By Christopher Wills
We recently posted on social media about a famous and horrifying Civil War photo known as “The Scourged Back.” It generated some questions and discussion, so we thought we would share more about the photo and its complex history.
As you can see, the photo shows an African American man with his face in profile and his back toward the camera. His back is a mass of crisscrossing scars from his shoulder blades down. The photo – in the form of small, inexpensive prints known as “cartes de visite” – began circulating in northern cities in the spring of 1863, shocking people and fueling support for the Civil War as a campaign against slavery. Abolitionist groups understood the power of the photo and helped circulate it far and wide.
The photograph got a huge boost in visibility when Harper’s Weekly featured it in the July 4th issue. Harper’s ran an engraving of the picture alongside two others in an article entitled “A Typical Negro,” which purported to tell the story of Gordon, a man who escaped slavery in Mississippi and eventually served in the U.S. Army. The Harper’s version stuck and the man in the photo was generally identified as “Gordon” for the next 150 years.
"The Scourged Back" in Harper's Weekly.
But was his name really Gordon? Did he serve in the Army? Where had he been enslaved?
Professor David Silkenat has sifted through the facts and myths to clarify what we know about “Gordon” – whose real name was Peter. You can read his paper here.
To summarize, the first version of the photo (there were three in all) was likely taken April 2, 1863, in Baton Rouge, La. Inscriptions on two copies of the photo give that date, as does a later newspaper article. One inscription gives the man’s name as Peter and gives a brief account of his story. Peter said he had escaped from a forced-labor camp owned by John Lyon near Washington, La. He said he had spent two months in bed recovering from the beating that gave him the shocking scars. Peter said he did not remember the beating itself or what led to it but that he was told he had gone crazy, burned his clothes and “tried to shoot everybody,” including his wife. “They said so, I did not know,” he said, adding “I did not harm anyone.”
Peter’s story on the back of a “Scourged Back” photo owned by the National Archives.
The other inscription, written by a military surgeon named J.W. Mercer, does not include a name but notes, “I have found a large number of the four hundred contrabands examined by me to be as badly lacerated as the specimen [r]epresented in the enclosed photograph.” (“Contraband” was the term for enslaved people who had escaped to U.S. Army lines or been liberated by U.S. soldiers. They were considered contraband of war, like any other property.)
Former slaves known as "contraband." These men worked as teamsters for the U.S. Army. (Library of Congress)
The picture’s popularity inspired Northern slavery sympathizers to respond. Some said the whipped man no doubt deserved the beating. Others argued that even worse offenses had been committed against supporters of the Confederacy, including women.
In defense of the “Scourged Back” photo, the New York Tribune printed a letter in December 1863 that offered a longer version of the “poor Peter” story. The letter writer, identified only as “Bostonian,” said four enslaved men had escaped on March 24 from John Lyons and Louis Fabyan of Clinton, La. They were pursued by search parties and “savage packs of hounds,” who killed one of the escaped men. The other three managed to reach Army lines in Baton Rouge, where they were interviewed. Two of them – Peter and a man named Gordon – were also photographed. “Bostonian” wrote that he had brought the photos of Peter and Gordon from Louisiana to New York himself.
Part of the “Bostonian” account of Peter’s beating and escape.
The Army Provost Marshal’s office in Baton Rouge, where Peter probably was interviewed. (Courtesy of Louisiana Digital Library)
Professor Silkenat believes Harper’s Weekly combined Peter and Gordon into a single composite character and added a third picture of an unconnected person. Then the paper concocted the story of this fictional “Gordon” serving in the Army. The weekly and its audience may not have taken the story as the literal truth, seeing it more as an idealized anecdote of triumph over the brutality of slavery. Whatever the goal, the story obscured the facts. “Although the image may have played a powerful role in persuading the Northern public about the merits of emancipation and the enlistment of black soldiers, it did so at the expense of the individual experiences of the real Gordon and Peter,” Silkenat writes.
The photo of Peter’s back is not the only one to document the cruelty of slavery or to be used by abolitionist groups. Another example is a photograph of Wilson Chinn, shown wearing a punishment collar, that revealed the initials of his enslaver, Volsey B. Marmillion, burned into his forehead.
Wilson Chinn (courtesy of National Gallery of Art)
The “Scourged Back” photograph, despite its murky origins, captured the physical horrors of slavery in a way few others have. It strengthened the resolve of slavery’s opponents during the Civil War and stands today as a powerful reminder of one of America’s darkest times. The ALPLM uses the photo as part of an exhibit on the human toll of slavery and how that influenced Abraham Lincoln.
Here are some other sources for information about the photo, although some still use the name Gordon:
Wills is communications director at the ALPLM.
Scourged Back
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Harper's Weekly Article
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Peter's Story on the Back of a Photo
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Contraband Teamsters
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Poor Peter
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Provost Marshal in Baton Rouge
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Wilson Chinn
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