Boyd family collection of Civil War photographs

The Civil War is often viewed as America’s bloodiest war. It lasted from 1861-1865 and tore the Union apart, frequently pitting brother against brother. The stirring, and sometimes graphic, images of the Civil War were captured, however by some of the leading photographers of the time, including the famous Mathew B. Brady.

Before the Civil War even began, Mathew Brady was a well-known photographer and the proprietor of a gallery in New York City. Brady was known for establishing the idea of creating a photographic catalog of the most distinguished Americans, and had amassed an impressive collection. In 1851, Brady met Alexander Gardner during a trip to Europe, and in 1856, the Scotsman and fellow photographer became business partners with Brady. Gardner was an admirable businessman, and in 1858, the team opened a second photographic studio and gallery in Washington, DC. This was a prime location for their business because as political tensions over slavery were mounting, Gardner and Brady made a point to photograph politicians from both sides of the debate for the collection of distinguished Americans, sensing that dissolution of the Union lay in the near future.

In 1861, Gardner brought the Carte DeVisite to their business, whose small size allowed for quick reproduction and portability, and was extremely popular. As Southern states began seceding and state militias were forming and converging on Washington, this new form of photography became even more popular and kept Brady and Gardner busy, with soldiers eager to pose.

As the war officially began, Brady and Gardner wanted to continue to photograph its images to document history. Brady secured approval for photographers to be in the field with the Union army, and Gardner struck a deal with photographic suppliers E. and H. T. Anthony to reproduce wartime images on a massive scale for sale to the public, while paying the Brady Gallery a percentage of the profits and crediting each image as a “Photo by Brady.” There were many technical limitations to shooting in the field including poor light, weather and the need for clean water. Additionally, any motion in the scene would create a blur on the negative, so all photographs were posed portraits or were of stationary objects or scenery. More importantly, the photographers were not allowed in the vicinity of the battle action, so most photographs of the war were deceptively peaceful, with many of them showing soldiers in camp.

In 1862, sometime after the Battle of Antietam, Gardner ended his partnership with Brady and opened his own photography studio and gallery in Washington, taking with him one of Brady’s most experienced field operators, Timothy O’Sullivan. Throughout the remainder of the war, Brady and Gardner would be in competition for the best photographs. With the departure of Gardner and O’Sullivan, Brady hired his nephew, Levin Corbin Handy, to assist him. Many photographs of the Civil War have been credited to Handy, however, this appears unlikely. At the time that Handy began working with Brady, he was approximately 12 years old. While later photographs after the war could very well be the work of Levin Handy, those credited to him during the Civil War years are likely photographs in which he assisted in the identification of the image.

By the end of the war, Brady was so in debt from financing his field operations that he was forced to sell his pictures. But he was unable to convince the government to buy the complete set of his pictures, and so in 1868, the Washington gallery was sold at auction to pay Brady’s debts and some of the negatives were dispersed. Finally, in 1875, Brady received $25,000 from Congress for title to his collection of negatives. The E. and H. T. Anthony Company, who had helped finance Brady’s wartime effort, continued to publish and sell Brady’s war images and acquired ownership of a portion of his negatives as payment for a debt. At the turn of the century, the Anthony Company appears to have sold Brady’s negatives to various proprietors, and consequently, numerous collectors have ended up with pieces of the Brady’s Civil War collection. It is entirely possible that through this means, the Boyd Family acquired a portion of Brady’s photographs.