Battle of Pottsburg Bridge

All of Kalem's previously noted Civil War dramas, as well as Battle of Pottsburg Bridge, were filmed in northeastern Florida at the company's "winter studio", which was located next to the St. Johns River "about fifteen minutes by trolley" from downtown Jacksonville.[8] There, since the autumn of 1908, Kalem had leased spaces in an old three-story hotel to serve as the company's production headquarters in Florida. The hotel, "Roseland", was situated on three acres that also accommodated a large home, several cabins, and other outbuildings.[6][9] Nearby, at the river, were a "big wharf" and "boats of all kinds", some of which served as props in screenplays and others to transport Director Buel, his camera operators, principal cast members, and any locally hired extras around the "territory rich in locations" for filming.[6][9] Among other motion picture props assembled and stored on the Roseland properties for staging the Battle of Pottsburg Bridge and other war-related productions were supplies of Confederate and Federal uniforms, assorted military accoutrements, and various weapons, including several 1860s field cannons with their caissons for hauling ammunition.[lower-alpha 4]

The cinematographer for this drama is undetermined, although production schedules and news reports suggest it might have been George K. Hollister. In Kalem's December 15, 1911 issue of the Kalem Kalendar, the company reports that "camera operator" Hollister had transferred weeks earlier from New York to Jacksonville "for the winter" after he returned from filming in Ireland during the summer of 1911.[10] The cinematographer by then had worked for Kalem for three years, had helped to establish studio operations in Florida, and had shot numerous photoplays there and in other domestic locations as well as overseas. Accompanying Hollister to Jacksonville in the fall of 1911 were his wife Alice and their two small children. Alice Hollister at the time was already a screen celebrity, having starred or costarred in Kalem projects filmed in New York, in earlier productions shot in Florida, and in Ireland with her husband. Later that same year, in Jacksonville, she costarred in the Civil War drama Driving Home the Cows, which was filmed by George Hollister under the direction of Sidney Olcott. That completed production would not be released to theaters until New Year's Day 1912, just a month before the initial distribution of Battle of Pottsburg Bridge.

The Hollisters' overseas travel schedule after the completion of Driving Home the Cows documents that the family and Director Olcott did not remain in Jacksonville for the winter season. By late November 1911, all of them had returned to New York City to rejoin the "'Kalem Globetrotters'", a special company of actors and crew who on December 2 departed aboard the S.S. Adriatic to travel to filming locations in southern Europe, Egypt, and Palestine.[11][12] George therefore did not film Battle of Pottsburg Bridge; instead, it was shot by another Kalem cinematographer under Kenean Buel's direction.

Another still showing (from left) actresses Cooper and Nilsson confronted by George B. Hoyt in costume as a Federal soldier

While 23-year-old Anna Q. Nilsson was recognized as the lead actress in Kalem's Jacksonville company in 1912,[13] it was actress Miriam Cooper who received far more screen time than Nilsson and who was viewed in news outlets as being the "favorite" in Kalem's Civil War dramas.[14] Cooper, in the role of Bartlow's sister Jessie, served as this film's central action hero, performing all of her own stunts. Dressed in a "suit" of her brother's clothes, Jessie rowed out to the Pottsburg Bridge, set fire to the wooden structure, and swam to safety as Federal forces dove into the river to escape the ensuing blaze.[15] Nilsson, on the other hand, served in a more passive, peripheral role as Guy Coombs' love interest in a romantic side story. In early 1912, the Swedish actress was already an experienced screen performer. Cooper, though, was a newcomer to Kalem's Jacksonville company of players, and for her work on this release and others, the 20-year-old actress earned a salary of "thirty-five dollars a week and expenses", which included her accommodations in Florida.[16][lower-alpha 5]

While transporting some cast and crew by boat to film several scenes, Director Buel later reported to Kalem's home office in New York about "'an exciting experience'" that he and his players had near Pottsburg Creek as they traveled to their intended location:

"We were starting up the St. John's River and at the mouth of Pottsburg Creek there were several rafts of logs moored. As we were passing the last raft, steering carefully, as we were out of the regular channel, our boat struck a sunken pile and immediately began to fill with water. Fortunately we were carrying a small[er] boat for use in a scene and into this we transferred Miss Nilsson, the only lady member of the company who was with us. We hailed another launch which happened to be passing, and at first they refused to approach because of our dangerous position, but we finally prevailed upon them that our plight was a serious one and they came to the rescue. [It] was lucky the launch happened to be passing, otherwise there is no telling what the result might have been."[17]

The climactic battle scene in the film depicted Miriam Cooper's character—the "southern girl" Jessie—trapping Federal troops on a bridge by setting it on fire. According to a news item in the Kalem Kalendar, Director Buel wanted to add a true "touch of realism" to his production, so prior to filming those sequences he obtained permission from local government officials in Duval County, Florida to actually burn down the old bridge outside Jacksonville, a bridge situated near Pottsburg Creek and described to be "half a mile in length".[18] As part of Buel's request, Kalem agreed to pay the full cost for constructing a new structure.[18] The filming of the old bridge's destruction provided, in the director's words, a "thrilling effect" on the screen, with highly dramatic scenes full of "smoke and flames".[18] The motion picture company's home office in New York City later reported, "The fact that the Commissioners granted this favor, attests [to] Kalem's popularity in Jacksonville and the hearty co-operation of the authorities".[18]

Alluding to the bridge scene in this production, Cooper in her memoir comments on her stunt work and how her on-screen identity as a Southern heroine and action performer grew with her repeated performances in Kalem's Civil War pictures:

In another one-reeler I rowed a boat out to set fire to the bridge and cut off the Yankees. Recently I read in The Moving Picture World of 1912 some of the synopses of Kalem films. They called me plucky, brave, intrepid and courageous. I ran trains, shot cannons, burned bridges, spied, all for the Confederates. I don't see how the Yankees won the war.[19]

The motion picture continued to circulate to domestic and foreign theaters for more than a year after its initial distribution. Only eight weeks after the photoplay's release in the United States, the "grand war drama" (grand drame de guerre) was already being promoted in France. In Paris, in the April 6, 1912 issue of the Ciné Journal, the M. P. Sales Agency announces to film exchanges and cinema owners that copies of La Bataille du pont de Pottsburg would soon be available.[22] By mid-July 1912, the Empire Film Hire Service, a rental exchange in London, was offering to lease the drama and other "features" to cinemas throughout England and elsewhere in the United Kingdom.[23][lower-alpha 6]

In their promotions of the film, some news outlets and advertisers in 1912 credited and complimented another actress rather than Miriam Cooper as the action lead in the production. They erroneously cited in that role Alice Hollister, who, as noted, was the wife of Kalem cinematographer George Hollister and costarred in Driving Home the Cows, another Civil War drama shot in Jacksonville just prior to the filming of Battle of Pottsburg Bridge. One example of this misidentification can be found in the April 13, 1912 issue of the local newspaper in Logan, Utah. The Logan Republican in that issue provides its readers with its brief assessment of the screen drama after seeing it at the town's Oak Theatre: "'The Battle at Pottsburg Bridge' by the Kalem Company with Alice Hollister in the leading role, at the Oak[,] was a masterpiece of thrills, magnificently staged and played, showing how the brave southern girl saved the regiment by her daring...."[24] That erroneous credit possibly stemmed from the newspaper's reviewer confusing this film with Driving Home the Cows, which costarred Hollister with Leo Berger and Gene Gauntier, and had been released only five weeks before Battle at Pottsburg Bridge.[25]

More than a year after the release of the film, Miriam Cooper's performance was still being highlighted and praised in news references to the Battle of Pottsburg Bridge. In a professional profile of Cooper published in the District of Columbia, in the May 18, 1913 issue of The Washington Herald, the newspaper comments about her athletic prowess in performing all her own stunts:

If an actress has ever entered the motion picture branch of theatricals with a full equipment for that exacting and strenuous work, it is Miss Marian [sic] Cooper, of Kalem's Jacksonville (Fla.) Company. Miss Cooper is practically a newcomer in the Kalem ranks, but has already established herself as a favorite. Miss Cooper's most recent appearance was in the spectacular production "The Battle of Pottsburg Bridge." This thrilling drama would have been quite impossible without an actress of Miss Cooper's extraordinary ability to handle the difficult leading role, and the manner in which she dived, swam, handled the boat, and climbed the bridge is only a sample of what this athletic young woman can do. She is equally at home riding a spirited horse, and while she modestly refrains from issuing challenges, there are few who care to put on the boxing gloves with her.[14]