Photography: Civil War Photography

Photography, meaning “drawing with lights” in Greek, is an art as well as a science of capturing light and storing it on a medium with unprecedented accuracy. Yet, up until the late 18th century, history was mainly recorded through the techniques of painting and the press. These mediums unarguably contained a certain degree of a truth, though, it was not uncommon for events, such as war to be composed with glorified details, or an unfavorable bias from the artist at hand. Beginning in the 1830’s, cameras provided a revolutionary solution by combining the advancements in optics and chemistry. Consequently, the new medium of photography was established and forever changed how history would be visually captured. Unlike other methods, photography
At the time, one of the first American photographers by the name of Mathew B. Brady rose to prominence. Brady was best known for his work in documenting the aftermath of Civil War battles. Yet, even documenting the aftermath of battles posed heavy challenges. Given that each photographer would have to carry an entire life savings worth of photographic equipment on a wagon. Civil War photographer carried a lot of financial risk, which left them with little room for mistake. Their wagons often served as portable darkrooms for development and photographers worked in cramped, light sealed wagons, full of harmful chemicals, and fragile plates. In an interview with Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography in Abilene, Texas. Zeller says, "Each time…[the wagon] moved, ...[the photographers] had to secure bottles of chemicals and plate, each time they stopped, it had to be level." Photographers also battled flies that were attracted to photo chemicals, ether that made them woozy, and the stench of death” (Seeker: How Civil War Photography Changed War). Even with the burden of a constant financial risk, photographers had to plan routes to depict only strategic sites and or the horrible aftermaths of certain battles since, “the battlefields were too chaotic and dangerous for the painstaking wet-plate procedures to be carried out” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Just like many soldiers
Using his own funding, Brady organized a group of photographers including Timothy H. Sullivan, Alexander Gardner, and James F. Gibson, along with 17 other assistants. Brady along with his staff photographed many images of the Civil War including Antietam, the Fist Battle of Bull Run and Gettysburg, in hopes of creating a comprehensive photo documentary and to profit. Nonetheless, they quickly realized that the risk of the their job was not rewarded through pay, but instead through providing both portraits of soldiers who served and insights of the grim reality from the frontlines, back home for families which still romanticized war. In 1862 Brady appalled the nation when he displayed the first few photographs of the carnage of the frontlines in his New York Studio in an exhibit entitled "The Dead of Antietam." With new gruesome visuals that were more accurate than ever before, Catton Bruce explains how Brady’s crew of photographers, “stripped away the “sugar coating” of war and instead, displayed to the public the horrific truth of the frontlines” (Catton, Bruce: American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War). A picture taken by Timothy O'Sullivan titled “The Harvest of Death” soon became an iconic image that quickly gathered publicity. In the photo it depicted the ghastly horrors left from the retreat of General Robert. E Lee's broken army. Through the misty