![]() ![]() When the carte de visite gets to America from Europe on the eve of the Civil War, you suddenly had a reproducible, inexpensive format. They were not easily copied, but instead onetime pieces of art. Previous to the carte de visite you had tintypes, ambrotypes, and daguerrotypes. But with the advent of photography, you’re beginning to see the soldier or sailor as an individual.Ģ You call the carte de visite photo format the social media of the Civil War. Private soldiers were relegated to being part of the background in an engraving or painting of a battle and the faces were created by the artist. Most individuals who posed for oil portraits were generals or folks who had the means to do so. Also, before the Civil War, there were no images of common soldiers. I think it was because the memories had faded and the family connections were lost. These were for families or for friends, or for comrades, and those images stayed with the families but by the time of the Civil War centennial in the 1960s, these images were finding their way to the marketplace. Soldiers’ and sailors’ portraits were never intended for consumption in a larger way. (Orton Begner, Courtesy Rod Coddington)ġ These photographs weren’t in my history books and I find them fresh, and new, and compelling. ![]() He was treated by a Charleston doctor but died. ![]() Bradford, left, was wounded in the Union assault on Fort Sumter Sept. ![]() He is a former contributor to The New York Times Disunion blog and Civil War News. His latest book, Faces of the Civil War Navies: An Album of Union and Confederate Sailors, is the fourth in a continuing series. Coddington is the editor and publisher of Military Images magazine. Union and Confederate Seamen and Marines Embraced a Photographic Phenomenon 5 Questions: Civil War Sailors in Sepia Embraced the Carte de Visite Photographic Phenomenon Close ![]()
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