of the ride. Symbols of the American West

Story City Carousel

Decoration Day By Matthew Kerns

  Photo courtesy of Matthew Kerns Buffalo Bill Cody

 at the grave of best friend and partner Texas Jack in Leadville, 1908.

Before it was made a federal holiday, the day we celebrate as "Memorial Day" was called "Decoration Day," and was a chance for towns across the United States to remember those who had fallen in the Civil War, as well as those veterans who had passed in the years since.  

The tradition began on June 3, 1861, with the decoration of the grave of Captain John Quincy Marr, the first Confederate officer killed during the war, but traditions soon became established across both the North and South. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his subsequent burial, combined with the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers during the war, left a lasting impact on the country and the way it viewed those who had sacrificed fighting for it.

Texas Jack was one of the most famous men buried in Leadville, and his grave was often visited in the pioneer days of that city. Jack fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, but scouted for the United States Army both in Nebraska from 1869 to 1872, and in Montana and Wyoming for General Alfred Terry following the defeat of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  

This article from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat talks about Leadville and the grave of Texas Jack.

_________________________________________

LEADVILLE'S DEAD

LEADVILLE, COL - The Rio Grande train climbs a long hill and steams into Leadville upon a ridge. To the east of the track is spread out the city of the living. On the slope to the west is the city of the dead. Leadville started a graveyard early, and patronized it well. For a time the headboards were planted almost as rapidly on one side of the hill as the claim stakes were driven on the other. There are 33,000 restless money-seekers up here among the clouds and the snow-drifts of mid-July. There are 3.300 graves in the gravel, among the bright green pines.

The mortality of the early history of this ten-years old city was frightful. Men lay down at night to sleep off a drunk and never awoke. Nature plays queer freaks with vital organs at an altitude of 10,055 feet. Health was neglected in the wild mad rush for carbonates. Men ate when they could get time, slept anywhere, and never refused an invitation to drink. Under such conditions Leadville acquired the name of "The Pneumonia City," and graves were in great demand.

More people between the ages of 20 and 35 are buried here than in any other cemetery in the world, that is in proportion to the whole number, and such a strange assortment of histories the sod nowhere else covers. In what other burial place can the visitor stand and moralize beside the grave of a man who was given twenty hours by the Vigilance Committee to leave town, and who died of pneumonia before the time was up?

To the credit of Leadville, let it be said, her dead are not forgotten. Decoration Day means more here than the remembrance of those who fell in battle. This city did not come into existence until twelve years after the war was over, but there are few places where Decoration Day is so generally observed in a literal sense.

TEXAS JACK

The most striking monument of all is that which marks the resting place of Texas Jack, as he was better known than by his name of J. B. Omohundro. Texas Jack entered the show business about the same time that Buffalo Bill did, and he was only second to Cody in promise. He had married a famous ballet dancer, and was filling an engagement here when pneumonia carried him off. His grave is in a well-cared-for lot, and is marked by a slab bearing the inscription:

Sacred to the Memory of

TEXAS JACK

(J.B. Omohundro)

Died June 29, 1880.

33. Pneumonia.

The inscription occupies but a small place on the slab, which is fairly covered with artistic work. First, there is a good representation of a cartridge belt, with pistols crossed and bowie-knife sheathed. Below is sketched the trusty Winchester, and then the head of Texas Jack's favorite horse, Yellow Chief.

On the reverse of the slab are fingers pointing heavenward, and the inscription, "Rest in peace. Remembered by his young friends, J.J. Levy and M.C. Levy" If Texas Jack had designed his own head-board he could not have done better. His wife, in respect for his memory, retired from the stage.

_________________________________________

Unfortunately, this grave marker, like the one that his wife inscribed by hand in Italian that preceded it, was eventually taken by some passing collector. 

Eventually, only a plain white board with Jack's name and dates of his birth and death marked the spot. In 1908, Buffalo Bill and John M. Burke brought the Wild West to Leadville. Seeing Jack's grave in a sad state of disrepair, they immediately offered to fund a new permanent marker that still marks their friend's final resting place.

________________________________

Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star is available now at:

                         Amazon - https://amzn.to/4bEy7Gv

A Morning at the Occidental Hotel: By Jefferson Glass

 

Author Jefferson Glass

“Do you love me, Jane? Or was that just whiskey talkin’ last night?”

The quilt fell to her waist as she sat up beside him in bed and lit a cheroot. “What do you think?” she asked grinning coyly as she exhaled a ring of smoke.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been with a woman quite as enthusiastic . . . or as vocal as you,” he answered.

“If I did, what use would I have for a no-account outlaw such as yourself?” she prodded.

“No-account?” he exclaimed. “I’ve got a place down on Blue Creek, I’ll have you know. Filed on in Douglas and everything.”

“Oh, so you’re going to be a big cattle rancher, huh? You don’t know nothin’ about cows ‘cept how to rustle ‘em.”

“Horses,” he corrected.

“So, you’re moving up to horse-thief,” she scoffed as she took another long pull on her cigar. “You always have liked a fast pony when you’re running from the law.”

“No, I’d go straight.”

“Straight to Hell at the end of a rope most likely,” she blew another smoke-ring.

“You never answered my question.”

“Which one?”

“Do you really love me?”

“We can have another toss right now,” her sly grin returned. “I’ll show you.”

“Just a minute,” he responded as he climbed out of bed and slid his pants on. “I’ll be right back.” He pulled his suspenders over his bare shoulders and slipped out the door down the hall to the privy.

Jane sat on the side of the bed considering the question… she hadn’t been with a man since Bill got killed. The urge had been building inside her for a week when she rode into town yesterday afternoon and paid for her room. She’d crossed the street and bought a calico dress then came back to take a bath in hot water with perfumed soap, unlike stripping down beside a cold stream in the middle of nowhere. When she proceeded to put on the dress, she realized her lack of lady’s undergarments. The men’s drawers she usually wore beneath her overalls would not suffice, so she dressed without any.

The cool breeze from below enhanced her mood as she descended the stairs to the saloon for supper. She was drinking a beer with her steak when he walked in from the dusty street beating the remnants of the trail from his clothing with his hat. It had been a while since she’d seen him. Good looking, smiling and friendly as always, he dropped a coin on the bar and ordered whiskey.

“Care to join me?” she asked.

The man squinted toward her; not yet accustomed to the darkness indoors she thought.

The woman at the corner table looked familiar as she sat looking across her meal at him. Plain yet almost handsome in her calico dress, he couldn’t quite place her. He recognized the voice when she spoke, but struggled to identify where he’d heard it. As he crossed the room it suddenly came to him. Her normal attire had always been a man’s pants and shirt covered by an oversized coat with a slouch hat on her head. The comprehension brought a toothy grin. She cleaned up quite agreeably.

“Hello, Jane,” he greeted pulling up a chair. “You look nice this evening.”

*****

The calico dress that had laid on the floor, now draped across a chair by the window. He glanced out onto the empty street below before noticing the piece of paper laying on the dress.

Butch,

I’ll be seeing you around.

J. Canary

Western Poetry: Deadwoods Breeze By G.C. Stevens

 

Mount Moriah, the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickook & Calamity Jane

RPPC from the authors collection from Centennial Distributors

Whispers of gold in the rugged hills, Rumors of riches in Deadwood's Breeze, Avarice called through the Black Hills trees. Wild Bill's gun slinging legend, Calamity's frontier myth , Where fortunes were sought and spirits unleashed.

Creeks once running through a glittering gleam, A prospector's hopeful pan and a desperate dream. The old Saloons roared loud with whiskey, cards and with cheer, A lawless frontier, a steam train whistle in the distance.

From a dusty street to painted ladies' grace, A boomtown's fever, etching its name in this place. Gunfights and drama, under endless skies, Reflected still in the modern-day eyes.

Now history breathes its name in the dust, in bricks and in stone, The echoes of heroes, forever known. Deadwood, dear Deadwood, a tale to behold, Where the Wild West stories will never grow old and Mount Moriah broods overhead.

By G.C. Stevens

RPPC from the authors collection Curteich - Chicago post card