Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century

Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century by Nicholas J. C. Pistor   272 pages

I distinctly remember when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I had to do a report on Civil War-era photographer Mathew Brady. I remember cutting pictures from a “National Geographic” to illustrate it, and my cousin helping me type it. The pictures and process were so much different than how the nightly news covered the Vietnam War.

It seems that at that time, Brady was getting credit for most of the indelible pictures that we know of today from that time period. Over the years,  it seems that Brady started getting less and less credit as more research came to illuminate Alexander Gardner, once a student of Brady’s, was the real mastermind behind those stirring photographs.

In this book, author Pistor uncovers the true nature of the men’s professional abilities. I was a little taken aback to learn how Gardner posed many of the battle scenes. Given the 1860s process of developing the glass-plate negatives, it’s no wonder that the image that we see are taken after days or even weeks after the battles. It was also a disconcerting to learn that Gardner posed the bodies for the utmost affect.

Brady was known mostly as a portraitist. He photographed the celebrities of the day and made them available to the public to buy and trade (much like we think of baseball cards today). And the public loved them. Learning how bad Brady’s eyesight was made me wonder how he was able to produce any worthwhile photographs.

Gardner, on the other hand, was a robust Scot immigrant who had studied and worked with Brady. Gardner made history when he was the only photographer allowed to photograph the Lincoln assassination conspirators and the only one allowed to record their execution. Also, Gardner was the man behind the cloth of the last photograph take of President Abraham Lincoln (February 1865).

The book’s timeframe flowed well, centering on the time from 1851 to Summer 1865, with an Epilogue dating 1875. The action during each chapter was rather choppy, as author Pistor had a tendency to want to go back in time to explain something.  All in all, it was a good read.

“Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century ” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.