“a landmark in the history of photography” – Keith Davis
BARNARD, GEORGE N. Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, embracing scenes of the occupation of Nashville, the great battles around Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, the campaign of Atlanta, march to the sea, and the great raid through the Carolinas
[New York: Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck], [1866]
61 albumen prints (10 x 13 inches) on original two-tone card mounts, with printed captions and credits. With title-page and contents leaf (creased), lacking the text booklet as usual. Original black morocco lettered in gilt, rebacked. Some restoration to mounts, some wear, minor staining and foxing, generally in very good condition, the photographs with excellent tones.
FIRST EDITION. George N. Barnard’s Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign is, together with Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book, one of the two greatest photographic monuments of the Civil War. Its 61 original mounted photographs include some of the most famous images of the war.
These splendid photographs poignantly document the trail of destruction left by the army of General William T. Sherman from Tennessee to Georgia and South Carolina as it swept across the Confederacy. Subjects include public and private buildings, encampments and artillery positions, bridges, fortifications, battlements, ruined buildings, depots, railroads, and battlefields.
George N. Barnard (1819-1902), a giant in the history of American photography, was one of the first daguerreotypists to open a shop in America. At the beginning of the Civil War, Barnard worked with Mathew Brady’s studio alongside Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan. In December 1863 he was hired by the Topographical Branch of the Department of Engineers of the Army of the Cumberland, to run the army’s photographic operations based in Nashville.
When Atlanta was captured in autumn 1864, Barnard was summoned to Georgia, and he then accompanied Sherman’s army on the March to the Sea, taking a series of magnificent photographs to document the devastation. In 1865 he traveled to South Carolina to photograph the destruction at Columbia, Charleston, and Fort Sumter. Barnard spent 1865 and 1866 preparing a collection of 61 of his best photographs for publication. In 1868 Barnard returned to South Carolina and opened a photography studio in Charleston, where he worked, with a brief sojourn in Chicago, until 1880.
Sherman’s campaign proved to be decisive, but it was also remorselessly bloody and vindictive. Barnard documents its unparalleled devastation with an unflinching eye. At the same time, Barnard demonstrates his artistic gift, presenting striking compositions of the South in ruins recalling the lost grandeur of the ancient world.
Barnard’s greatest achievement, Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, has been called “a remarkable work of great symbolic, historical, and artistic power, a landmark in the history of photography, and one of the most extraordinary achievements in nineteenth century American art” (Keith F. Davis, George N. Barnard: Photographer of Sherman’s Campaign).
When Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign appeared, Harper’s Weekly wrote, “These photographs … surpass any other photographic views which have been produced in this country-whether relating to the war or otherwise” (December 8, 1866).
Because the book was lavishly produced, few copies were made. Fewer still have survived because sets have been broken up for their individual prints. The few examples we have seen over the past forty years have been in rough condition or heavily restored.
This is an extraordinary opportunity to acquire the greatest of all photographically illustrated books on the Civil War.
$390,000