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What Edward S. Curtis did for the American West, Mathew Brady did for the Civil War, and a half century earlier. Brady was the first to induce subjects to pose for his camera and was already famous by 1850—he photographed nineteen presidents of the United States. But when the Civil War began, Brady changed direction, left his studio, and joined the rough-and-ready camps of soldiers, recording the entire event with the help of several assistants. He spent a fortune on this endeavor and, with the postwar economic recession, he went bankrupt. He died alone and destitute in 1896 but, thanks to Brady, we have thousands of images of mid-nineteenth-
century camp life, military drills, and moments just before and after battles (early technology required stillness for the camera shutter and preempted action photos at the time). This photographic work of art has been reedited and has a new introduction by historian Alan Axelrod.