Documentary Photography Comes of Age on the Peninsula
By the spring of , photographers had yet to capture great Civil War documentary images. While Southern photographers had secured the first Civil War photos at Fort Sumter and Northern photographers had recorded numerous camp scenes as well as soldiers on the battlefield of Bull Run, true photojournalism, at least as we know it today, had not been achieved.
The opportunity finally seemed at hand in the spring of when at least three photographers traveled to Virginia to capture scenes related to what we now call the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles.
James Gibson was among the more prolific yet obscure Civil War photographers. Gibson arrived in April and through June captured more than documentary photos including at least sixty at Yorktown, where Union forces besieged the famed colonial town for nearly a month. Views of heavy siege guns and scenes around the enormous Camp Winfield Scott comprised most of Gibson's series yet it is likely that he also recorded portraits for soldiers.
Where Union General George McClellan went, so went Gibson (along with fellow photographer George Barnard, a
Seven Days
McClellan had taken forever to get his army into position to attack Richmond from the South. By the time he was ready, Lee was ready for him and inflicted high enough casulaties on the Union army to force McClellan to hesitate and then withdraw
.
McClellan Army finally advanced on Richmond. His army reached within 15 miles of the city. His forces were divided between the North and South sides of the Chickahominy River. On May 31, Confederate forces under the command of Joseph Johnston attacked the divided Union forces, at Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, as it was known. The plan was simple, but the execution failed totally. The Confederate forces attacked piecemeal, instead of in one group. The result was that no significant ground was gained. 6, Confederates were killed or wounded, along with 5, of the Union’s soldiers. One Confederate casualty was more important than the others. On the evening of May 31st, Confederate commander, Joseph Johnston was severely wounded. General Robert E. Lee was appointed as the new Confederate commander.
One of General Lee's first actions was to order James Ewell Brown Stuart to scout out Union positions. Stuart led his 1
A revolutionary re-creation of the historic Antietam Battlefield photographs
The Battle of Antietam, fought in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, , was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, with 23, casualties on both sides. While the battle was tactically inconclusive, it resulted in two significant milestones. First, because Robert E. Lee failed to carry the war successfully into the North, Great Britain was dissuaded from recognizing the Confederate States of America diplomatically. Second, the battle gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
After the battle, two photographers sent by Mathew Brady—Alexander Gardner and James Gibson—recorded the horror of war with the first-ever images of dead American soldiers. Gardner’s and Gibson’s legendary photos have been the subject of debate for decades. The lack of information about locations, dates, and times in the thousands of photographs taken during the war has limited any thorough understanding of the photographers’ work and led to much speculation.
In Shadows of Antietam, Robert J. Kalasky has painstakingly re-created Gardner’s and Gibson’s output, retrac
James F. Gibson
James F. Gibson was probably the least known of the Civil War photographers. He, too, was born in New York City. He learned the art under Brady. Gibson eventually photographed Gen. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Seven Days Battles, Battle of Gaines' Mill, and Battle of Malvern Hill. He died in
Collodion (Wet Plate) photography had existed for around fifteen years at the time of the Civil War. Cameras were much larger than they are today. Taking pictures was a slow and complex process. Photographers would often follow armies into battle to get pictures of the battle scene. These included both newspaper and Army photographers. Portrait photographers would set up outside an encampment to photograph the soldiers. These would often be sent to loved ones as a memento. The photographing of soldiers became so popular, that in August Congress issued a $ tax on each image to help pay for the Union war effort. The photographers would travel by horse and wagon to different locations.
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