Civil War

Civil War Photography

 Group of Union Officers at Arlington House, Home of Robert E. Lee, ca. 1862 Alexander Garden (American, 1821-1882) Albumen silver print from glass negative; 6 3/4 x 9 1/16 in. SLIDE ONE: The Civil War was the first large and prolonged conflict recorded by photography. During the war, dozens of , both as private individuals and as employees of the Confederate and Union Governments, photographed civilians and civilian activities; military personnel, equipment, and activities; and the locations and aftermaths of battles.

SLIDE TWO: Photography in the United States was only 21 years old when the Civil War started. The craft had undergone dramatic changes since the mirror image of the (də-'ge-rō-ˌtīp), -the first commercial form of photography- was introduced in the United States in 1839.

SLIDE THREE: Because the battlefields were too chaotic and dangerous for the painstaking wet-plate procedures to be carried out, photographers could depict only strategic sites camp scenes, preparations for or retreat from action, and, on rare occasions, the grisly aftermath of battle.

The images on glass are called ambrotypes

SLIDE FOUR: Three basic forms of photography existed during the war… The most common were individual portraits of soldiers taken by itinerant army camp photographers and small-town photographers. These one-of-a-kind images were made on glass or metal, and placed in small glass-covered, fold-open wooden or plastic cases. The images on glass are called ambrotypes. The metal images are called tintypes or ferrotypes. The number of cased images made during the war no doubt exceeded a million

SLIDE FIVE: The second basic form of photography was the carte de visite or cdv and it was also primarily a portrait , except it was made with a glass, wet-plate negative. The negative allowed for the creation of unlimited copies. Prints were made on albumen paper, the photographic paper of the day. The more expensive cdv format was more commonly favored by army men of higher rank. Cdv portraits of generals, statesmen, actors and actresses and other 19th century celebrities were commercially sold by the thousands.

Photographer, Timothy O' Sullivan’s famous photo is that of a death scene at the Battle of Gettysburg. His "A Harvest of Death," depicted dead soldiers lying on the ground after battle on July 1863.

SLIDE SIX and SLIDE SEVEN: The third basic form of Civil War photography were the taken in the field by nationally known photographers and firms such as Timothy O’Sullivan, Alexander Gardner, M. B. Brady, and the E & H.T. Anthony Co. These photographs were taken on glass plate negatives and printed on albumen photographic paper. An estimated 5,000 or more battlefield, camp and outdoor photographs were created for military use and for commercial sale. The majority were 3-D photographs, called stereo views or stereographs, taken with a twin-lens stereoscopic .

SLIDE EIGHT: Mathew B. Brady secured permission from Lincoln to follow the troops in what was expected to be a short and glorious war; he saw only the first engagement, however, and lost his wagons and equipment in the tumult of defeat. Deciding to forgo further action himself, Brady instead financed a corps of field photographers who, together with those employed by the Union military command and by Alexander Gardner, made the first extended photographic coverage of a war. Mathew B. Brady also photographed Abraham Lincoln, the first president to have his picture taken. sources sited: http://www.civilwarphotography.org/archive.html http://www.cwreenactors.com/collodion/ http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html http://www.archives.gov/research/civil-war/photos

revised: 12/09