New
York native Matthew B. Brady’s portrait studio saw a few table sits for the
camera during the 1850’s. He
was all but unknown, however, outside a small circle of persons who had learned
the photographic process perfected by Louis J. J. Daguerre of France.
Aware
that his eye had been damaged, perhaps by chemicals, and that he was fast
losing his vision, Brady hired a group of enthusiastic younger men and sent
them to war.
They
made thousands of photographs for which their employer took full credit. Today
much material in the Brady Collection is identified by the name of the
photographer who produced it.
Still,
no other man who envisioned capturing the war on wet plates is more closely
identified with 1961-1865 action than the man who personally saw very little of
it.
