Veteran's Day
We pay tribute to veterans with this photograph of a Civil War soldier, taken by Mathew Brady.When the Civil War began, Brady obtained permission for himself and his staff … to travel with the troops. He published all photographs, both by himself and others, under the name Brady & Co. Like most photographers during the war, Brady rarely photographed actual battles. Cumbersome camera equipment and slow exposure times made it difficult to capture action. Instead, they focused on the aftermath of battle, military portraits, and scenes of camp life.
Brady's expertise as a studio photographer may have suggested the posed drama of The Sick Soldier. His picture of a Northern soldier being aided by another played to the collective trauma of mid-nineteenth-century American households, most of whom … had suffered the loss of a relative or friend.
Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).
Pictured: Matthew B. Brady, 1823–1896, The Sick Soldier, about 1863, albumen print on paper mounted on paperboard, 5 5/8 x 7 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.
We pay tribute to veterans with this photograph of a Civil War soldier, taken by Mathew Brady.When the Civil War began, Brady obtained permission for himself and his staff … to travel with the troops. He published all photographs, both by himself and others, under the name Brady & Co. Like most photographers during the war, Brady rarely photographed actual battles. Cumbersome camera equipment and slow exposure times made it difficult to capture action. Instead, they focused on the aftermath of battle, military portraits, and scenes of camp life.