Introduction
The Civil War was the third war in history to be recorded through photography. At the time of the Civil War, photographs provided a new, wholy realistic view of the war that could not be provided by paintings or verbal accounts. Photographs of the war were provided to a range of audiences. From being sold in galleries and to newspapers for the general public to see, to the governments who hired photographers for the war, everyone at the time could see directly the events of the Civil War. To date, there are still thousands of photographs left from that time, all providing a valuable record of the war to audiences today. But there was more to photography in the Civil War than just snapping and selling pictures; the pictures taken all had a specific purpose, and shooting photographs was difficult, dangerous, and only sometimes rewarding.
