“Federal Dead on the
Field of Battle of First Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania” Mathew
Brady, 1863
In fact, Brady had everything to lose by making a career move – his
money, his business, and quite possibly his life. Nevertheless, he
decided to risk it all and follow the Union Army into battle with
his camera, saying, “A spirit in my feet said, ‘Go!’” And go he did
– at least until he got a good look at the pointy end of a
Confederate bayonet.As one of the world’s first war
photographers, Mathew Brady didn’t start
out having as action-packed a career as you might think. A
successful daguerreotypist and a distinguished gentleman, Brady was
known for his portraits of notable people such as Abraham Lincoln
and Robert E. Lee. In other words, he was hardly a photojournalist
in the trenches.
After narrowly escaping capture at the first Battle of Bull Run,
Brady’s chatty feet quieted down a bit, and he began sending
assistants in his place. In the span of only a few years, Brady and
his team shot more than 7,000 photographs – an astounding number
when you consider that developing a single plate required a
horse-drawn-wagon-full of cumbersome equipment and noxious
chemicals. Not exactly what you’d call “point-and-shoot.”
Tethered as he was to his equine-powered darkroom and with film
speeds being much slower then, Brady produced war photos that are
understandably light on the action and heavy on the aftermath.
Still, they mark the first time Americans were so immediately
confronted with the grim realities of the battlefield.