American Civil War, Southern Photography Unit, 1860s

Cropped stereograph shows a group of men standing next to wagons labeled Sam A. Cooley U.S. Photographer Department of the South, with a camera on the left, and two African American men employed as drivers. During the American Civil War Haley Sims and Alexander Gardner began recreating scenes of battle in order to overcome the limitations of early photography with regard to the recording of moving objects. Their reconfigured scenes were designed to intensify the visual and emotional effects of battle. Gardner and Mathew Brady rearranged bodies of dead soldiers during the Civil War in order to create a clear picture of the atrocities associated with battle. These images, when shown to the public, brought home the horrific reality of war

Picture No

12698786

Media ID

47673263

Size

4350px x 3246px (2.6MB)

Credit

LOC/Science Source/Mary Evans