Station One: Technological Advancements During the Civil War
Excerpt A: Capturing the Horrors of War
The Civil War (1861-65) was the first American war to be extensively photographed. The development of a new photographic technique called the collodion process (or wet-plate photography) allowed photographers to capture vivid images of battlefields, soldiers, and military hardware that would have been impossible just two decades earlier.
Excerpt B: Wet Plate Photography
Wet plate photography also had significant limitations compared to modern techniques. Photographers needed to develop each photograph before the collodion solution dried, which was only about 10-15 minutes after it was applied to the glass plate. This meant that photographers needed to be near a darkroom when a photograph was taken, and Civil War photographers had to bring a large mobile darkroom with them into the field, typically in a covered wagon. Furthermore, collodion photography could only capture still images. Any motion in the scene could blur the image, so action shots were nearly impossible to capture.
Excerpt C: Public Response
“Mr. BRADY has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it…. [At Brady’s gallery], you will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes.”
Exhibit D:
A mobile darkroom used for preparing and developing glass plates in Manassas, Virginia in 1862
Station Two: �Photographing the Horrors of War
Photo A: Burial Crew
Photo B:
The Field Hospital
Photo C:
The Dead Gathered
Photo D:
Lincoln & General McClellan
Photo E:
The Church
Photo F: The Union Nurse
Station Three:
The Conclusion of the Civil War
Building Knowledge Independently
Although the Civil War officially ended at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that General Lee finally arrived at Galveston, Texas to notify the last enslaved African Americans of their freedom. Today, we celebrate this day as Juneteenth, which most recently became a national holiday in 2021 due to the activism of #BLM protestors.
More than 600,000 soldiers died in action or disease, which is equivalent to 2% of the entire nation’s population. The total cost of the war was $15 billion; the land and economy of the South was devastated.
Did You Know? More people died in the Civil War than all subsequent wars combined!