Civil War Darkroom

THE FIELD DARK–ROOM

Here we get an excellent idea of how the business of army photography, invented by Brady and first exemplified by him at Bull Run, had become organized toward the close of the war. In the lower picture we see the outfit with which Samuel A. Cooley followed the fortunes of the campaigners, and recorded for all time the stirring events around Savannah at the completion of the March to the Sea. Cooley was attached to the Tenth Corps, United States Army, and secured photographs at Jacksonville,

supply of chemicals, glass plates, and the precious finished negatives includes a compartment for more leisurely developing. The little dark-room buggy to the left was used upon occasions when it was necessary for the army photographer to proceed in light marching order. In the smaller picture we see again the light-proof developing tent in action before the ramparts of Fort McAllister. The view is of the exterior of the fort fronting the Savannah River. A few days before the Confederate guns had frowned

 St. Augustine, Beaufort, and Charleston during the bombardment. Here he is in the act of making an exposure. The huge camera and plate-holder seem to eyes of the present day far too cumbersome to make possible the wonderful definition and beautiful effects of light and shade which characterize the war-time negatives that have come down to us through the vicissitudes of half a century. Here are Cooley's two means of transportation. The wagon fitted to carry the

darkly from the parapet at Sherman's "bummers," who could see the smoke of the Federal gunboats waiting to welcome them just beyond. With Sherman looking proudly on, the footsore and hungry soldiers rushed forward to the attack, and the Stars and Stripes were soon floating over this vast barrier between them and the sea. The next morning, Christmas Day, 1864, the gun-boats and transports steamed up the river and the joyful news was flashed northward.

THE CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHERS' IMPEDIMENTA