Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 - (Page 63)

THE HILL COLLECTION, HOLDINGS OF THE LSU LIBRARIES THE BURNT-OUT SHELL of the State Capitol loomed over the town of Baton Rouge. Although the Federal occupation forces had used the state house for a hospital since they had taken the city in August, a flue fire in December 1862 had ultimately gotten out of control and destroyed all but the exterior masonry walls of the structure. The Union troops and Confederate prisoners that had been housed there had been evacuated to safety and were now lying in the new hospital at the Louisiana Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, not far away. Andrew David Lytle, photographer and sometime “camera spy for the Confederacy,” picked his way through the Capitol’s rubble on his way to the top of one corner tower. His signal flags and lanterns were hidden in the ruins. As it was broad daylight, he retrieved his flags and continued climbing; had it been nighttime, he would have retrieved his lanterns. Reaching the top of the tower, he began signaling to his Confederate contacts. opposite page: S.S. Natchez moored at the Mississippi River’s edge in the process of being laden with a mixed cargo, ca. 1905. top: This birds-eye view of downtown Baton Rouge looks southwest over rooftops toward the State Capitol, ca. 1885. by MARK E. MARTIN Summer 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 63 As he signaled his information, someone among the thousands of Federal troops in town saw him and began firing his weapon at the figure atop the ruins. As the firing increased, Andrew finished signaling and looked to his exit. He had done this many times, at night and during the day, and had always managed to avoid being wounded, captured, or killed. In this manner, he passed information to his co-conspirators until the fall of Port Hudson in July 1863. Between signaling episodes, Lytle photographed the Federal forces at their encampments and in his portrait studio throughout the war and into Reconstruction. Only later, on the fiftieth anniversary of the war, did his exploits as a “spy for the Confederacy” become known. That, at least, is the story as we know it today from the pages of Francis T. Miller’s The Photographic History of the Civil War. But who was Andrew David Lytle? What, if anything, did he do other than “spy for the Confederacy,” if indeed he was a spy? David and Dorcas Mounts Lytle, a tanner and his wife, were native Ohioans. The last of their four children, Andrew David, arrived on Friday, April 4, 1834. Four years after Andrew’s birth, his father died at 35 years of age.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities George Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs & Beyond Katrina The Historic New Orleans Collection After The Flood Faubourg Marigny: The Creole “Suburb” Preserving New Orleans Jazz, One Generation at a Time: Conversation & Music with Tom Sancton Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Architecture Baton Rouge Photographs, 1863-1910 Jazz Notes The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Louisiana Association of Museums Nature of the “Beast” Louisiana State Museum Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

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