That’s a good question, Alan.
The question of accessibility is easy to answer. ¬Volume III of _Images of War¬_ was readily available at local bookstores on remainder tables in the early 1990s, about the time this image popped up. (I bought five of the six volumes for $9.99 apiece during this period.) The binding for this set allows the pages to lay flat, and the photograph of the black soldiers is the only image on page 233. Consequently, it would have been easy to scan this image on any flatbed scanner.
The question of purpose, what the originator wanted to accomplish, is also easy to answer. The person who edited this image wanted to deceive the viewer. Cropping out the Union officer and assigning a Confederate provenance was clearly meant to mislead. This was not a casual mistake. Nevertheless, there is still the issue of motivation.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing what the originator’s incentive was. I can think of several reasons why he did it, but I will opt for the most charitable of the alternatives. It could have been a prank, an April fool’s joke. The originator may have been flipping through volume III, saw the photograph, noted the gray uniforms, doctored the image, sent it to a buddy who has a particular interest in black Confederates, and then sat back to watch his friend’s reaction when the originator told him that it was a hoax.
As all of us who have read this thread know, electronic images (and e-mails) have a life of their own. Once they get out, you can never regain control over their distribution. What may have stared out as a joke has ended up being taken seriously. Whatever the case, it’s been fun trying to figure out what happened.
Jim Hollandsworth