Today is the 163rd Anniversary of the photo below.

Jefferson Davis was sworn in on the steps of the Alabama Capitol, and one photographer climbed a tree across the street and caught the photo. Both the tree and the photographer, name unknown, are long gone. You can see some of the tree branches in the lower left corner of the photo. Cameras were rare back then, and news, like the story that Davis was going to be sworn in, took a long time to spread. 

     Still, if you study the photo, note the women in hoop skirts, the children playing on the lawn, the people gathered on the two balconies above the spot where he stood, and the horse-drawn coach at the bottom left. There is no flag on the capitol because the newborn Confederacy had not developed one at that point.

 

The tree he climbed WAS on that corner across the street on the right. The spot that Davis stood is marked by a brass star at the top of the steps in front of the capitol building.