Alexander Gardner

Civil War Pictures

(1821-1882)

Alexander Gardner dreamt of a utopia where he could form a semi-socialistic society with very different rules than what he was accustomed to, the goal of Alexander Gardner. The unlikely location chosen by Gardner was Iowa. He sent various family members and friends to live there but never went himself. Photographing the Civil War and all of its pure brutality was Gardner's passion.

He booked passage to the Americas from Scotland and arrived in New York in 1856. His most important body of work was a project of President Lincoln shot by Gardner from 1861-1865. The work showed the President and the sobering affects that the war had on the intrepid President. Gardner showed the world through his lens the horror of the war that was previously only captured in words by first hand accounts. Gardner is second only to Brady in historical importance in the field of Civil War photography.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in the year 1821, Gardner was raised as a strict Calvinist with dreams of being independent from any and all governing bodies. Gardner worked as an assistant to the famed Civil war photographer Mathew Brady. In 1866 he published Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the war, the first published collection of pictures from the battlefields. It proved to be a commercial failure with little value then. Present day Gardner photographs are valued for their artistic relevance and historical accuracy. Yet some of Gardner's pictures were staged. Gardner would move the bodies of dead soldiers to more appropriate locations and sell them as battlefield accurate. This was not frowned upon in his day but did raise speculation about Gardner's character. One of his most famous photographs of the Civil War, which he staged, was Gardner’s picture of a dead Confederate soldier in devil’s den at Gettysburg.

During The Civil War Gardner proved to be in the right place at the right time. President Lincoln had just been elected to the office when the threat of war loomed heavily over his head. Gardner happened to be in Washington during the same time as Lincoln was being sworn in.

This demographic good fortune allowed Gardner to be able to have the President sit for many famous photographs. Gardner took another sensational photo of Lincoln. The shot was of Lincoln just four days before his assassination by John Wilkes Booth. Gardner also shot the photos for the funeral and the execution and subsequent hanging of the assassin Booth. He was the only photographer allowed to shoot a picture of the hanging. Later those prints were transferred into woodcuts and sold to Harpers Weekly.

Gardner shot some of the most important stills of the war as he was like Brady and traveled with the armies taking pictures. He followed General Burnside and General Hooker at The Battle of Fredericksburg and The Battle of Cold Creek. He also went with Brady to photograph one of the most famous battles of the war, Gettysburg.

After 1871, Gardner gave up photography and helped to create an insurance company in Washington until his death in 1882. When asked about his body of Civil war photographs he replied, "It is designed to speak for itself. As mementos of the fearful struggle through which the country has just passed, it is confidently hoped that it will possess an enduring interest." This would prove to be prophetic since Gardner's photographs are vastly popular today.

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