1861-1865 Mathew Brady American Civil War Photo Archive (55 Photographs)

Mathew B. Brady (c. 1822-1824 - January 15, 1896) was an American photographer. Brady's early life is a mystery. In his later years, just before his death, Brady claimed to reporters that he had been born in Warren County, New York, near Lake George, and that he was the youngest of three children to Irish immigrant parents. However, before and during the Civil War, Brady claimed in official documents to have been born in Ireland. Brady moved to Saratoga, New York, at the age of 16, and began studying painting with William Page, a portraitist. Page and Brady moved to Albany, then New York City, in 1839, and Brady continued studying with Page as well as Samuel Morse, Page's former teacher. That year Morse had studied with Louis Jacques Daguerre (the inventor of the daguerreotype - an early form of photography) in France. Morse became an enthusiastic proponent of daguerreotypes and began promoting the new technology in New York. Brady's early involvement with Morse's new venture was limited to making leather cases for the daguerreotypes. But, when Morse opened a studio and began teaching classes on the new method, Brady eagerly became one of his first students. Brady opened his own studio in 1844 and the following year was exhibiting portraits of such luminaries as Edgar Allen Poe and Senator Daniel Webster. He opened another studio in Washington, D.C. in 1849, but had to abandon it in 1850 after falling out with his landlord. Brady hired Alexander Gardner in 1856. In 1858, when Brady decided to open a D.C. studio, he made Gardner the manager. At the beginning of the Civil War, Brady marketed his successful cartes de visite to departing soldiers and their families, but his interest soon turned to documenting the war itself. Brady petitioned General Winfield Scott and President Lincoln to allow his photographers to travel to battle sites. Lincoln approved his request, although he stated that Brady would have to finance everything himself. To do so, Brady developed a mobile photography studio and darkroom and employed over twenty men, each of whom had their own traveling dark room. Among his employees were Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan. Brady's assistants took thousands of photographs of Civil War scenes, from the First Battle of Bull Run to Appomattox Court House. After the war, interest in Brady's photographs declined exponentially, leaving him in dire straits. Brady spent over $100,000 (about $1.878 million in 2022) during the war which resulted in the creation of over 10,000 glass negatives. Brady expected that the U.S. government would buy the negatives after the war, but, despite the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the Library, Congress did not purchase Brady's work. This forced Brady to sell his Washington studio in 1870 and later his New York studio, and eventually file for bankruptcy. He died penniless in the charity ward of New York City's Presbyterian Hospital. More by this mapmaker...

Timothy O'Sullivan (1840 - January 14, 1882) was an American photographer. Very little is known about is personal life. Even his place of birth remains a mystery: either he was born in Ireland, or his parents arrived in New York before his birth. The records to prove either theory do not exist. Our knowledge of O'Sullivan's life begins in his teens, when he apprenticed to New York based photographer Mathew Brady, who would become famous for his Civil War photographs. He soon moved to Washington, D.C. and worked in the Brady studio managed by Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882). O'Sullivan claimed that he enlisted in the Union Army in 1861, but the records to support this claim have not been found. It is likely that he was given an honorary commission and worked copying maps and plans and took photographs as well. We know O'Sullivan worked with Brady and Alexander Gardner in 1861, and when Gardner left Brady's firm in 1862 O'Sullivan went with him. It is said Gardner left Brady's studio because of Brady's tendency to declare all photos to be taken by 'Brady and Co.' O'Sullivan worked with Gardner throughout the rest of the war and produced many of his most famous images during these years. Both men were at Gettysburg, photographed the Siege of Petersburg, and O'Sullivan was in North Carolina during the siege of Fort Fisher before ending the war at Appomattox Court House. After the war, O'Sullivan became a member of the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel led by Clarence King from 1867 until 1869. He was also part of Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the 100th meridian from 1871 through 1874. O'Sullivan even traveled through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, although most of his negatives were lost during that journey. The last few years of his life were spent as the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Treasury Department. He died on Staten Island of tuberculosis. Learn More...

George Norman Barnard (December 23, 1819 - February 4, 1902) was an American photographer. Born in Connecticut, Barnard opened a photography business in Oswego, New York, in 1843 and was among the first to use the daguerreotype in the United States. He photographed a fire that destroyed grain elevators in 1853, which historians consider to be some of the first “news” photographs. Barnard is best known for his photography during the American Civil War. He served as the official army photographer for the Military District of the Mississippi commanded by Union general William T. Sherman. He published a book of Civil War photography in 1866, Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign. More akin to an album, the production weighed 20 pounds and included 61 photographs, a short historical text, and several campaign maps. After the war, Barnard ran photography studios in Charleston, South Carolina, Chicago, and Ohio. His Chicago studio burned to the ground during the 1871 Chicago Fire. (Photo Credit: National Portrait Gallery, NPG.2007.18) Learn More...

James F. Gibson (1828/1829 - unknown) was a Scottish photographer. Born in Scotland in 1828 or 1829, little is known of Gibson’s life before he arrived in the United States in 1860, when he appears in the U.S. Census for Washington, D.C. At the time Gibson was working in Mathew Brady’s Washington, D.C. studio. While the American Civil War began in April 1861, Gibson’s field work apparently began in March 1862. That month Gibson and George N. Barnard photographed locations around Centreville, Virginia, as well as ruins at Bull Run and fortifications at Manassas. Then, Gibson photographed parts of McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign in May 1862, including several portraits of officers. Gibson continued photographing for Brady until Gardner’s uprising against Brady, when Gibson chose to follow Gardner. While working for Gardner, Gibson photographed Hooker’s campaign in Virginia and Gettysburg. Gibson, Gardner, and O’Sullivan were among the first photographers to reach Gettysburg after the battle and document the destruction. Gibson returned to Brady’s employ in July 1864 and became manager of the Washington, D.C. studio. At that time, Brady’s finances were failing badly, and in September Brady convinced Gibson to buy half of the Washington studio for $10,000. Gibson continued to work in the Washington, D.C. studio until 1868, when the studio finally failed. It is unclear what happened to Gibson after the studio failed. It is known that Gibson heavily mortgaged the studio at some point in 1868, so some speculation exists that he took the cash from the mortgage and fled west to Kansas. But that is simply speculation. Learn More...

Alexander Gardner (October 17, 1821 - December 10, 1882) was a Scottish photographer best known for his photographs of the American Civil War. Born in Scotland, Gardner originally apprenticed with a jeweler. Gardner spent his youth in Scotland helping to create a cooperative community in Monona, Iowa, choosing to stay in Scotland and support the community financially. In 1851 he became the owner and operator of the Glasgow Sentinel. That same year Gardner visited the Great Exhibition in London where he first encountered Mathew Brady’s photography, which sparked his interest in the field. Gardner and his family moved to the United States in 1856 and settled in New York after they discovered that tuberculosis had ravaged the community in Iowa. Since he was living in New York, Gardner contacted Brady and became his assistant that year. Gardner became more and more involved in Brady’s business and became the manager of Brady’s Washington, D.C. gallery in 1858. After Lincoln’s election in 1860, the threat of war began. Gardner found himself in demand as a portraitist in D.C., capturing images of soldiers before they left for combat. Not long after, Gardner left for the front as well, photographing General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and the Battle of Antietam. Gardner left the Brady firm in late 1862 and opened his own gallery. While the reasons for Gardner leaving Brady’s employ are not known for certain, it is likely that Brady’s unwillingness to give credit to individual photographers and his insistence on attributing all photographs taken for the gallery as “photographed by Brady” was one of the major factors. Many of Brady’s other photographers followed Gardner to his new gallery, where they were given at least partial credit for their work. Gardner continued to create photographs throughout the rest of the war, including the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Siege of Petersburg. After the war, in 1866, Gardner published Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War, a two-volume work that included 100 hand-mounted photographs. Gardner continued in photography until 1871, when he gave up the trade and helped found an insurance company. Learn More...