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Library of Congress – National
Achieve Collection – Civil War
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A little over 150 years ago the American Civil War
was in full purpose. Because of the Industrial Revolution, humans were now able to kill each other more efficiently than ever
before. The American Civil War was the test for that technology. It would
prove to be a most profound one.
Along with the new machines of war, photography was
also introduced in the 19th century. By the time of the war, photography had proliferated
in to the most popular art form of the day. Photography studios were in every
major city in the world and many small towns as well.
The first battlefield images ever taken were of the Crimean
War (1853 – 1856). The relatively handful of images that came out of that
conflict would be nothing compared to the thousands that would be shot during
the Civil War. Hundreds of photographers would leave the relative safety of their
studios and a life of taking simple portraits to follow the massive armies from
battlefield to battlefield.
Many of the images taken by these entrepreneurial photographers
were portraits as well. Photos that the soldiers had made to send home to their
loved ones. Along with their cameras, photographers would carry makeshift
studios along with them. It was a booming business. Soldiers would often pay as
much as a ten percent of their monthly wage for a single image of themselves.
The demand for news from the front also created another
market for photographs. Every newspaper in the country, north and south wanted
compelling images to accompany their news stories of the war. In spite of the
slow shutter speeds of the day, the art of battlefield photography was born.
A number of very talented photographers made a name
for themselves during this time. Men like Alexander Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan
and most notably Mathew Brady. Brady would go on to be the most prominent photographer
of his day. To have your portrait taken at one of his studios could be a real
boost to your social stature. He photographed almost every prominent person of
the day, including Abraham Lincoln.
On September 17th 1862, the Battle of Antietam
was fought near the small western Maryland town of Sharpsburg. Because of the
terrible casualties this battle wrought it would be known as the bloodiest day
in American history. Because Sharpsburg was a mere 65 miles from the nation’s
capital photographers descended on it as soon as the battle was over. Mathew
Brady dispatched Alexander Gardner, who was in his employ at the time, to the
now quiet hills and farms of western Maryland. He would return with some of the most stunning
images ever recorded up to that point.
In October 1862, Brady displayed the images in his
New York Studio. They would be nothing like the county had ever experienced. Viewers
of the exhibit were both fascinated and horrified as the grim reality of war
was shown to them in a way none had ever seen before. [1]
This image, which is of the members a confederate
battery dead near the now famous Dunker Church would become one of the most
iconic of the entire war. The area around the church had seen some of the bitterest
fighting of the battle.
This image is iconic because it tells the narrative of
the grim cost of war in a no holds barred manor. It also has an ironic quality
when you consider the dead bodies strewn about such a place of worship. The
Dunkers were pacifists who refused to fight.
In a review
of Brady’s exhibit appeared in the New York Times, the reviewer so moved by
what he saw he wrote, “Mr. BRADY has done something to bring home
to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies
and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something
very like it.” [2]
Because of images like these
we would never look at war with the romance and allure that we had in days
prior to this.
Gardner would go on to
become a famous photographer in his own right. Despite the fact that many of his
images are now in the National Archives and in the National Portrait Gallery,
Brady died a penniless man. Patrons and friends took up a collection to pay for
his funeral. [3] [4]
Interesting! I've been bouncing ideas for an article about the current crisis in Ukraine, and Crimea specifically. That little bit about the first battle pictures being taken was a nice little tidbit. It's amazing how much pictures of these things can say much, much more than words possibly can.
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