Alexander Gardner left Mathew Brady’s studio in 1863 to work independently and became an official photographer of the Union Army. In 1885 Gardner prepared a manuscript for a publication of his photos of the Gettysburg Campaign. This page describes the 1863 Union rout of Confederates at Little Round Top, a decisive turning point in the war.
The valley between the two hills is aptly called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. At the close of the struggle twenty-five dead bodies were found behind one rock, and the whole valley was strewn with dead and wounded.
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Manuscript page, draft for a book of Civil War photographs (Battle of Gettysburg), by Alexander Gardner, 1885
Photographing the Civil War
Mathew Brady’s Civil War photographs at the Library of Congress constitute one of the most significant historical resources of the period. Brady, a New York portrait photographer, opened a studio in Washington, D.C., in 1858. Throughout the war, Brady’s staff photographed soldiers, battlefields, and related incidents on glass-plate negatives. The images, sold as prints, reproduced in books, and converted to illustrations for newspapers, were the first to document an American war. Congress acquired the collection between 1875 and 1954 to preserve this visual history for future generations.
Alexander Gardner left Mathew Brady’s studio in 1863 to work independently and became an official photographer of the Union Army. In 1885 Gardner prepared a manuscript for a publication of his photos of the Gettysburg Campaign. This page describes the 1863 Union rout of Confederates at Little Round Top, a decisive turning point in the war.
The valley between the two hills is aptly called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. At the close of the struggle twenty-five dead bodies were found behind one rock, and the whole valley was strewn with dead and wounded.
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
