Civil War Civil War PhotographyPhotography

Photography had a huge impact on society at the time of the of the Civil War. It was a relatively new technology that gave people their first visual record of daily life.

Prior to the development of photography, Americans would capture images of war through paintings and drawings.

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s HillJohn Trumbull, 1786; Yale University Gallery

Unburied Confederate SoldierAntietam, Sept. 1862, Photography by Alexander Gardner

Photography allowed Americans to witnessed the true reality of war for the first time as photographers followed the armies into battle.

The Daguerreotype was invented in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre and was the first form of photography. It created an image on a very thin silver-plated copper sheet and required about 15 minutes of exposure time. No reproductions could be made.

United States Capitol Washington D.C., 1846

• The daguerreotype was the first functional photography and became popular in the United States shortly after its invention by Louis Daguerre.

• The collodion process, also known as the wet plate process, was developed in 1851 and was extremely important because it allowed the duplication of images.

• With the development of the wet plate process, several other forms of photography came about, including ambrotypes and tintypes.

• Stereo view images could be created as daguerreotypes, but their real popularity was stimulated by the reproductive abilities of the wet plate process.

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre,

Inventor of the DaguerreotypeLibrary of Congress

Photography got its start in the early nineteenth century.

Civil War Preservation Trustwww.civilwar.org

Daguerreotypes were stored in special cases like this one because they were very thin and delicate.

The earliest known portraits of Abraham and Mary Lincoln were daguerreotypes taken in 1846 or 1847.

Civil War Preservation Trustwww.civilwar.org

1851 the invention of wet-plate photography allowed the photographer to create duplicates of his images. In this process a glass or iron plate was coated in a chemical mixture making it sensitive it to light.

This produced a negative image on the glass or iron plate which was then used to reproduce the image on paper. Multiple images could be created this way and the exposure time was only about 10 seconds. 22nd New York State Militia, Harpers Ferry, Va.,

1861; Library of Congress

Tintypes were portraits made on iron plates, making them very durable and inexpensive. Many Civil War soldiers had their pictures taken on tintypes because they typically cost less than 25 cents and their durability made them easy to transport.

Civil War Preservation Trustwww.civilwar.org

Brave photographers had to carry all of their heavy, bulky and difficult to maneuver equipment out into the battlefields. Conditions were not ideal. They also had to process the fragile, light-sensitive images in cramped wagons in all kinds of weather and battle situations. 

Photographers such as Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy O'Sullivan found enthusiastic audiences for their shockingly realistic photographs.   For the first time in history, citizens on the home front could view the actual carnage of far away battlefields.  Civil War photographs stripped away much of the romance around warfare.

Mathew Brady took over 10,000 photographs of the Civil War including the First Battle of Manassas, during which he was lost behind enemy lines.

Alexander Gardner began as Brady’s assistant, but went on to take the first pictures of the Gettysburg battlefield for his own studio.

Many Civil War photographers were even producing sophisticated three-dimensional images or "stereo views" that gave viewers a very realistic image. To create a stereo view image a twin-lens camera was used to capture the same image from two separate lenses, in much the same way that two human eyes capture the same image from slightly different angles on the head. 

The images were developed using the same wet-plate process, but stereo view photography produced two of the same image on one plate of glass. Once processed, the photographer would place the two stereo images onto a viewing card. These stereo view cards would then be inserted into special viewers creating a 3D image.

Civil War Photography Assignment

Your Assignment is to find an authentic photograph from the Civil War. You must then research the Who, What, Where, When, and Why of the photograph to write a brief newspaper article about the photograph for a fictional newspaper.

Richmond TimesApril 7, 1865

Richmond Burned!By Heather Parent

On April 3, 1865, Union troops took over the Confederate capital city of Richmond Virginia. Union General Godfrey Weitzel sent a telegram to General Grant: "We took Richmond at 8:15 this morning. I captured many guns. The enemy left in great haste. The city is on fire in two places. Am making every effort to put it out.”

Weitzel ordered his troops to put out the fire. The city's two fire engines worked, bucket brigades were formed. Threatened buildings were pulled down to create firebreaks. Five hours later the wind finally shifted, and they began to bring it under control. At least fifty-four city blocks were destroyed. Weitzel explained that "The rebel capitol was set on fire by it’s own men and was saved from total destruction by soldiers of the United States.”

Lieutenant General Richard Ewell was Richmond's military commander and was ordered to destroy the city's tobacco, cotton, and foodstuffs before the Yankees got to them.