Andy Chandler

Photos courtesy Andy Chandler Combat photographer Dickey Chappelle advised journalists that: If you can’t prove it happened with a picture, it didn’t happen.   Fall is a fun time to be a photographer; it’s as if nature is a canvas backdrop for a cornucopia of colors. It was into that backdrop that I found myself at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Ill.  The rolling hills and fall foliage during Lincoln’s time…

Photos courtesy Andy Chandler Portland, Indiana. May 2025. Ask most people when the Civil War ended; they’ll tell you it was when General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. History buffs like an effect as great as the cause, complete with brave men. The last of the chivalry ends with two gentlemen meeting in a parlor. However, the Civil War didn’t end with a dramatic crescendo and curtain call of…

Photos courtesy Andy Chandler Dateline Charles City, Va. The 2020 September morning in the James Peninsula in Virginia was interrupted by a stern voice: “What are you doing here? We’re closed til 9.”   I glanced at my watch; 8:55 a.m. “Seriously? Five minutes?” I gave her a Breakfast Club “get real” look.   “What are you doing here anyway? I should call the sheriff on you.”   That’s a really good question. During…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Andy Chandler is a presidential historian and a museum archivist at Candles Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute and the Ernie Pyle WW II Museum in Dana Ind. He is also a photographer and his work is often seen on these pages. Recently he sat down with Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith. The second of a…

Mongtomery, Ala. “It’s just a photo.”   It’s just a picture. Just an image on a screen. If we’re precise, it was taken with a Fuji XPro 2, using a 35mm lens. The settings were ISO 200, 1/800th of a second at F7.1. Metadata says it was taken on 3/22/2025. However, those are specs and settings. Like looking at sheet music for Handel’s Water Music, seeing the notes and saying ,”looks good,” without ever hearing it performed.   There’s a woman on the left. “Just a woman on a…

Photos courtesy Andy Chandler Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith. Sine Cera. Part I EDITOR’S NOTE: Andy Chandler is a presidential historian and a museum archivist at Candles Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute and the Ernie Pyle WW II Museum in Dana Ind. He is also a photographer and his work is often seen on these pages. Recently he sat…

“Walk a mile in someone’s shoes,” the saying goes. It’s true. I discovered more about the 1965 Civil Rights marches and of myself doing that.   Last year, I found myself in Selma, Ala. to walk the same steps the Selma to Montgomery marchers walked 60 years before on Bloody Sunday. We’ve seen documentaries, and many of us have watched the 2014 movie Selma.   I decided to go for a walk in Selma following the march route…

In 2012, NPR did a survey on Abraham Lincoln. How many books were written about him? The estimate came out to around 15,000. To read a few is to presume to know the man. His is an American story: ancestors moving from the east coast after the Revolutionary war to settle in the Midwest. Going from rags to riches, and going from…

For much of U.S. history, until the presidential transition of 1933, presidential inaugurations occurred on March 4. After that disastrous transitional which saw the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations simply ignoring each other during an economic meltdown that only got worse, the date was moved up to the Jan. 20 we have today.   Enter one of presidential histories’ more unusual figures: David Rice Atchison, president for…

How do we keep memory alive? At that point where memory becomes history?  Late January in Indiana is a time that a friend from Texas refers to as “The Gray Zone.” While not a lot is going on, for the Indiana State House things are in full swing to get the Rotunda ready for a special ceremony. Every year, representatives, judicial officers and executive staff take time…